ER.OCT.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 21/09/2011 12:47 Page 689 EXHIBITIONS The Queen: Art and Image Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff and London by JOHN-PAUL STONARD QUEEN ELIZABETH II is the most represented individual ever to have existed ‘across the entire span of human history’, according to David Cannadine writing in the catalogue of the fascinating exhibition The Queen: Art & Image , curated by Paul Moorhouse, which began its tour at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and opens this month at Ulster Museum, Belfast (14th October to 15th January 2012). 1 Notwithstanding Jesus and Julius Caesar – who it might reasonably be argued were not ‘sitters’ – Elizabeth II is certainly the most represented English monarch, and her reign has been defined by her changing public image, across media, 57. The wrestlers , by William Etty. c.1840. Millboard, across the world. In 1986 the National Portrait 59. Lightness of being , by Chris Levine. 2007. Print on 68.6 by 53.5 cm. (York Art Gallery). lightbox, 140 by 90 cm. (Private collection; exh. Gallery, London, mounted an exhibition cel - Ulster Mus eum, Belfast). ebrating Queen Elizabeth’s sixtieth birthday, comprising a range of portraits, most officially It is left to Jason Edwards to expose Etty to commissioned, but also photographic and shown at the Royal Academy of Arts’ summer a blast of Queer Theory and thereby challenge painted portraits from the Queen’s childhood. exhibition in 1954, the relation is of less inter - the historical view that Etty’s female nudes The current exhibition, although continuing est. The most ‘official’ painting in the current were shocking while the males were unex - into the Diamond Jubilee year of 2012, is not display is Pietro Annigoni’s second official ceptionable. If painting for Etty was a ‘sub - official, and shows a much broader range of portrait made in 1969, an image of sovereign stitute for sex’, as Brian Bailey has argued, 2 images, focusing on Elizabeth as Queen. As eminence that seems today more a compen - Edwards knows what sort it was, not just such, the emphasis is placed rather on the sation for the loss of power and empire that homosexual but pretty kinky too. In a steamy image of monarchy in the post-War era, and the Queen’s reign has witnessed, and far less passage, he describes the fetid life class crowd - consequently on the interaction between affecting than Annigoni’s first portrait, made ed with young men as an incipient orgy and artists and what might be described as the two years after her accession (Fig.58). Early follows Etty on a breathless rush through Lon - remnants of sovereign power. portraits, particularly those by Cecil Beaton, don’s streets and baths in pursuit of handsome When the relationship between artist and seem stilted and unaffecting, capturing all of models. Rotating by ninety degrees the Male sitter is one of straightforward homage, as for the pomp and none of the circumstance of nude, with arms up-stretched (no.72) he discovers example with James Gunn’s State portrait, first the dual persona of the monarch, public and both a definitive image of homosexual passiv - private. Interestingly, it is only with press ity and Etty’s morality, since at that angle one images that such an insight is given in the early of the model’s feet allegedly resembles a pig’s years of Elizabeth’s reign – a good selection is trotter (though perhaps Etty simply ran out included here, such as an unguarded image of of space?) and his body a trussed-up fowl. If the Queen leaving the London Palladium in one accepts these arguments, might the sheer 1954. It might even be said that more success - unattractiveness of some of Etty’s male mod - ful recent images of the Queen aspire to the els (notwithstanding their appeal to certain condition of press photography, both detached collectors like Lord Fairhaven) be proof of and probing. The point is brought out with self-denial or repression? Could these have great deftness by the inclusion of Gerhard prompted his return to York, away from Richter’s early lithograph portrait, Elizabeth I , guardsmen and wrestlers? For a modern gay made from a press image of the Queen on a sensibility, there is little to miss in the flabby visit to Germany in spring 1965. backside which Etty painted as his farewell to It is true that an exhibition of commis - the ‘ Dulce Domum ’ of the old life room at sioned portraiture would have made a poor Somerset House (no.79). It seems perverse, to showing, with the exception perhaps of borrow a word, to defend Etty from mockery Rodrigo Moynihan’s two portraits from 1945 for preferring the company of cats, books and and 1985. The focus on portraits means that pictures to a wife and children only to insist other interesting paintings showing the on a homosexual imperative and claim him monarch, such as William Roberts’s Trooping for, in William Camidge’s phrase, the ‘queen - the colour of 1958 –59, are also omitted. As the ly dowry’ of his native city. exhibition moves into the 1970s, the sense of a changed climate is provided by Patrick 1 Catalogue: William Etty: Art & Controversy . Edited by Lichfield’s photographs, in particular the Sarah Burnage, Mark Hallett and Laura Turner, with well-known image of the Queen relaxed contributions from Beatrice Bertram, Jason Edwards, Richard Green, Martin Myrone and Sarah Victoria and laughing on board the Royal Yacht. It might be said that these were the last images Turner. 