This time it's Elizabeth I and Her People which opened today at the National Portrait Gallery. It will continue until 5 January 2014.
(The first Elizabeth exhibition was last year's very successful exhibition - see my Review: 'The Queen - Art and Image' at the NPG 24 May 2012)
Key aspects of the exhibition
A lot of thought has gone into the presentation of the exhibition. I was very impressed as soon as I walked through the door.Entrance to the exhibition - about the land at the time of Elizabeth On the left a fair at Bermondsey On the right Queen Elizabeth I on one of her processions |
We walk into a quick introduction to what Elizabethan life looks like - in terms of the extent of Elizabethan England
I'm a complete mapoholic so I was immediately consumed with interest for the two very old maps at the beginning of the exhibition. Here's the interactive zoomable image of the map shown below on loan from the British Library. It gives a very good sense of how big London is. I'd have loved to have seen the people in the portraits located in terms of where they lived or worked in London. The links below go to the Tudor descriptions of the building
Panorama of London by William Smith (1550-1618) View of London, Westminster and Southwark, ink and pigments on vellum, British Library From right to left you can see the Tower of London on the extreme right, where Elizabeth's mother was beheaded on Tower Green complete with a real moat, now in decline as a royal residence "old" London Bridge with some of the 200 buildings situated on it, Southwark Cathedral (already 500 years old in Tudor times!) the round bull and bear-baiting pits at Bankside (where Tate Modern is now situated) Old St Paul's Cathedral after the spire was destroyed by lightning and before the Great Fire (left of centre on the horizon) and the Palace of Whitehall where Henry VII had lived as an adult Westminster Hall - which now forms part of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to the extreme left |
There's a lot of portraits of the Queen and the nobility - major people at her court. I particularly enjoyed ones less often seen- such as the simply massive painting from Hardwicke Hall - which is best appreciated while looking through the 'window' from the next gallery.
However it's not just about the Queen.
Nobility, Gentry and the Moorish Amabassador That's Sir Walter Raleigh on the left - with a surprise within the painting |
Following on from the Queen are portraits of the nobility and gentry associated with Elizabeth. These are typically people with land, titles and money. There are some amazing small paintings in watercolour and gouache. The room also displays portraits of two well known seafarers - Sir Walter Raleigh and Sire Martin Frobisher
In Tudor times, there's a major rise in the middle classes and big growth in the population of the City of London. There's a consequential need for the provision of goods and services for these people and the professional and merchant classes - and in time a need for portrait artists to serve the middle classes
Portraiture became very popular during the Tudor period. The exhibition also includes portraits of gentry (people with money and land - but typically not titles) and civilians - mainly the merchant class (entrepreneurs) and professionals - bankers, clergymen, lawyers, doctors goldsmiths, butchers, calligraphers, playwrights - and even an artist! This is an era when portraiture started to matter to other people who could also afford to commission a portrait. However portraits continued to have a lot of symbolic content - not so much about the person so much as an advert for who this person is and the nature of the way they'd like to present themselves to the world.
Room 4: paintings of merchants, bankers and professional men and women |
In my view, there are a lot of similarities in themes with the Facing the Modern - The Portrait in Vienna 1900 at the National Gallery which I visited the day before. If you're coming to the exhibition, you might like to see two exhibitions back to back and see what you spot as being the enduring themes relating to portraiture
This is an exhibition which is bound to be very popular with schools and school children doing the Tudors in primary school. If you want to avoid lots of small children, I'd advise visiting after 3pm - which is usually when they start to disappear.
For those bringing children to London to see the exhibition you might like to also take in an associated exhibition. The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels at the Museum of Londo ls and gemstones which were recovered in . 11 October 2013 – 27 April 2014. www.museumoflondon.org.uk
10 October 2013 - 5 January 2014, National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk
The exhibition doesn't focus much on artistic practices so much as the end result - how people could be portrayed during the time of Elizabeth. However there are a few pointers:
- portraits of the time could involve one painter painting the head and other painters painting costumes on a mannequin
- drawings from Tudor times are rare. However this exhibition includes what appears to be a preparatory drawing for a portrait of Elizabeth 1
- there also examples of miniatures and the use of cameos - as rings.
