![]() ![]() “The royal portraits today still become part of our cultural landscape.A portrait is typically defined as a representation of a specific individual, such as the artist might meet in life. It’s both peaceful and dramatic, highlighting the queen’s dual nature – her duty as monarch, and her personal love of a simple life.īollard says that even though most of us are so familiar with what the queen and her family looks like, there’s a still a special kind of magic that artists bring out in a person. But instead of attending a formal function, the Queen is sitting on her own, in the shadows, looking out the window to a garden. More recent portraits include Annie Leibovitz’s 2008 photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, depicting the monarch at her majestic best, complete with crown jewels and a tiara. ![]() There are also several Latin inscriptions that run with this theme, such as “she gives and does not expect” and “she can but does not take revenge”.īolland believes it’s the first time the enormous portrait has visited Australia, and says it was a significant logistical challenge to bring halfway across the world. The queen eventually forgave his indiscretion, shown in the painting by the grey clouds in the background parting to reveal sunshine, and by her feet being placed on a world globe with her toes very deliberately pointing to Oxfordshire, where Sir Henry lived. Sir Henry Lee, one of the queen’s longtime supporters and the man who commissioned the painting, had displeased her by living with his mistress. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London/Bendigo Art GalleryĪ highlight of the exhibition is the extraordinary 1592 Ditchley portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, which shows her at her full political powers replete with messages about her forgiving nature. Queen Elizabeth I (The ‘Ditchley’ portrait) by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, c 1592. That concept continues today, especially with princes William and Harry and their respective families. These portraits, showing a happy, apparently perfect nuclear family, helped to shape the royal family – as opposed to just the monarch herself – as a highly visible, marketable concept. There was huge interest in the couple, and with photography, people could be brought into a faux intimacy with them.” “Photography provided a close look into royal family life, their domestic life. The transformation that you see in the exhibition, especially during Queen Victoria’s reign, includes the introduction of photography, of which Victoria was an early adopter,” says Bollard. “The royal family is very aware of the images and what they are communicating. ![]() Noticeably, they have changed from very formal posed settings to a deliberately casual, “friendly” style, suggesting the royals are relatable people. Nevertheless, contemporary official royal portraits still contain messages, even if those messages and the style of portraits have changed. Today’s British royal family largely perform ceremonial duties – a stark contrast to the days of absolute monarchy, when the king or queen’s power enabled them to form armies and redistribute land. Until the mid-15th century, portraits didn’t look at all like their subjects, but as England embraced the Renaissance, portraiture evolved too. It was one of Holbein’s portraits of Henry VIII – a commanding, full-body portrait that was later lost, though copies of it still exist – that radically transformed what the royal portrait could be. “And these portraits were reproduced broadly and the monarch’s subjects to see them and for messages to be conveyed.” “One of their important uses was for potential spouses who lived overseas to see their likeness before they travelled over for the wedding,” she says. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery London/Bendigo Art Gallery Queen Victoria by Alexander Bassano, 1887 (1882).
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