As Marc took Louise and I around the galleries in his infectiously passionate way which drew me into a more connected way of thinking about the collection – elements which jumped out and had a resonance for me were :
The life-cycle narrative portrait of the life of Sir Henry Unton, Elizabeth 1’s Ambassador (a tragic one, well worth reading about , it has all the elements of a medieval soap opera ..) it reminded me of Persian / Indian miniatures …and I managed later to catch the amazing temporary show of Indian miniatures, just in time..
The depiction of Unton as a baby, wrapped in red – apparently red was considered to be the colour for strength – then just a few centimeters away, his funeral procession and reflecting on the attitudes to death at that time, so much more present and possible at any moment. This opened a connection to the portrait of the melancholic John Evelyn, with his hand on a skull. Marc told us that X-Ray examination has shown that it was previously a medal of his wife, which has been painted over, perhaps when she had died ? I liked this idea of changing meanings through related objects and the X-Ray process, there is a feeling of the detective to a lot of the staff here, always trying to establish origin, timeline, likeness and how this can so easily become a fluid, elusive process as technology brings in new ways of reaching for the truth of an image.
Later I followed this thread to the Death folder in the Heinz archive, (strangely enough, right next to the ‘Diversity’ folder, which I was also on the inadvertent lookout but more on that later) which Robin -another infectiously passionate person with encyclopaedic knowledge at his fingertips – opened the way into. I came across some Memento Mori works which gripped me. Memento Mori means ‘Remember that you die’, I kind of admire the fact that people commissioned this kind of work in such contrast to our contemporary western desire to flee the imminent notion of dying as much as we can.
I did two sketches, one of ‘A lady’ by Heinrich Gerritz Pot and one of an Unknown Man – probably already dead, by an Unknown artist. The lady looked so fragile, as if she is staring into the eyes of death already, she is holding an egg timer and her spectacle…I was drawn to her immediately.
Sketching the unknown man – so beautiful and gaunt and peaceful – I had a flashback to the drawing a made of my grandfather when he was quite close to death in hospital over 12 years ago, so very still and peaceful. It was the only way I could keep hold of him, through my pen..I never showed it to anyone -apart from a shocked friend who told me they wished I had never done it – but I never forgot or regretted making it.
I also came across photos of Death masks in the archive – casts of the faces of the dead and got the connection to Mark Quinn’s ‘Self’ . I am always drawn to visiting this when I come, I think it’s the three dimensional, blood-red shock of it in amongst everything else which you could step through and the fact that it is an updateable work….I am wondering what John Evelyn would have made of it…
I remembered while writing this that the BP Portrait Award is opening soon and features a portrait by a painter called Daphne Todd of her dying mother….so that closes this thread and opens it to the future. Except to explain my particular attraction to the subject of death by sharing the memorial site of my mother, Parvin Azadeh Rieu, , from whom a lot of my inspiration inner resources have been drawn.
