{"id":2904,"date":"2010-09-03T19:30:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T23:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=2904"},"modified":"2010-09-03T19:30:41","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T23:30:41","slug":"portraits-old-and-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/portraits-old-and-new\/","title":{"rendered":"Portraits: Old and New"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before visiting the National Portrait Gallery today, I predicted that while much of the museum\u00a0 would feature only the white rich and famous, the contemporary collection at least would attempt to capture the multi-ethnic character of England.\u00a0 In that regard I was disappointed.\u00a0 In terms of subject matter, the museum evolved very little throughout.<\/p>\n

As I finished the final gallery, I gradually realized that this particular museum does not portray (and does not intend to portray) the faces of England as a whole.\u00a0 In fact, The “About Us,” section of the National Portrait Gallery’s website explains that the museum’s goal is to, “promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture.”\u00a0 This does not mean the day to day making of history and culture, accomplished by the people who make up its population.\u00a0 Its purpose is first and foremost to portray the individuals who have made it into the history book, and unfortunately, that group remains fairly homogeneous.<\/p>\n

However, the Portrait Gallery does show change through the years in the art of portraiture.\u00a0 Throughout most of the museum, any given time period has a corresponding style.\u00a0 Clues are in the crafting of every detail, down to the folds in the fabric of the sitters’ clothing: for example, in any painting in the Tudor section, the fabric tends to look particularly stiff.\u00a0 Many of these paintings can be easily assigned to a time period, but much less easily to a particular artist.\u00a0 Since the main goal of portraiture for many years was to portray the sitter in a flattering, distinguished, and fashionable light, creativity was low in priority.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.google.co.uk\/imgres?imgurl=http:\/\/www.warholprints.com\/images\/artwork\/full\/FS-II.334.jpg&imgrefurl=http:\/\/www.warholprints.com\/portfolio\/Reigning.Queens.html&h=300&w=238&sz=26&tbnid=SmjYKTlKUTL7OM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=92&prev=\/images%3Fq%3Dandy%2Bwarhol,%2Bqueen%2Belizabeth&zoom=1&q=andy+warhol,+queen+elizabeth&usg=__MGSvsIOwgTvT2lRepyT6Wz-eJDo=&sa=X&ei=ZnSBTOSfN8K84gb637XTCw&ved=0CB0Q9QEwAQ<\/p>\n

The newest paintings depart from this long tradition of conformity.\u00a0 One room contains numerous paintings of nearly photographic quality, among a few actual photographs of members of the current royal family.\u00a0 These look in a sense tradition to an extreme, since they so closely achieve the old goal of capturing exact but flattering likenesses of the subjects.\u00a0 However, the room around the corner features three Andy Warhol prints of Queen Elizabeth II, in which features are simplified in bright colors.\u00a0 In these, the queen is a pop culture icon first and foremost.\u00a0 Some of the recent paintings were so thick with paint or otherwise distorted, that painting style itself was more prominent than the famous individual’s features.<\/p>\n

Probably not coincidentally, the contemporary section contained many more self portraits by artists.\u00a0 With creativity as a main focus of portraiture today, the artists themselves are ready subjects for their own experimentation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before visiting the National Portrait Gallery today, I predicted that while much of the museum\u00a0 would feature only the white rich and famous, the contemporary collection at least would attempt to capture the multi-ethnic character of England.\u00a0 In that regard I was disappointed.\u00a0 In terms of subject matter, the museum evolved very little throughout. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6682,1],"tags":[991],"class_list":["post-2904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-emily","category-uncategorized","tag-national-portrait-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/449"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2904\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}