A Visit to the National Portrait Gallery

 Good afternoon! Today was such a FUN day in London touring the National Portrait Gallery and the Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII's Queens exhibit! Before going, I was expecting today to be like any normal day walking through a museum or gallery but I was very wrong, it was so much better! Right after stepping into the six wives exhibit I was looking at portraits of each of the six wives. The portrait of Anne of Cleves' was very eye catching to me because of the plaque under her portrait. 


Plaque under Anne of Cleves' portrait. 

Throughout the remainder of the exhibit I could not get Anne of Cleves out of my mind, especially the fact that she was to be judged by her portrait. That led me to doing more research on her. I fell down an absolute rabbit hole about her being considered ugly. (which I think is blasphemy) Portraits used to be used for many things, such as establishing wealth, marriage proposals and showing likeliness. What I think is particularly fascinating is that people wanted to be remembered by their portraits. For Anne of Cleves in particular I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she wanted to be remembered by a portrait of her knowing that she would be judged from. 


Anne of Cleves' portrait. 

I was not entirely familiar with King Henry VIII or his queens prior to this exhibit, so I was able to learn a lot during my time there. Learning about Anne of Cleves' marriage to Henry the VIII was incredibly heartbreaking, seeing as it is close to impossible to live up to Henry's expectations and standards. Their very short lived marriage is just one example of what a horrible husband he must have been. Their marriage lasted all of 6 months. 


Another portrait of Anne of Cleves. 

Following the exhibit, I was able to take a look at other parts of the gallery, where I spent majority of my time on the third floor. While looking at the portraits I felt very drawn to a portrait of Flora MacDonald. I went back to look at her portrait at least five times, and each time I noticed something different. It wasn't until I read her plaque that I learned that she actually spent some time in North Carolina after she helped Prince Charles Edward Stuart escape during 1746 - how cool! 


Portrait of Flora MacDonald. 

Flora MacDonald's Plaque. 

Something else that really stuck with my about portraits was the fact that some were painted so large to make anyone feel like whoever the portrait was of, was in the room with them. For example, when we walked into the Henry VIII exhibit, there was a MASSIVE portrait of King Henry - one of the largest ones that I saw the entire day. In all honesty, it was almost creepy! 

Large portrait of King Henry VIII. 

In class we compared the portrait of King Henry VIII and William Shakespeare and it was a fascinating conversation. King Henry VIII had many portraits of himself, including this massive one, and during Shakespeares life he had one small portrait. This may be a personal observation but the first time I remember ever learning about King Henry VIII was in High School when the musical Six was release; I've known about Shakespeare for as long as I can remember. I find it to be ironic that King Henry VIII has so many portraits of himself to be remembered by yet he is remembered significantly less than William Shakespeare (in my opinion). 

Portrait of William Shakespeare. 



It was a privilege to be able to look at all of these beautiful pieces of artwork today and learn all about them. I was also able to experience being moved by a piece of physical artwork in a way that I have not done so before. Flora MacDonald has been on my mind all day, and I cannot wait to research her further.

My questions that I have today are: 

1) What were the mental effects on Anne of Cleves after being told that she is too ugly? Did she know that she was not living up to Henry's expectations leading up to the annulment of their marriage? What were the reactions from her friends and family following the drama of her very short lived marriage? 

2) What was Flora's reaction to her celebrity like status following her release form prison? Did she enjoy the attention of it all or was she hopeful for the whole situation to be swept under the rug, and how did her celebrity like status affect her marriage if at all? 



Location: St. Martin's Pl, London WC2H 0HE, UK

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 5, 2024 at 5:28 PM

    That’s very cool maris!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 5, 2024 at 7:56 PM

    Pretty amazing! Love reading about it all.

    ReplyDelete

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