{"id":2919,"date":"2010-09-03T18:57:28","date_gmt":"2010-09-03T22:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=2919"},"modified":"2010-09-03T18:57:28","modified_gmt":"2010-09-03T22:57:28","slug":"disraeli-and-gladstone-plus-why-the-national-portrait-gallery-needs-affirmative-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/disraeli-and-gladstone-plus-why-the-national-portrait-gallery-needs-affirmative-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Disraeli and Gladstone, plus why the National Portrait Gallery needs affirmative action"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, who\u2019s not in the National Portrait Gallery? Minorities!\u00a0 Honestly, even without the prompt, it would have been a slow realization that as we walked through room after room of white faces, something was missing.\u00a0 There was one freed slave portrayed in the audience of an abolitionist convention, and that was about it as far as paintings of minorities at the Gallery go.<\/p>\n

Second, and more broadly, working class people are not in there.\u00a0 This, to me, is less upsetting as it\u2019s just a natural consequence of the fact that only the upper crust can afford to have portraits commissioned.\u00a0 Hours after visiting the Gallery, though, the lack of minorities still rankles, for one simple reason.\u00a0 If a black or Asian or Latino family came to visit the Gallery, and one of the children asked their parents \u201cWhy don\u2019t any of these people look like us?\u201d the parents would have no good answer.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

We were supposed to pick one portrait that we found particularly affecting.\u00a0 As a political science major who has taken British History 244, though, I could not resist going with the dueling portraits of William Ewart Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli.\u00a0 Gladstone was the pillar of 19th<\/sup> century liberalism, while Disraeli was his counterpart on the right.<\/p>\n

\n

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credit: youreader.com<\/p><\/div>\n

This is exactly how the two portraits (by the same artist, Sir John Everett Millais) appear in the Gallery.\u00a0 In the Victorian era, the two were the titans of Parliament, serving as Prime Minister six times collectively. \u00a0There is much, much more on their epic personal and political rivalry here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/history\/british\/victorians\/disraeli_gladstone_01.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

A favorite quote of mine on their lack of mutual respect, from Disraeli is \u201cThe difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their respective portraits contain subtle and not so subtle bits of political imagery.\u00a0 First, Gladstone is facing to his left, while Disraeli is facing his right.\u00a0 The rest of what follows may be a bit of armchair psychology, but I believe it speaks volumes about both men.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gladstone has his hands folded, while Disraeli\u2019s arms are folded in an aggressive posture.\u00a0 Disraeli was far more warlike as prime minister.<\/p>\n

–\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Gladstone is looking towards the sky, while Disraeli\u2019s gaze is a bit more earthward.\u00a0 This is in line with both men\u2019s fundamental outlooks on life: Gladstone considered himself a great Christian moralist, while Disraeli preferred to concern himself with more earthly issues, considering Gladstone to be out of touch with the nitty-gritty of the world.<\/p>\n

While the placing of these two portraits together obviously has an intended effect, that does not make the effect any less powerful.\u00a0 While standing in front of the two portraits, I felt like I could almost feel the hate flowing between these two great men, a great moment for a politics junkie like me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, who\u2019s not in the National Portrait Gallery? Minorities!\u00a0 Honestly, even without the prompt, it would have been a slow realization that as we walked through room after room of white faces, something was missing.\u00a0 There was one freed slave portrayed in the audience of an abolitionist convention, and that was about it as far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6697,77],"tags":[12,991,1098,1349],"class_list":["post-2919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-dennis","category-museums","tag-art","tag-national-portrait-gallery","tag-politics","tag-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919","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\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2919\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}