The Jackdaw

Tag: Queen

  • Of cabbages and queens

    Of cabbages and queens

    This is the third portrait of the Queen unveiled in London in the last month … and the third dud. A dull formal portrait, it follows the standard, now threadbare iconography for a picture of standing royalty. Indeed, it seems every monarch since George III has been portrayed with a hand on that table. Like the ghosts of Banquo you can see the other pictures emerging from the mist behind. Do you know, equipped with some ingenious software, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t a computer that might more convincingly paint one of these from now on.

    Background, robes and dogs are as slickly painted as you’d expect from a graduate of the Chocolate Box School. But as usual the real problem lies with the likeness. We know intimately the appearance of this sitter who is daily featured on television and in newspapers. Such familiarity means that, unlike painters of the pre-photographic past, today’s artist must get the likeness spot on. In Nicky Phillips’s effort, we recognise the sitter well enough, not least because the Queen’s hairdo and clothes are unique, but the facial features aren’t accurate. She doesn’t actually look like this, and never has; a distant foreign relative of the Queen perhaps, but not the Queen herself. The sad truth is that the basics of portrait painting aren’t taught in art colleges. We no longer train painters to have the drawing skills to catch a likeness with effortless precision every single time. The result is that our artists look as though they are labouring like slaves to get right even the basics.

    Earlier this month a newly unveiled portrait of the Queen looked more like comedian Stanley Baxter impersonating her. This one more resembles a bloke wearing a wig and earrings with a hint of Churchill. Isolate the face so you see only the features and it is unrecognisable as the Queen.

    David Lee

    The Jackdaw, June 2013

  • One for the Royal Collection

    One for the Royal Collection

    It’s the headgear that does it. Gives it away completely. Without it you’d be none the wiser. But the miner’s lamp makes it beyond any doubt. This is the Professor of Drawing at work on her most important finished presentation piece yet, a celebration of the Wigan pit girls of the 19th century. Such economy of line, every mark counts, each and every one assertive, the impact one of dedication and duty, such superb proportion and foreshortening. It’s as though she was born to draw. So exact is its depiction you could have that miner’s lamp made by an artisan in an afternoon. Every detail is there. Likewise the smock. What seamstress couldn’t run up that durable uniform. She looked exhaustively at hundreds of photographs of pit girls in order to get the portrayal just so. Another triumph for the professor. “People have forgotten how hard these girls worked for a living wage what kept em in grinding poverty,” said the Professor in expansive mode. “They got a lot of stick for being manual but they were amazingly hard working and very glamorous,” she added.

    The pit girl is included in the latest exhibition put on by the professor – she has not after all enjoyed a show of recent work for upwards of six weeks. The new exhibition is in her home town, Margate, which is said to be reborn as a result of its association with her. “She is good for the town,” said Mrs Margi Doonham of Nottingham. “The cake shop has never been busier. And there’s more condoms in bus shelters than ever before. It’s as though the 1950s are back again with crowds piling in on Bank Holiday specials. Long live the Professor. She’ll be Dame Professor soon, and why not?”

    David Lee

    The Jackdaw June 2012