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Art Neuendorffer

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Mar 2, 2006, 11:53:47 AM3/2/06

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<<Chandos portrait, 1600-10
The only true painting of Shakespeare - probably

As six portraits go on show,
research shows most likely candidate for true likeness

Charlotte Higgins, arts correspondent
Thursday March 2, 2006 The Guardian

Shakespeare has a way of slipping through the fingers. After three and
a half years' research, and the detailed examination of six paintings,
the National Portrait Gallery has concluded that the so-called
Chandos portrait shows the true face of Shakespeare - probably.
The gallery's Dr Tarnya Cooper said that the claim of the Chandos
portrait to represent Shakespeare has "increased, but it's not
absolutely watertight. We may never find the clincher piece of
evidence - though it may yet turn up".
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Searching for Shakespeare opens on March 2 at the National Portrait
Gallery and continues until May 29. It will then be touring to
the *Yale* Centre for British Art, New Haven, from *June 24* to
September 17. Tickets can be booked online. (Timed ticketing.)
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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article348699.ece

Exhibition aims to present the true face of Shakespeare
By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent : 02 March 2006

More than three years' research for the biggest ever exhibition on
Shakespeare in his own time has concluded we cannot know for certain
what the great playwright looked like, but we can make the most
educated guess yet.

Tarnya Cooper, who has curated the new show at the National Portrait
Gallery, London, believes that the first painting to have been given
to the institution when it was founded 150 years ago is almost
certainly the best likeness we have.

The Chandos portrait dates from Shakespeare's lifetime and many
scholars have long believed it was a true depiction of the Bard.
Forensic examination of its paintwork has proved that distinctive
details associated with artists at the time - the ear-ring and
loose ties at his neck - are original.

This adds weight to the journal of an 18th century antiquarian,
George Vertue, who traces the work back to Shakespeare via William
Davenant, a theatre manager who was Shakespeare's godson, and
John Taylor, the artist to whom the painting is attributed.

"There is no other surviving work by John Taylor, who was a talented
but not great artist. If Davenant was making up claims, you would
expect him to say it was by someone more famous," Dr Cooper said.

She added: "What is touching in a democratic way is that the
founding portrait of this institution was not a monarch or a man
of the nobility but a man of achievement." It was presented
in 1856 by the Earl of Ellesmere.

The exhibition, Searching for Shakespeare, which opens today,
brings together all the principal portraits purporting to represent
him - showing they could not all have been the same man.

Dr Cooper argues that at least two, the Grafton and the Sanders,
show other men of Shakespeare's time, the Soest and the Flower
portraits date from after his death, and the Janssen was
re-painted in the 18th century to look more like him.

The display includes early editions of the plays, 17th century clothes
like those worn on stage and rare items relating to Shakespeare's
life. These include the parish register from the Holy Trinity Church
in Stratford-upon-Avon in which details of his family life are
recorded, a document objecting to the granting of a coat of arms
to Shakespeare in which it is implied that a "player" was not
worthy of such an honour, and a drawing of the Swan Theatre.

Shakespeare's famous will, in which he left his wife Anne Hathaway
his "second-best bed", has been lent by the National Archives
for the first time.

There is also a series of talks and events involving Professor
Stanley Wells and actor Mark Rylance, as well as Bill Bryson and
Peter Ackroyd. It runs until 29 May with an £8 admission charge.

More than three years' research for the biggest ever exhibition
on Shakespeare in his own time has concluded we cannot know for
certain what the great playwright looked like,
but we can make the most educated guess yet.

"I'm sure Vertue's evidence is absolutely accurate but we're relying
on a chain of Chinese whispers. What is clear is that it was assumed
to be Shakespeare within 50 years of his death. It's a pretty close
link." She added: "What is touching in a democratic way is that the
founding portrait of this institution was not a monarch or a man of
the nobility but a man of achievement." It was presented in 1856
by the Earl of Ellesmere.

The exhibition, Searching for Shakespeare, which opens today,
brings together all the principal portraits purporting to
represent him - showing they could not all have been the same man.