The Tudors were extremely interested in costume and dress - hence the emphasis in portraits tends to be on what they wore. Who knew that plain black cloth was a sign of wealth - due to the quantity of dye required to produce quality black cloth?
and finally..... they were absolutely obsessed with detail. Some of the embroidering and jewellery displayed in portraits is absolutely fantastic. Those who like realism need to come and study some of the paintings in this exhibition. The level of detail portrayed at times is quite staggering. They're not so interested in perspective or proportion. Psychology plays no part in their concepts of what portraiture is about. Their paintings are all about telling you who this person is and what their standing is. They remind me somewhat of Dutch Still Life paintings which tell a story - except these are portraits
The skirt of the Hardwick Hall portrait - with pictures of nature - animals, birds, flowers and fruit |
My favourite portrait was one which was a lot less formal than the rest. This is a portrait of a noble woman at her dressing table.
Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton |
Digital resources
I do wish the NPG would provide much clearer navigation to the narrative about and images of the exhibition online. A link on the home page for the exhibition to what is described as an introductory film by the curator (which I'd already seen - hence why I didn't initially click it) vastly underplays what's on offer.
Here's the digital resources which are available about this exhibition
The films (plural) focus on the different rooms of the exhibition. My criticism would be I'd have liked to see lot less talking heads and much more images from the exhibition.
Here's the digital resources which are available about this exhibition
The films (plural) focus on the different rooms of the exhibition. My criticism would be I'd have liked to see lot less talking heads and much more images from the exhibition.
- Introduction to the Elizabethan Age (3m24s) - a very helpful inroduction in narrative terms but images to go with the story instead of just a talking head would have been nice
- Encountering the Queen: Portraits of Elizabeth I (3m27s). See also Queen Elizabeth I ('The Darnley portrait') (3m29s)
- The Nobility and Gentry (1m07s)
- Elizabethan Merchants and Portraiture (2m07s)
- Cultural Changes: Public Theatres and Literacy (2m30s)
- Social Mobility in the Elizabethan Period (1m14s)
- The Elizabethan Bookshelf (2m11s) - this highlights books in the exhibition - including a Herbal
How to see the exhibition
Advance booking is highly recommended for this exhibition. The gallery used for the exhibition is one which can get very hot at times. However I'm assured that the numbers visiting at any one time will be limited - via timed ticketing. Hence if you want to see this exhibition at a time convenient to you, I'd start booking your tickets now.This is an exhibition which is bound to be very popular with schools and school children doing the Tudors in primary school. If you want to avoid lots of small children, I'd advise visiting after 3pm - which is usually when they start to disappear.
For those bringing children to London to see the exhibition you might like to also take in an associated exhibition. The Cheapside Hoard: London’s Lost Jewels at the Museum of Londo ls and gemstones which were recovered in . 11 October 2013 – 27 April 2014. www.museumoflondon.org.uk
Other reviews of the exhibition
- Daily Telegraph - Elizabeth I and her People, National Portrait Gallery, review - Absolutely pitiful and ignorant. The so-called "art critic" Alastair Smart judges portraits of the 16th century by standards associated with the 20th and 21st centuries i.e. that portraits should be about the people and not their status. Has he ever heard of putting the cart before the horse? How can you judge portraiture by concepts which have not yet been invented? The whole point of the curator's scholarly endeavours is to demonstrate that Tudor times was the first period where painters started to make portraits of ordinary people - but these were still of professionals. The whole thesis of the article assumes that Holbein had some amazing psychological insight into the people he painted - as opposed to being an excellent draughtsman and painter.
- The Guardian - Sir Walter Raleigh's crescent moon compliment to Elizabeth I revealed opts for the latest press release topic and an interesting story - but says little about the exhibition. Maybe they didn't actually visit the exhibition?
Exhibition details
ELIZABETH I AND HER PEOPLE Supported by The Weiss Gallery10 October 2013 - 5 January 2014, National Portrait Gallery, London www.npg.org.uk
- Gift Aid ticket prices: (includes voluntary Gift Aid donation of 10% above standard price): Adult £13.50, Concs. £12.50/£11.50
- Standard ticket prices: Adult £12.50, Concs £11.30 / £10.40)
Elizabeth I and Her People is curated by Dr Tarnya Cooper, the National Portrait Gallery’s Chief Curator and its Curator of Sixteenth Century Portraits. She is the author of A Guide to Tudor & Jacobean Portraits (2008) and Citizen Portrait – Portrait Painting and the Urban Elite, 1540–1620 (2012).
So glad to read your take on this exhibit. I would give my eye teeth to see it, but I can't make it to London by January 5th, unfortunately. The mounting of the show does look very attractive.
ReplyDeleteAs a resident of the metropolitan Kansas City, USA I have no hope of visiting this exhibit but I must express my heartfelt thanks to you for covering and linking got so much information! I enjoy all your posts and rarely comment, but your diligent, intelligent posts deserve a be late "thank you"!
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