0:02

Hey friends, it's Anne. Have you

0:04

ever stood in front of a

0:06

portrait you ever stood in front of

0:08

a portrait at a museum and wondered, that

0:10

what was that person thinking? was the artist was

0:12

the artist trying to tell us about them?

0:15

Portraits have layers of layers layers of

0:17

meaning, up but it's up to the

0:19

viewer to peel them back. This This

0:21

week the the best of our knowledge, knowledge,

0:24

the portrait. portrait. from

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on how you buy. It's to to the best

1:00

of our knowledge. I'm Hansen. train train

1:02

champs. How do you get people

1:04

to look? Really look at an

1:06

old master painting. How do you

1:09

get people to look? Really

1:11

look at an old master

1:13

painting. Well in 2020, when art

1:15

How do you get people to the

1:17

really look at an old master

1:19

painting? kind of much. challenge.

1:22

Well in While in 2020, when

1:24

art museums around the world were

1:26

shuttered, LA is Museum issued a kind

1:28

of playful challenge. recreate

1:30

a favorite work of art art

1:32

just three objects you have lying

1:34

around at home. have lying around

1:37

at home. I was like

1:39

everyone was during

1:41

everyone else at home during lockdown,

1:44

with not a lot to

1:46

do. British baritone Meet the

1:48

celebrated British baritone, an Peter

1:50

singer I was looking at my an

1:52

opera singer I was looking

1:54

at my inbox seeing in, saying that

1:56

coming in saying that work was

1:58

either being postponed cancelled. I

2:00

sat at home scrolling through

2:03

Twitter and saw this challenge

2:05

and thought, well, maybe I

2:07

should try this. Peter's used

2:10

to playing roles on stage.

2:12

So his idea was to

2:15

reenact a historic portrait, make

2:17

a costume, strike a pose,

2:19

snap a selfie. There was

2:22

just one problem. I wanted

2:24

to find an image that

2:27

looked a little like me.

2:29

But something that I noticed

2:31

fairly early on was that

2:34

I wasn't seeing very many

2:36

faces of color. So I

2:39

searched for an image and

2:41

I had no idea that

2:43

I'd set off on this

2:46

huge voyage of discovering that

2:48

portraiture. It went a lot

2:51

further than he expected. And

2:53

so I recreated an 18th

2:55

century image of a young

2:58

man. He's

3:00

holding a lap dog.

3:02

He has a silver

3:05

tray and a glass

3:07

of wine. And he's

3:09

a servant in England,

3:11

obviously in a stately

3:13

home. I staged this

3:15

in my front room.

3:17

I was using my

3:19

mother-in-law's cuddly toy dog

3:21

thing. And I had

3:24

a glass of cranberry

3:26

juice in my hand.

3:28

I posted it to

3:30

social media and the

3:32

response was fairly overwhelming.

3:34

People enjoyed the humor,

3:36

they were intrigued by

3:38

the hashtag of rediscovering

3:41

black portraiture, and so

3:43

I decided to continue

3:45

and that carried on

3:47

for 50 days solid

3:49

after that. Was that

3:51

like one portrait a

3:53

day? Yes, yeah, so

3:55

it became hugely important.

4:00

Peter Brathwaite has now researched and

4:02

reimagined more than a hundred

4:04

paintings of a subjects. From

4:06

a of century image of From a 14th

4:08

of image of to the presidential

4:10

portrait of Barack Obama, the and

4:12

he's still not done. of

4:15

Barack as a game still

4:17

a full -fledged questioning

4:19

of art history. Also,

4:21

a book and a

4:23

museum exhibition called Rediscovering

4:25

Black Portraiture. Black

4:28

Portraiture. It It was

4:30

incredibly... hard to

4:32

find some of this

4:34

work a a lot of

4:36

these portraits were created

4:38

to illustrate the wealth

4:40

of patrons who commission

4:43

them. Often a a black

4:45

subject was included to

4:47

highlight the wealth of

4:49

the individual, but that's

4:51

not the full story.