256 pp. incl. 282 col. ills. (York Museums Trust 58. Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Regent , by Pietro and Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2011), £25. Annigoni. 1954–55. Canvas, 163.3 by 133.3 cm. of an uncomplicated, perhaps unapologetic ISBN 978–0–905807–25–6 (PB). (Fishmonger’s Company, London; exh. Ulster monarchy, particularly when shown alongside 2 B.J. Bailey: William Etty’s Nudes , Bedford 1974, p.24. Mus eum, Belfast). the cover designed by Jamie Reid for the Sex the burlington magazine • cliiI • october 2011 689 ER.OCT.pg.proof.corrs:Layout 1 21/09/2011 12:47 Page 690 EXHIBITIONS The medieval sword Paris by TOBIAS CAPWELL THE EXHIBITION L’Epée: usages, mythes et sym - boles at the Musée National du Moyen Age (Musée de Cluny), Paris (closed 26th Sep - tember) , represented the first major exhibition dedicated to the medieval sword in Europe. As one of the greatest collections of medieval art in the world, housed in the finest example of medieval civic architecture remaining in Paris, it is hard to imagine a more inspiring location for this ground-breaking show. L’Epée traced the story of what could be called the ‘knightly’ sword of the Middle Ages from its origins in the ninth century through to the early sixteenth century. The most obvious strength of this exhi - bition was its interdisciplinary approach, an approach demanded by the diversity of subject-matter and material inherent in the theme. Understandably weapons have tradi - tionally been viewed primarily as tools, for, on the most obvious level, that is what they are. 60. The Queen and Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh , by Thomas Struth. 2011. Photographic print, 175.8 by However, their most immediate utilitarian 218.8 cm. (National Portrait Gallery, London; exh. Ulster Mus eum, Belfast). qualities can distract attention from their many other attributes; as the exhibition title makes explicit, their other practical uses (such Pistols’ second single, ‘God Save the Queen’. temporary art. Lucian Freud’s 2001 portrait is as in hunting and sporting competition), but Yet, like the silkscreen portraits by Warhol, or small in size and ambition and falls deliberate - also their status as works of art with symbolic the postcard-collages by Gilbert & George ly short of its subject. Annie Leibovitz made and ceremonial importance as well as their shown nearby, the vital connection between four photographic portraits of the Queen in significant role in myths and legends. Only artist and sitter is eclipsed by aesthetic con - 2007, which consciously recall the earlier por - after all these elements are taken into consid - cern – here the Queen is just another available traits by Beaton and Annigoni, and have little eration does it become possible to formulate image, although a highly potent one. to say either about the contemporary state of an understanding of the sword in its medieval The interesting story is the one by which the monarchy or the personality of Queen context. Although swords are often segregat - the image of an impenetrable almighty sover - Elizabeth. On the other hand, Chris Levine’s ed from other art forms in museum displays, eign, built up by Queen Victoria, has been enthralling ‘print on lightbox’ portrait of this most iconic of medieval weapons did not more gradually dissolved, part of a more the Queen, Lightness of being (2007; Fig.59), exist in isolation. It was surrounded, informed general dissolution of Victorian morality and appears like a hologram and dominates the and influenced by the whole cultural environ - the disbanding of the British Empire. The current exhibition, providing a compelling ment of the time; the sword-wielding deeds final step in the exposure of the ‘magic’ of sense of inner life, by the simple token of of knights in battle and tournament inspired monarchy to the ‘daylight’ of modern media showing the sitter with closed eyes. But it is great literary works, telling the stories both of occurred with the presentation of the Spice with the most recent image, Thomas Struth’s real celebrity knights such as William Marshal Girls to the Queen in December 1997, a portrait photograph of the Queen and Prince (1147–1219) and Jean II Le Meingre (called moment of extreme embarrassment captured Philip in the Green Drawing Room at Wind - Boucicaut, 1366–1421), and of mythical or in a press photograph included in the current sor Castle (Fig.60), that art and image appear semi-mythical characters such as King Arthur exhibition.