Dr Cooper argues that at least two, the Grafton and the Sanders,
show other men of Shakespeare's time, the Soest and the Flower
portraits date from after his death, and the Janssen
was re-painted in the 18th century to look more like him.

The display includes early editions of the plays, 17th century clothes
like those worn on stage and rare items relating to Shakespeare's
life. These include the parish register from the Holy Trinity Church
in Stratford-upon-Avon in which details of his family life are
recorded, a document objecting to the granting of a coat of arms to
Shakespeare in which it is implied that a "player" was not worthy of
such an honour, and a drawing of the Swan Theatre.

Shakespeare's famous will, in which he left his wife Anne Hathaway
his "second-best bed", has been lent by the National Archives
for the first time.

There is also a series of talks and events involving Professor Stanley
Wells and actor Mark Rylance, as well as Bill Bryson and Peter
Ackroyd. It runs until 29 May with an £8 admission charge.
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Exhibition Review: March 01, 2006 Natalie Bennett
Searching for Shakespeare at the National Portrait Gallery

<<Walking into Searching for Shakespeare, the exhibition that opens
tomorrow at the National Portrait Gallery in London, I took a wrong
turn. Someone was standing in front of the "exhibition this way" sign,
so I forged straight ahead, and was puzzled to be confronted by a
sword, a workmanlike rapier with just a hint of gentlemanly damascene
decoration. The label explained: "On formal occasions and at court
Shakespeare would have worn a sword, and in his will in 1616 he
left it to a friend from Stratford-upon-Avon called Thomas Coombe.
This example from the period ..." So, a hint,
a flavour of his age, but not really Shakespeare.

Turning around, I went back to the beginning, and found another
absence. On a perspex stand is a wonderful, fancy, and very warm
looking hat from the 16th-century, an astonishing survival and
fascinating, but again, not Shakespeare's (what would it be
worth if it were?), rather one like he "might have worn."

Yet next, in front of you, are some real signs that read, as though
scrawled by some graffitist on the wall, "Shakespeare was here." There
are the papers that he touched that recorded his life before he was
"the Bard" and was just a young lad from Stratford-upon-Avon. There's
the parish register from Holy Trinity Church, open at the entry for
the baptism on May 26, 1583, of his first child, Susanna. It sits
beside the bond recording his marriage just five months before. They
are mute but eloquent witnesses to the reason why a lad of 18 would be
marrying a woman of 26. By the standards of the time she was about the
right age for marriage, but he was certainly not; you can just imagine
the matrons of the town tutting, saying: "He's ruined his life."

The end of that life - the dead Shakespeare if you like - is also
here, in the will that famously left most of his wealth to that oldest
child, Susanna, and only his "second best bed" to his wife, Anne
Hathaway. But, as Tarnya Cooper, the exhibition curator, explains,
that can't be taken for the slight that it seems to be. Wives by law
received a third of their husband's wealth for their use, and it was
not uncommonly for them to be left out of the bequests in consequence.
This will is nonetheless an oh-so-human document, lines are crossed
out, words inserted - there was, on this death bed,
no time to make a fair copy.

So we've found the young son of a glove-maker, and the old man on
his death-bed in Stratford-upon-Avon. But these are not The Bard
- the star of London's great Tudor flowering ...

It is at the far end of the exhibition that you find this
Shakespeare, indeed not one Bard, but many, looking phlegmatically
out at the modern parade. For the core of the exhibition is one
room containing eight Shakespeares, or rather eight "Shakespeares."

At the centre is the one painting that probably, almost certainly IS
Shakespeare; yet, tantalisingly, complete proof is denied us. It is
known as the Chandos portrait, after the family that owned it, and the
full array of modern science - microscopic paint analysis, tree ring
analysis, chemical tests - have all indicated that it is the right
age, the right style, the right everything. But they cannot
make it speak, cannot make it say: "My name is..."

Around are all of the false trails. Some are easily dismissed. There's
the so-called Janssen portrait, which is indeed Jacobean, but modern
science has demonstrated that the portrait had been over painted in
the late 18th-century to look rather more like "Shakespeare" than
the original. (It has now been restored to its original appearance.)
And the Flanner portrait, now definitively dated to the early
19th-century, although painted over a 16th-century Madonna. And the
Sanders portrait, which was painted in 1603, when Shakespeare was 39.
There's a resemblance, but surely this man is too young?