4:53

we see individuals who

4:55

are free, not necessarily

4:57

enslaved with names names and

4:59

navigating Western society in

5:02

a very sophisticated way.

5:04

to It was difficult

5:06

to encounter these works

5:08

and see that there's

5:10

so much that seen I

5:12

haven't seen before this showing that what showing

5:14

that what we see in galleries

5:16

and museums is often the tip of

5:18

the iceberg. the iceberg. this this

5:20

is work you had already been

5:22

doing in some ways, you got

5:25

interested in black portraiture quite

5:27

a long time ago a an

5:29

opera singer, as right? an opera singer,

5:31

so I had a bit

5:33

of a tricky situation when I

5:35

was asked I was asked to lighten my

5:37

skin to my skin to stage

5:40

image in an a stage image in

5:42

an 18th or opera

5:45

that I was performing in. interrupt

5:47

sorry, can I just interrupt Yes.

5:49

Like the director asked you to

5:51

you to white up?

5:53

yes. Essentially, yes. because it was

5:55

that tricky thing where we

5:57

were staging in a in a

5:59

period where people would wear whiter

6:01

makeup. It was the fashion.

6:04

And at that point, I

6:06

wasn't knowledgeable enough to know

6:08

that black people from that

6:10

time wouldn't have whitened their

6:12

faces in the same way

6:14

that white people would have.

6:16

And so I tried it.

6:18

And then after the rehearsal

6:20

went home and did some

6:22

research for myself, and I

6:24

found Joseph Boulogne, the Chevalier

6:26

Saint-Jean, who was a famed

6:28

swordsman. composer, conductor and he

6:30

was mixed race. He was

6:32

living in France in the

6:34

18th century, a contemporary of

6:36

Mozart. There's a film out

6:38

about him at the moment.

6:40

And so I turned up

6:42

to rehearsals the day after

6:45

with his image to show

6:47

the director and from then

6:49

on was channeling him when

6:51

I performed on stage. And

6:53

that was probably the first

6:55

time that I tapped into

6:57

a search engine, the words

6:59

black portraiture. I was just

7:01

thinking about the casual racism

7:03

involved in, you know, just

7:05

the assumption that there weren't

7:07

any high status black men

7:09

and women in, say, 18th

7:11

century aristocratic French circles. And

7:13

at the same time, so

7:15

many of the other portraits

7:17

that you uncovered, there are

7:19

black subjects in them, but

7:21

they're nameless, anonymous. They're literally

7:23

on the margins of the

7:25

portrait. Definitely, and the first

7:28

thing I did with images

7:30

like that was usually to

7:32

crop them and center the

7:34

black subject. So in the

7:36

Paston Treasure, which was painted

7:38

in 1665, which is a

7:40

huge painting full of riches

7:42

that the Paston family in

7:44

Norfolk collected on their travels

7:46

across the globe, the black

7:48

figure is sat at the

7:50

head of the table. He

7:52

has a monkey on his

7:54

shoulder and no aspect of

7:56

his actual self is in

7:58

that original portrait. And And

8:00

he's way over on the side,

8:02

right? right? the portrait this portrait of this

8:04

wealth practically spilling out of the

8:06

frame towards you as the viewer. you as

8:09

the then And on the side you

8:11

don't even notice it. side, you

8:13

don't even This young at

8:15

servant. this young we don't know who

8:17

he was. we don't know who he

8:19

was, but infer from his

8:21

presence there that he

8:23

was trafficked, was enslaved, he

8:25

was enslaved, and... possibly a

8:28

life of freedom before being enslaved.

8:30

so that's what I was

8:32

focusing on when I was restaging

8:34

it. I was meditating on

8:36

what it means to take up

8:38

space as a man of as

8:40

today, but also imagining. also what

8:42

he would have known and

8:44

the food he would have eaten.

8:46

And there's a dish from

8:48

called cuckoo, which is the national

8:50

dish. the It's made of It's made

8:52

of cornmeal served with fish it's it's

8:55

cooked using a wooden utensil

8:57

called a cuckoo stick. And I

8:59

gave it to him in

9:01

my recreation. him in It's just finding

9:03

these elements of joy that

9:05

kind of that the dampened the often

9:07

found in many of these images.

