Portraiture

Having finally arranged to get CBC's news digest emailed to me every morning (it's been a while since I've been able to do that, not sure if it's been technical issues with the old laptop or whether it was a problem with www.cbc.ca), I was surprised to read of the controversy surrounding Annie Leibovitz's new photographic portrait of the Queen.

The controversy is peculiar. As I understand it, there are two major issues being dealt with here. The first (and easiest to explain), is that due to our very mixed responses to the idea of the monarchy in the 21st Century, there is bound to be mixed response. Americans are simultaneously defiant of and awed by the whole concept of a monarchy, given their revolutionary past and their rejection of parliamentary democracy. Canadians, as former colonials who didn't have to stage a revolution in order to become a country, can be fawningly sentimental about royals. The Brits' attitude can be summed up by saying, "It's fine for ME to slag my mother - the minute you begin to criticise her, you're in big trouble." [Nod to British spelling there.]

The second issue is a little more subtle and harder to explain. In fact, it seems like a peculiarly Canadian sort of response to the portrait, and that's what makes it puzzling, since there's really no Canadian involvement here. But here in Canada we have a tendency not to revere our most famous offspring, but instead to start chipping away at them for precisely the things we loved most about them when their careers first took off. Love him or hate him, Liberal or Reform/Tory, no one can deny that Lester B. Pearson and Pierre Elliott Trudeau raised Canada's profile globally and transformed us from a nation (in the world's minds) of lumberjacks, fishermen and miners into a country with an idea or two about how to achieve peace in our time, potential thought leaders who would rather negotiate than wage war. But even the most diehard Liberals found Trudeau's imposition of the War Measures Act hard to swallow - and when he finally ended his long bachelorhood we didn't hesitate to criticize his choice of wife on a whole host of fronts.

So the criticism of the Leibovitz portrait of the Queen centres around the fact that it is not sufficiently "edgy" and that it is "unlike" her portraits of John Lennon and Whoopi Goldberg and Clint Eastwood and Demi Moore. It is "less staged by Leibovitz" basically. Aside from the unlikeliness of even Leibovitz being able to persuade the Queen to pose naked in bed with a clothed Prince Philip, in a milk bath, tied up, or naked and hugely pregnant, this criticism misses the mark entirely. This portrait was a commission, and a highly prestigious one: an official portrait of the best known and most influential reigning monarch in the Western world. It wasn't a cover for Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair of an actor of musician who by virtue of his or her artistic talent had become famous, regardless of origin. And the Queen has a vested interest in how she is represented to the world. By virtue of her birth, she has always known that she would have 15 minutes of anonymity rather than 15 minutes of fame.



Photo by Annie Leibovitz, courtesy Contact Press/NB Pictures

For a better view of the portrait, see this link - it just seemed stupid to blog about a portrait without actually reproducing it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6614187.stm

I think this is quite an amazing portrait. The fact that the subject is not gazing at the photographer, but at something else in the room, is an interesting choice under the circumstances, reflective of trends in portraiture, but still an interesting choice for an official portrait. Her expression is contemplative, musing, contained...and regal. It seems totally appropriate for a monarch who has reigned for more than half a century and has witnessed some of the most turbulent events and phenomenal changes the world has ever seen. There are several other interesting things about this portrait. The fact that the French doors are open, admitting a view of a sky that can only be called ominous, is significant. And then there's the fact that the subject is really quite tiny in the scale of the portrait - the urn in the foreground actually occupies more of the space in the portrait than the Queen's entire body. Why choose to photograph her seated, and from such a distance? I'd suggest this is what discussion of the portrait should centre on, rather than on questions pertaining to the photographer's personal life and losses and the influence of Susan Sontag on her life and work.

And as part of a compare and contrast exercise, take a look at the last commissioned painting of the Queen, by Lucian Freud in 2001. While I haven't researched the response to this painting thoroughly, it strikes me as odd that no one noticed it appears to be a portrait not of Queen Elizabeth II, but rather of Prince Philip wearing a wig and crown. Or is it just me?



The Royal Collection © Lucian Freud

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1723071.stm

Update: for a different, pro-Freud point of view, see this article:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aqeLAkuYdldw&refer=muse