I came across this photograph at the National Portrait Gallery when wandering through after visiting an exhibition. An image of the former Queen and her consort commissioned by the gallery in 2011.
I thought it an odd image, an almost unsettling one. This is our Queen, a person who embodies regal monarchy, sitting almost at ease, semi slouched, with all the aristocratic uber-rich, unfashionable furnishings, that speak to the distance between her and normal people. Its a ‘normal’ rather than formal pose, she could be my grandmother, apart from the setting. …and then there is the distance between her and her husband Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh. He looks relaxed, but he could be Sam Smith waiting at the bus stop after a day at the office, apart from the trappings of wealth around him. They do not seem to be connected in any way.
So the question is, do photographs speak for themselves? One wonders what the commissioning statement asked for. I don’t think it was this image. My take-away was two people brought together to sit in fine surroundings and have their photograph taken (possibly unwillingly).
The blurb (blah) by the side of the image states as follows…
“Thomas Struth photographed the royal couple in the Green Drawing Room at Windsor Castle. The image is exceptionally frank.” I agree with that! It is what follows that I do not agree with, and see this as an attempt to influence my ability to form my own opinion about what I can see and how I interpret it.
The commentary goes on in a fawning way to suggest,
“[The image is] emphasizing the couples’ close bond and they appear at home despite the opulence of their surroundings.” I think not! The vast room, the angled ‘uncomfortable seat’, the distance between the two, speaks of discomfort, as the stern grimace on the Queen’s face suggests.
I do not take issue however with Struth’s own comment about his image. “I wanted to leave them both in their royal environment, and of course not try to disguise who they are, but also show them as an elderly couple who are together.” It is exactly that! He leaves us to decide what the word ‘together’ means here. Together, ‘close bond’ or, together on the seat?
It is the need to wrap up the royals as a fairy tale good life story that offends me. It is not a fairy story. It is an amazing story of how one family’s power and stolen wealth hoodwinks us every day by such commentaries into believing the fairy tale story. The constant drip feed of portraits and commentaries like the one by the photograph. The “close bond and togetherness” statements that do not shine through in the image. There is a fawning dissonance that contributes to a reality that I see and the fantasy I’m offered.
As I started assignment 5 thinking about void in photographs and silhouettes with the assignment 4 coursework questions still on my mind, I looked at images of the queen and prince Philip in appropriated royal photographs. Obviously I have selected images that will work as silhouettes, however I think that they demonstrate my point about images speaking of a close bond, or not!