9:10

of these images. Yeah. And then

9:12

this history runs through your own family

9:14

too, right? right? Yeah, and and

9:16

that's why Past is such a

9:18

significant such a in the

9:20

project. It was painted in

9:22

1665 and we have the

9:25

will of the first member

9:27

of my family to move

9:29

to Barbados and his will

9:31

was proved in 1665. He

9:33

was called He was called He Brathwaite.

9:35

Lancaster to Barbados. to

9:37

a plantation set up a

9:39

plantation, has lot of land at

9:41

the height of their

9:44

wealth, the family owned around

9:46

eight plantations. eight plantations This

9:48

is a part of

9:50

my history that

9:52

is that is incredibly dark. One

9:54

side of my family enslaved the

9:56

other. the other, my

9:59

black side. came from Ghana,

10:01

we think, the earliest known

10:03

black ancestor. We have evidence

10:06

of is a man called

10:08

Ado. We think he was

10:11

born in around 1742 and

10:13

trafficked as a young man.

10:16

He was owned by the

10:18

Brathwaite family. They gave him

10:20

their surname and he was

10:23

freed after a slave uprising

10:25

in Barbados in 1817. which

10:28

was known as Busser's rebellion

10:30

and he was freed for

10:33

good conduct and we're not

10:35

sure what that good conduct

10:37

involved. Right, did that involve

10:40

protecting the white family or?

10:42

Possibly, yes, and the white

10:45

side of the family had

10:47

their portraits painted. They had

10:50

monuments built when they died

10:52

and John Brathwaite is one

10:54

of these ancestors whose monuments

10:57

are in Bridgetown Barbados in

10:59

London. There's... a copy of

11:02

one of them in University

11:04

College London. And it's not

11:07

something that I can very

11:09

easily run away from. And

11:12

my surname is Brathwaite. My

11:14

middle name is John, like

11:16

many of my enslaver ancestors,

11:19

lots of these names crop

11:21

up again in the family

11:24

history. And so it's really...

11:26

woven into my very being

11:29

and the best thing that

11:31

I can think of to

11:33

do with it is educate

11:36

and respond to it artistically.

11:38

Right, and so in some

11:41

of your portrait recreations you

11:43

have your grandmother's quilt and

11:46

your grandfather's cookostick and the

11:48

manumission papers from your four

11:51

times great-grandmother. but also some

11:53

of those portraits of your

11:55

enslaver ancestors. Do you pick

11:58

one and tell me about

12:00

it? Yes, there's the John

12:03

Singleton Copley, the death of

12:05

Major Pierce. and portrait that's

12:08

from the Tate Britain Gallery,

12:10

and it features a battle

12:12

scene, and there's a black

12:15

servant protecting his master. And

12:17

he's pointing a gun at

12:20

the people he's attacking. And

12:22

in my recreation, I've used

12:25

printouts of... the face of

12:27

my five times great-grandfather who

12:30

was Miles Brathwaite the second

12:32

we have his portrait. He

12:34

was known as the Honourable

12:37

Miles Brathwaite and I've used

12:39

all of his images to

12:42

represent the various faces in

12:44

that portrait and instead of

12:47

a gun I'm pointing the

12:49

cookoo stick at his face

12:51

in my recreation. the coming

12:54

together of these cultures and

12:56

me calling out to him,

12:59

asking him to respond and

13:01

we'll never hear his voice

13:04

but I like to imagine

13:06

what it would have been

13:08

like to sit down at

13:11

a table with him and

13:13

I doubt I'd ever be

13:16

able to really truly understand

13:18

what was going through their

13:21

minds when they were obviously

13:23

obsessed with wealth and this

13:26

white gold that allowed them

13:28

to create these empires and

13:30

the Brathwaite family motto is

13:33

not all of me will

13:35

die it really illustrates the

13:38

the deep rootedness of this

13:40

history and and how it

13:43

is everywhere around us and

13:45

yeah and including your DNA.