Others are near misses in this painstaking search for Shakespeare.
Closest perhaps is the so-called Grafton portrait. Painted on it are
its date - 1588 - and the age of the sitter (24). That matches
Shakespeare exactly. And the general shape of the face, the high
forehead, the ears, show similarity to the Chandos image, and yet,
and yet ... The man here wears a slashed crimson silk doublet - too
rich, too grand, for the humble travelling player that
Shakespeare is thought to have then been.

Then there are two almost certain "pretty good likenesses." One is the
marble bust from about 1620 that was put in the Bard's parish church,
probably based on a now lost image. Many of the people who looked on
it then would have known the man himself, so it's a fair bet he looked
rather like this. And there's the engraving from the First Folio
edition (left), for which Ben Jonson, Shakespeare's friend,
praised the engraver's ability to capture a "face."

And finally there's the Soest portrait, which is also what it says on
the tin: Painted in the late 1660s, the features are thought to have
been derived from the Chandos portrait, but the Bard has been
"cleaned up" for contemporary tastes. No earring, for one thing.
But the painter would not have known the man was working only
from Chandos and, perhaps, another work. A lost work?
A lost work that will one day show "Shakespeare" to us?

So we've approached Shakespeare - the young man, the middle-class man,
the famous author, got within almost a finger's touch of the Bard,
but no closer. The journey in search of Shakespeare has been
rich and rewarding, but ultimately unsuccessful.

But I've rushed it. Back at the beginning of the exhibition again, I
find not Shakespeare, but a rich and detailed portrait of his world.
Sir Henry Peacham provides the first, and perhaps the best, view. A
careful ink sketch shows the actors of Titus Andronicus, as staged in
1594. This is the first known illustration of the London stage, and it
is so lively, so immediate, that you feel for a second as though you
are there. The actors are in full dramatic flow - gesturing with
arms spread wide, praying with fingers clenched tight. (And one -
fascinatingly - is shown as though he is black-skinned. This is
clearly elaborate and intentional: was there perhaps a black actor,
or did one of the players "black up"? Dr Cooper said this was a
question without answers.)

Nearby is the first known drawing of a London playhouse, as carefully
copied by Arendt van Buchell from the work of a friend who had visited
London. It looks astonishingly familiar, you think, before realising
of course this is The Globe. Well actually it was, in the 17th
century, The Swan, but the builders of the modern replica theatre
leant heavily on this image in their reconstruction. The fact that
a European visitor and a Continental resident would go to so much
trouble does, however, tell us something new, Dr Cooper suggested.
Huge, purpose-built playhouses, London's whole thriving literary
culture, were something new, astonishing, surprisingly,
and noteworthy across the continent.

On the wall, just as it was once pinned backstage in a theatre such
as this is a "Platt" or plot from The Second Part of the Seven
Deadly Sins, a play performed about 1592. The script is now lost,
but here, set out for the actors in *NEAT* handwriting, is their
crib sheet. A list of the characters, cast members, props, and
stage effects required for each scene. You are not backstage
with them, but are tantalisingly close.

Then we're brought even further to earth, reminded that the
Elizabethans were not the age of grand, polite scholarship of
the driest of Shakespearean productions. Beside the Platt is
a bear's skull - a female brown bear's skull, the label tells us
- and she died, probably, from a blow to the back of the head.
She was finished off, perhaps, after being almost torn
apart by dogs for the entertainment of the crowd.
No, this is no polite age, not Shakepeare's.

We can get close to it, see it, almost touch it, but cannot finally
get into it, just as we cannot finally pin down, lay hold of the bard
himself, cannot lay him out for careful scientific study. And that,
perhaps, is as it should be. For in the end we have the plays, and
that is enough. But we can't but want to know the man who produced
this wonderful stage world, and if we want to know that, and
the man, this exhibition is the closest anyone is likely
to get - for a generation, and maybe *forEVER* .>>
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Art Neuendorffer

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