The Queen. Art & Image

I love to look at people. You find me in (almost) every exhibition of portraits I can get to – so it was a very special treat to see “The Queen. Art&Image” in the National Portrait Gallery (curator Paul Moorhouse).

The “Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II” by Pietro Annigoni, 1954-5 impressed me: A very upright young Queen with a Grand Admiral’s Cape. One can only speculate how it would feel to be raised to the task of monarch. She was so young when she became Queen, so beautiful and full of energy, seemingly without a doubt about her role, so aloof.

“When I was a little child, it always delighted me to look out of the window and see the people and the traffic going by”, said the Queen once - that was interpreted for the Annigoni portrait as: ‘The image suggests an individual gazing at the world from a position of isolation.’

The theme of the Monarch in an Admiral’s Cape is repeated through the decades: by Annigoni 1954, Cecil Beaton 1968, Annie Leibovitz 2009.

On the other hand (my favourite) we see the private person: the Queen under an umbrella, laughing into a rainy sky. 

The image changes gradually.

We see a portrait by Gerhard Richter, that shows a blurred portrait of a Queen, surrounded by a sort of haze.

Then we see the Queen in her family, no longer stiff portraits but ‘relaxed’ meetings.

What I admire: though giving in to more nearness to the public the Queen always keeps a sort of personal distance.

So the snapshot of the Queen looking at Castle Windsor after the fire seems almost indecent to me (as I always think of photographs of persons in grief, whichever rank in life they have – I wish they were protected to keep their dignity, not being exposed).

The peak of image change comes after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

What I admire: the Queen very seldom rejects the request for a portrait, and she doesn’t censore or comment on a portrait. No comments on Justin Mortimer’s or Lucien Freud’s portrait. I never forgot the cover of the Sex Pistols' single “God Save the Queen” by Jamie Reid – funny -, but after a short glance at  “Medusa” by John Locke I have forgotten that one in a minute.

Unsettling: the holograms. Especially the last one, where the Queen has closed her eyes. 

The official Jubilee-Portrait by the German Thomas Struth gives a successful synthesis of Art&Image: for first time you see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as Struth said, "both in their royal environment... and yet both in their own aura".
Though official, it is a (huge) photograph with a private touch, both sitting on a beautiful sofa (not a throne!) in Windsor Castle’s Green Drawing Room. The Queen is a bit nearer to the viewer, more light on her face and powder-blue dress, looking aloof but almost vulnerable to me. I pondered what made the tweak in that portrait, and I think it is the “Image” of Royalty in the baroque splendour versus her comfortable black shoes. Even a Queen is human and gets older. Someone wrote: “.. the Duke appears to fall back into shadow” – that I cannot confirm: the vivid presence of Prince Philip, a beautiful man, drew me back at least three times after having made my round.
Because this portrait shows – to me – not only the image, but it shows love and understanding between a couple. 

I feel it: He ist he love of her life.

PS: I found a beautiful little gem about Prince Philip in a German newspaper from 1950: “As any other proud father Prince Philip went himself to the registrar to let the birth of his son been registrated. He took the ration cards, which were allowed to every new born child, and bought himself the bottle of codliver-oil and the two bottles orange juice, that every new born was allocated out as extra ration."