13:47

One of the ones I

13:50

keep coming back to is,

13:52

and now of course I

13:55

can't remember the title, but

13:57

it's too... young

14:00

women. in in England, one

14:02

one is white and the

14:04

other is black. cousins. cousins. down

14:07

through time, I coming down through time,

14:09

guess, the white. the portrait was

14:11

named, the named, the portrait was named,

14:13

the portrait of her. girl was and

14:15

the black girl was not named. a race.

14:17

But they're race. they're both

14:19

vivid personalities. black woman The

14:22

young black woman does not

14:24

look like some subservient

14:26

companion. Yeah, the the. image of

14:28

Dido Bell. Yeah, Yeah, she's

14:31

with her cousin, Lady

14:33

Elizabeth Murray. Dido Bell is

14:35

actually Bell is actually

14:37

painted as if she's running

14:39

out of the frame. next job

14:41

on the I don't know,

14:43

her off job on the

14:46

estate holding to see someone,

14:48

she's holding some Bell is But

14:50

someone is someone who probably

14:52

influenced the laws of

14:54

the time regarding... people in

14:56

Britain. Britain. Who she? she? So she was

14:58

was should, I'm going to refer the book to going

15:00

to refer to the book

15:02

to get this right she spent much of

15:04

her life at so she spent

15:06

much of her life at London

15:09

London, living with her great uncle

15:11

William Murray, the Earl of

15:13

Mansfield. And in the 1772 Somerset

15:15

case, as Lord Chief Justice, Earl

15:17

the Earl famously ruled that slavery

15:19

had no precedent in common

15:21

law within Britain. And

15:23

it's certainly possible that views. Why influenced

15:26

her uncle's that she's pointing to her face. She has her finger

15:28

pressed against her we not all know her is her gesture in this portrait

15:30

meant challenge the racially based do we not all know

15:32

her history? aristocracy the British aristocracy the British I

15:34

love that she's pointing to

15:36

her the British aristocracy the British aristocracy the British aristocracy

15:38

has her the pressed against her

15:40

cheek and she's looking the us of

15:42

British aristocracy, the British aristocracy, the British aristocracy, the British aristocracy,

15:44

the British her gesture in this

15:46

portrait British to challenge the racially the

15:49

commodification the British aristocracy, the British the British

15:51

aristocracy. the British There's definitely a

15:53

reason why she's pointing to her

15:55

own face in that image. face

15:57

in that image. I I just, I've been

15:59

paging. your book and looking

16:01

at all of these, just

16:03

kept thinking, these, I just managed to

16:05

make restorative justice that is

16:07

beautiful. justice you. beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, well,

16:09

I I mean, thank you

16:12

for finding so restoring so many

16:14

of these people. mean, you've

16:16

introduced us to people whose

16:18

images we haven't seen and

16:20

whose stories we haven't known.

16:23

And in the process, And

16:25

in you're really teaching

16:27

all of us how

16:29

to see differently. differently. Yeah, I'm

16:32

really interested in looking

16:34

and re -looking and looking

16:36

again once more. that's

16:38

my whole process, really.

16:41

It's coming back to

16:43

things. It's revisiting. that's

16:45

what I hope people

16:47

are inspired to do.

16:50

coming back to things, it's revisiting and that's

16:52

what I hope is the

16:54

author of Rediscovering Black

16:56

Portraiture. do. in England and

16:59

descended from relatives in

17:01

Barbados, from an acclaimed

17:03

baritone opera singer and

17:05

BBC an acclaimed presenter. opera singer and

17:08

BBC music program presenter. Next, a a

17:10

mysterious portrait from from

17:12

century Italy and the

17:14

story behind it. story behind it.

17:16

I'm Anne It's to the

17:18

best of our knowledge

17:20

to the Wisconsin our Radio from

17:22

Wisconsin Public Radio, and PRX. Imagine.

