The Queen of Great Britain is dead...
The Royal portraiture of Queen Elisabeth of Great Britain.
The real subject of a royal portrait is never the monarch
WHEN Queen Elizabeth assumed the throne 60 years ago, cloaked in heavy brocade and crusted with jewels, she became the dutiful, fresh-faced figurehead of an imperial power in decline. In the wobbly post-war world, her subjects were greedy for symbols of Britain's vitality. Cecil Beaton photographed the 27-year-old on the day of her coronation, cooing that she was “cool, smiling, sovereign of the situation”.
It is the fate of a monarch—particularly one of diminished powers, heading a downsized empire in an age of increasing media scrutiny—to become a screen onto which others project their views.
This is the essence of a show that opened in London's National Portrait Gallery on May 17th. From reverential paintings of a serious sovereign to Eve Arnold's candid snapshot of a beaming woman in middle-age, these images mirror the desires, anxieties and resentments of the queen's many observers. Some artists struggle to perceive the human beneath the royal scrim, while others, such as Gerhard Richter, play on the queen's inaccessibility. For six decades she has submitted herself to them all.
The most unsettling portrait is a luminous hologram (pictured) created by Chris Levine in 2007. In gleaming tiara and snowy fur, the octogenarian monarch gamely sat for the lengthy photo shoot; each exposure lasted eight seconds. The resulting image came from a brief moment of rest between shots. Her eyes are closed—a candid moment, but one that still does not open a window into her private thoughts. She never stops being queen.
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