IMAGINED LIVES FROM PAINTINGS TO LITERATURE

Un esperimento bellissimo. Quando l'arte chiede aiuto alle parole della letteratura...
From The Times

Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits: who’s that ruff guy?
The National Portrait Gallery asked leading novelists to create stories about some of its subjects whose names are lostTerry Pratchett, Tracy Chevalier, Joanna Trollope

Rosy

Tracy Chevalier

I am still wearing the white brocade doublet Caroline gave me. It has a plain high collar, detachable sleeves, and intricate buttons of twisted silk thread, set close together so that the fit is snug. The doublet makes me think of a coverlet on a vast bed. Perhaps that was the intention.

I first wore it at an elaborate dinner her parents held in our honour. I knew even before I stood up to speak that my cheeks were inflamed. I have always flushed easily — from physical exertion, from wine, from high emotion. As a boy I was teased by my sisters and by schoolboys — but not by George. Only George could call me Rosy. I would not allow anyone else. He managed to make the word tender. He said it described not just my cheeks, but my lips as well, smooth and crimson as rose petals.

When I made the announcement, George did not turn rosy, but went pale as my doublet. He should not have been surprised: it has been a common assumption that I would one day marry his cousin. But it is difficult to hear the words aloud. I know: I could barely utter them.

Caroline bent her head, the pearls in her smooth hair catching the light. Her eyes remained on her small, graceful hands folded in front of her. Her half-smile looked rationed. She has done nothing wrong.

Afterwards I found George on the terrace overlooking the kitchen garden. Despite drinking steadily all afternoon he was still pale. We stood together and watched the maids cut lettuces.

“What do you think of my doublet?” I asked. George always noticed clothes. He glanced at me. “That collar looks to be strangling you.”

“We will still see each other,” I insisted. “We can still hunt, and play cards, and attend court. Nothing need change.” George did not speak.

The Tale of Joshua Easement

Terry Pratchett

Sir Joshua Easement, of Easement Manor, Shrewsbury, was, in his own estimation at least, one of the last of the old Elizabethan seadogs — an ambition that was somewhat thwarted by a total lack of a grasp of the principles of navigation. Documents in the National Maritime Museum reveal that Sir Joshua’s navigational method mainly consisted of bumping into things, and this was exacerbated by his absolute blindness to the difference between port and starboard. It was a joke among those seafarers who were lucky enough to have sailed with him and survived that this was because he had never drunk starboard, but had drunk practically everything else.

Such of his papers that survive give a tantalising hint that in failing to discover the Americas, he may nevertheless have discovered practically everywhere else. What can we make of the hint of a land of giant jumping rats, found in the southern oceans, but, owing to Sir Joshua’s recordkeeping, lost the following day?

Nevertheless, quite late in the reign of Elizabeth I, he succeeded not only in finding the Americas but also in finding England again. He then, with much ceremony, presented to Good Queen Bess a marvellous and intriguing animal from that far-off country whose black-and-white fur he deemed very attractive and fit for a queen.

It was at this point that the court really understood that in addition to only a nodding acquaintance with the concept of direction, Sir Joshua had no sense of smell whatsoever. This led to the queen, despite her growing infirmities, going on progress again at quite a high speed. When frantic courtiers asked about the destination she said: “Anywhere away from that bloodyee man.”

Nevertheless, even as relays of servants were scrubbing the palace floors and the female skunk was giving birth in the cellars, the Queen gave Sir Joshua the office of Captain of the Gongfermours or, in other words, in charge of the latrines, a post for which he was clearly well suited. Oblivious to the sniggers of the other courtiers, he took this position extremely seriously and even adopted on his coat of arms the motto Quod Init Exire Oportet (What Goes in Must Come Out). John Dee said of him: “He is a man born under the wrong stars, and has never learnt which ones they are.”

Dogged to the end, and oblivious to the noxious gasses that only he could not smell, he spent the last years of his life in the following century trying to find a way to harness their igniferous nature, achieving an overwhelming success which led to his hat being found in Kingswinford and his head being found in a bear pit in Dudley.

A Hand on my Shoulder

Tracy Chevalier

I am not sure why I agreed to let William draw me. I certainly did not want a painting of me, not now. “A drawing, then,” he said. “That is all. One I can keep in my studio as a model for a dignified lady.”

Of course William was good friends with my husband, and has been so kind to me since his death, and my son’s. But I could have put him off longer, said I was too full of grief, and too weak from my own illness. Perhaps I simply wanted the companionship of a man again, to sit with him and talk to him while he drew.

He let me see the drawing today. Though he has done his best, William is too honest. He did not hide how thin I look, the flesh melted from my cheeks, my brow so bony. And something has happened to my eyes. The fever has made them lighter, if that is possible. I cannot seem to hide my thoughts — sadness and fear brim in my eyes like tears. The hand of Death has been heavy on my shoulder, and left its mark. I still feel its weight, though it is now only a ghost — a ghost waiting to return one day.