17:36

It's it's the year 1560

17:38

in Ferrara, Italy, 16 years

17:40

years old, newly married to

17:43

one of the richest,

17:45

most powerful men in the

17:47

country. in the today, And you're

17:49

standing before him and

17:51

the artist him is about

17:53

to paint your portrait. who is

17:55

about Your name your portrait. Your name

17:57

is Lucretia de Medici. Could

18:00

I trouble her highness to please lift her

18:02

I a her highness

18:04

to please lift her

18:06

chin a little? Good? A

18:09

touch more? turn Good. Beautiful.

18:12

the window, slowly, please, slowly? Yes, there.

18:15

Hold that, Now turn

18:17

your face towards the

18:19

window, slowly please. Slowly.

18:23

Yes there. there. Hold that,

18:25

to your highness. Then

18:31

without turning his head his addresses

18:33

someone behind him. behind

18:35

him. you see your your grace? I feel I

18:37

feel this may be better than

18:39

the previous pose. pose. We get the curve

18:41

of her jaw, the elegance of

18:43

her neck, of her will

18:45

ever find how to reproduce

18:47

that flush along her throat to

18:50

that brow. that flush along her throat and

18:52

that brow. Alfonso, clothed clothed in dark

18:54

colours today, moves about in the

18:56

shadowy recesses of the room.

18:58

of the He is examining sketches

19:00

arranged on a low table.

19:03

on a low table. For several hours now, the crates

19:05

several hours now, to pose in

19:07

he has been asked to

19:09

pose in one way, seated,

19:12

standing, feet crossed,

19:14

hands hands apart, head

19:16

forward, head aside, arm up, up,

19:18

arm down, turned, while while the

19:20

artist makes a sketch. a sketch.

19:22

He then He then repositions her

19:24

and does another. does another. LaCrazia

19:28

finds the situation ludicrous. The idea that Alfonso

19:30

is permitting another man to touch

19:32

her dress to or her jewels

19:34

is so peculiar. is so peculiar. If If

19:36

this man weren't painting her, it would not

19:38

be out would not be out of

19:40

the realm of possibility for for Alfonso

19:42

the dagger he keeps in his

19:44

belt and run him through. in his

19:47

She has heard of men killed

19:49

for less. heard of men killed for less. Irish

19:59

not Maggie O'Farrell is is known for

20:01

bringing lost historical figures to

20:03

life. to Her best -selling novel

20:06

novel Shakespeare's family life, and

20:08

in her latest, The Marriage

20:10

Portrait, she tells us the

20:12

story behind a real painting. behind

20:14

a real painting. A 16th portrait of a

20:16

young portrait of a young noble

20:19

woman. 'Farrell told Shannon Shannon Henry

20:21

came across a across first

20:23

in a poem first in a

20:25

what the painting looked like. looked and

20:27

who the young woman was. was. So I

20:29

I started looking at I I started delving

20:31

around and it wasn't long

20:33

before I had her name, had her name,

20:35

Medici, and the really sad fact

20:38

that she'd been 16 when she died.

20:40

she'd been 16 And then died. portrait, which

20:42

is attributed to to Annulo Bronzino, was

20:44

downloading on my very old

20:46

phone screen. and I could see this kind of

20:48

could see this kind of jeweled

20:50

headdress and then I saw

20:52

this very pale brow, and then then

20:55

these very large, slightly startled brown

20:57

eyes. eyes. She She looks quite

20:59

anxious. anxious. She's wearing this very dark

21:01

dress against a black background with a a

21:03

white collar and she's adorned with later which

21:05

I later found out is half from

21:07

her father's dynasty and half from her

21:09

husband to to these but as soon as

21:11

I saw her her, was a kind

21:13

of lightning bolt I mean I knew

21:15

as soon as I looked into her

21:17

eyes that I was going to write

21:19

a novel about her that I was

21:21

looking at the about her my next book. looking

21:23

at the subject of my next book.

21:25

Is it it about portraits that's so

21:28

so revealing? mean, you were so

21:30

pulled in through her eyes would be the

21:32

would be the subject of a

21:34

portrait in those times? I mean, it

21:36

varied. I in those in order to it varied.

