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Loading... Imagined Lives: Portraits of Unknown Peopleby Tarnya Cooper (Editor)
Art-inspired fiction (10) Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Somehow not as great as the sum of its parts. But a noble attempt by the National Portrait Gallery to make lemonade out of some of the lemons that have come into their collection. ( ) What happens when the sitters in portraits lose their names or their identification is doubted or challenged? Imagined Lives is a collection of letters, diaries, biographical renderings and short lives written by eight authors inspired by a selection of these nameless portraits from the National Portrait Gallery. Each is a gem of inspiration and invention momentarily giving new lives to these lost sitters. Miniatures but excellent and it is difficult not to think that Launcelot Northbrook (by John Banville) hadn’t lived and ‘was renowned as one of the most handsome men of his generation – his auburn locks in particular were much admired – and the saying was that half the women of London went into mourning when ... he married Penelope Bright’. Or that Blanche Vavsour, Lady Marchmont (by Julian Fellowes) was not the dignified and devoted wife seen in her portrait. The delights include Tracey Chevalier’s interpretation of a Tudor nobleman’s blushing cheeks, Minette Walters on a desperately worried wife and Joanna Trollope on a marriage proposal considered via a portrait of the prospective bridegroom. These portraits, the editor concludes, like others ‘whose identities have been lost in the chaos of events long passed ... will be as intriguing to us for what they cannot tell us as for what they can.’ This clever little gem has found a special place on my bookshelf next to another, Helen Humphreys's The Frozen Thames. Published by the National Portrait Gallery in London, Imagined Lives is a collection of fourteen 'biographical' sketches based on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraits of unknown sitters. Eight well-known writers contributed to the book: John Banville, Tracy Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Alexander McCall Smith, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope, and Minette Walters. Each has given the portrait sitter a name, and the sketches take the form of biographical entries, letters, and internal dialogues. One imagines the sitter critiquing his own newly-finished portrait. In another (my favorite), a young woman writes to her mother, asking for advice on a proposal from the man in the portrait. Tracy Chevalier's subject, an aging woman, muses on why she agreed to be drawn and on the passing of her years. The book includes full color copies of the portraits plus a closeup of a significant detail in each. At the back you'll find a fine essay on how sitters in historic portraits are identified, using as models known portraits of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, Mary, Queen of Scots, Anne Boleyn, and Michael Drayton. Details of each portrait's provenance, media, and dimensions are provided, along with a brief history of former identifications. This is a lovely book, the kind to reach for in quiet moments or to take you away from the not-so-quiet. no reviews | add a review
Published on the occasion of a new display at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 3 December - August 2012 Features two new pieces by award winning author Alexander McCall Smith and Tarnya Cooper, 16th Century Curator and Deputy Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London A major collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery, postgraduate students at the University of Bristol and the National Trust, and includes new research into the identities of the sitters In Rosy, Tracy Chevalier writes of a handsome young man with a flushed complexion as the object of homosexual desire. Minette Walters writes a poignant letter from a despairing wife. Julian Fellowes has created a biography of a resourceful woman whose husband was executed during Henry VIII's reign. Sarah Singleton relates the adventures of a spice merchant and amateur musician struggling to make his way in the world, despite his illegitimate status. Joanna Trollope tells a touching tale about the offer of a marriage proposal in the form of a letter from the sitter's intended bride. By contrast, the fantasy writer Terry Pratchett has written an amusing tale about an explorer who presented Elizabeth I with a skunk. And John Banville has seen, in the features of a man on his deathbed, the face of an admired officer serving with Cromwell's New Model Army. These short, fictional narratives build brilliantly on what can be seen in each portrait, thereby providing a new and entertaining way of looking at these intriguing images." No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)704.942The arts Modified subdivisions of the arts Special topics in fine and decorative arts Iconography Human figures and their partsLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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