To distract others from my ravaged looks I have worn my widest collar and the topaz necklace Henry gave me after Harry’s birth. “Good girl,” he’d whispered as he hung it around my neck. “Well done.” Now he and Harry are gone, leaving my daughter and me alone — a household of women in a world of men, waiting to see what will happen to us.

Yesterday, Henry’s brother appeared, narrowing his eyes at William and insisting that my daughter and I were expected at his home for dinner. He fears any man who comes close to me, thinking they are sniffing my late husband’s estate. He would not have me marry again if it means his family is to lose Henry’s wealth to another. Better instead to march us across the cold fields, to dine with him and his wife in a draughty hall before an indifferent fire.

His little plan has had its effect. Already I feel a familiar pain behind my eyes and a hand scratching in my throat. It is just as well William has almost finished the drawing, for Death is impatient to visit again.

At least my daughter is healthy.

From the Diary of Paxton Whitfield

Joanna Trollope

This day was my likeness completed. I am at last well satisfied. I had much argument with the painter, who would not have me stand with my left hand towards my breast, saying that such a gesture was reserved for artists alone, when portraying themselves. But I held my ground in the matter. Indeed, I am known for holding my ground.

I am painted in my new black damask. It was exceeding costly, having to be thrice dyed to gain the depth of blackness that would satisfy me. I have also a falling collar in fine linen, but no other adornment, no sword belt, no seal upon my finger. I wish to stand as myself, for myself. I have no need of symbols.

Perhaps I am a little taken aback in the matter of my nose. My mouth is as I would wish, firm and well shaped, and my brow displays the breadth of a man of education and culture, such as I am. But my nose has about it a shine and a hint of colour which would indicate a propensity to being fuddled. I am, in truth, seldom fuddled, and never without severe provocation. I remonstrated with the painter, but he did merely say, over and over, that he painted what he saw with all the fidelity his skill could bring to bear. He told me that I had prevailed in the matter of my left hand, and that I should be content with my nose. I fear it must be so, for fear of incurring even greater expense.

I shall hang the painting in my library. I know the exact spot, upon the wall directly opposite the door, where it will immediately strike all those who enter. In her shrewish way, my wife has suggested that I might like to place a small table beneath, for candles and offerings, but I feigned not to hear her. She liked my looks well enough when we were wed, but custom has staled her admiration. And her courtesy.

I say again, I am on the whole well satisfied. It is something indeed for a man to possess his own likeness. When I look upon it, I have the sensation that indeed I have my place upon the Earth, and that place is manifest for all to see. It would be a joyous thing were my wife to be of like mind, but she prefers to make sport of everything that signifies to me. Including, it grieves me to say, this likeness.

The National Portrait Gallery’s Imagined Lives: Mystery Portraits 1520-1640 opens tomorrow at Montacute House, Somerset. The book of stories is available, priced £6.99, at www.npg.org.uk/shop

More mystery sitters

La maja desnuda y la maja vestida, Francisco Goya

Prado, Madrid

The two paintings in this scandalous pair are identical, except that in one the maja is completely bare, save a small tuft of pubic hair. Thought to be the first inclusion of such hair in Western painting, this obscenity led to Goya being summoned in front of the Spanish Inquisition. However, if he revealed the identity of the sitter it has not since resurfaced. Guesses range from the 13th Duchess of Alba, to the mistress of the then Spanish Prime Minister.

Portrait of a Lady, Dosso Dossi

National Gallery of Victoria

Since 1965, the National Gallery of Victoria has owned this mysterious Renaissance portrait of a beautiful young woman with a pointy nose and unforgiving eyes. In 2008 they made the happy discovery that she is in fact the infamous Lucrezia Borgia, though not all members of the art world were as willing as the Australian gallery owners to believe this grand claim.

Tank Man, Jeff Widener

The subject of this iconic photo committed the unimaginably brave act of stopping an entire column of Chinese Type 59 tanks in the middle of Tiananmen Squared. However, the Tank Man has never been able public receive international adulation as a symbol of freedom, as he disappeared into the crowd immediately following the incident and is believed to have been arrested, tried and possibly executed by the Chinese authorities.

Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci

Louvre, Paris

For such a famously enigmatic painting, it would not be right for the identity of the sitter to go completely undisputed. Although the common consensus is that the subject is Lisa del Giocondo, a member of the Renaissance Gherardini family and wife of a cloth merchant, there is no conclusive evidence. Da Vinci’s mother, Isabella of Naples, Costanza d’Acalos (known as “the merry one”) and da Vinci himself have all been declared the true sitter.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer Mauritshuis, The Hague

Known as the Mona Lisa of the north, Vermeer’s masterwork has long confounded viewers. The intimate gaze, the enormous earring and the mysterious turban all lend to the painting’s ambiguity. In 1999, Tracy Chevalier’s eponymous novel, inspired by the painting, gave a twist to the tale, introducing a fictional servant, Griet, into Vermeer’s household along with a convenient undercurrent of sexual tension between her and the painter, picking up on the girl’s somewhat come-hither expression.

Rob Peal