21:38

think in order to have your portrait painted

21:40

in in what we now in what we now call

21:42

Italy, we're talking about Italy

21:44

before Italy existed, in in a sense. It was

21:46

It was made up of a kind

21:48

of of jigsaw city states. by men like father,

21:51

who was was Codimo de Medici Grand Duke

21:53

of Tuscany, and her husband, her

21:55

who Alfonso was 'Este, Duke of Duke of Ferrara.

21:57

But the kind of wealth that

21:59

men like... Cosimo and Alfonso had is absolutely

22:02

jaw dropping. I mean, Lecratia's dowry was

22:04

200 gold scootie. I had no idea

22:06

what that meant, so I asked if

22:08

it was a story. Yeah, well, apparently

22:10

it's the equivalent of 50 million dollars

22:12

in today's money. I mean, Cosimo was

22:14

unbelievably wealthy, so he was able to

22:16

commission portraits of all his family, of

22:18

himself, of his wife, he and his

22:21

wife, Elinora de Toledo, had pretty much

22:23

an arranged marriage marriage, as Lecratzia's, as

22:25

Lecratia's was. But they, I think, really

22:27

unusually for their class and time, they

22:29

really loved each other. They adored each

22:31

other. Wow. So, and he, one of

22:33

my favorite portraits of her, because in

22:35

the most expensive colour in those days

22:37

was blue, because it was made from

22:39

powdered lapis lazuli. But there's one portrait

22:42

of Eleanor. The background, which is normally

22:44

landscape. It's just blue. There's so much

22:46

blue. And I just have this kind

22:48

of vision of Cosimo saying, I want

22:50

more lapis, more of it. I want

22:52

everyone to know how gorgeous my wife

22:54

is and how lovely she looked and

22:56

how rich we are. So it's really

22:58

to tell people about your status. Yeah.

23:01

It was also status, but I think.

23:03

It was a back betrothal. You didn't

23:05

necessarily see your future wife to be

23:07

or your husband to be. So you

23:09

would be sent literally an oil painting.

23:11

It's like what a dating site would

23:13

be now. Yeah, exactly. A lot of

23:15

marriages were arranged like that. Henry VIII

23:17

apparently was very disappointed. He'd seen, I

23:20

forget now which of his wives was

23:22

it, he'd seen a painting of her

23:24

and he'd approved and said, yes, okay,

23:26

I'll marry her. And then when she

23:28

actually arrived. he realized that the painter

23:30

had been kind, shall we say? And

23:32

he was apparently not very pleased with

23:34

the in-real-life version. So I think it

23:36

was problematic because I think as the

23:38

artist you'd want to be paid and

23:41

you wouldn't want to do a Watson

23:43

old portrait, but at the same time

23:45

there's an awful lot riding on these

23:47

portraits, you know, these kind of betrothal

23:49

portraits in a sense. I think it's

23:51

so interesting about marriage itself too, if

23:53

you're looking from the outside at someone's

23:55

marriage, it's so complicated and depending on

23:57

how you're viewing it. Do you think

24:00

of that as part of how you

24:02

were creating this story that a marriage

24:04

is a complicated thing? Absolutely. I felt

24:06

very sorry for LaCrazia for a lot

24:08

of reasons actually because she was married

24:10

to Alfonso who by many accounts was

24:12

very cold and pretty heartless. I think

24:14

really all he was looking for was...

24:16

basically just a womb that was going

24:19

to produce lots of heirs for him

24:21

and for his region. He was married

24:23

to Lecresia for a year before she

24:25

died, possibly murdered by him, possibly not.

24:27

There was a rumor that he did

24:29

murder her, but the autopsy when she

24:31

died, said that she died of natural

24:33

causes. I should mention that the autopsy

24:35

was performed by Alfonso's court doctor, so

24:37

a man in his pay. When she

24:40

died, Cosimo and Elonora sent there. court

24:42

position from Florence to attend the octopsy,

24:44

but it was performed before they arrived.

24:46

She was already buried. So make of

24:48

that what you will. So the marriage

24:50

portrait was created before she was married?

24:52

Yeah, so the only portrait we have

24:54

of LaCroatia is one that was commissioned

24:56

by the Medici's just before she began

24:59

her married life at the age of

25:01

15. One of the many questions that

25:03

arose from me seeing that is that

25:05

the... Other siblings, and as I mentioned,

25:07

her parents, were painted numerous times in

25:09

numerous situations and positions, but Acresia was

25:11

only painted once in this one portrait,

25:13

and even sadder than that, as I

25:15

said there is a room in the

25:18

Aphitsi Gallery in Florence dedicated to the

25:20

branch of the Medici's that were the

25:22

Croesius family, but she's not there. The

25:24

rest of them are there, but I

25:26

spent a long time actually when I

25:28

went to Florence trying to track down

25:30

this portrait, the original of the portrait

25:32

that I had seen on the internet.

25:34

and I know that it was in

25:37

somewhere in the Yafici Gallery, so I

25:39

spent a long time trying to track

25:41

it down in Florence because I couldn't

25:43

work out where it was. And I

25:45

had three... art historians in Florence who

25:47

were helping me and they couldn't find

25:49

it either. We were really baffled and

25:51

eventually one of them said I think

25:53

it's in the Palazzo Pete. So I

25:55

went there and I had a printer

25:58

over the portrait and I was showing

26:00

all the guards. I said can you

26:02

can you tell me where this portrait

26:04

is? And they all said no I've

26:06

never seen it before, it's not here,

26:08

you've made a mistake, I don't know

26:10

where it is. So I spent ages,

26:12

about hours walking around and eventually I

26:14

found it and eventually I found it

26:17

and it and it and it and

26:19

it and it's in this very small,

26:21

very small, very small, very small, very

26:23

small, very crowded. room and we crowded

26:25

with portraits and it's low down on

26:27

the wall next to a fire extinguisher

26:29

and there she is and it's about

26:31

the size of a hard backbook and

26:33

that really broke my heart I thought

26:36

why why is she over here on

26:38

her own why isn't she with the

26:40

rest of her family and why is

26:42

she in such an ignominious position she

26:44

ought to be in in the main

26:46

effeasy she ought to be in that

26:48

room with her family she deserved her

26:50

story to be told Yes, exactly. Well,

26:52

I just, from all kind of sources

26:54

at all accounts, I just always got

26:57

the impression, it was impossible not to

26:59

get the impression that LeCretia was overlooked

27:01

and underloved. You know, I often think

27:03

a lot of portraits of the type

27:05

young girls in the Renaissance, you know,

27:07

a lot of them look very kind

27:09

of meek and expressionless, almost blank. It

27:11

was the style, I think, but LeCretia

27:13

looks. really troubled. She looks worried, she

27:16

looks anxious, and thank crucially for me

27:18

she looks as if she has something

27:20

she wants to say. And you are

27:22

painting a portrait in the marriage portrait.

27:24

I mean you are doing that. Yes,

27:26

there's a kind of motif that runs

27:28

through the novel, a symbol I suppose

27:30

you call it, where as I was

27:32

researching it I read about, you know,

27:35

the sort of techniques that Renaissance artists

27:37

used. A lot of these artists were

27:39

actually very very... poor, they lived from

27:41

hand to mouth. So a lot of

27:43

them actually painted over old canvases or

27:45

old work or old Tavalo. So, and

27:47

that really thrilled me the idea, the

27:49

idea that you might go. to a

27:51

a gallery and

27:53

there are these incredibly

27:56

famous paintings but

27:58

there might be another

28:00

painting behind them

28:02

but we don't know

28:04

that because them, would

28:06

take know that because who would take

28:08

a... who would take time birth a Venus, know, but

28:10

but the idea that it's

28:12

possible, know, know, is people have x-rayed the

28:15

the Mona Lisa and have

28:17

seen that tried at

28:19

out different iterations of smile

28:21

settling on the last one. one, to

28:23

me to me that... feeds a lot into the

28:25

not. I the idea of the of the underpainting,

28:27

other in the shadows behind the one

28:29

that we think we know. the

28:32

one that we I love the idea of

28:34

the of the that's through your book. that's

28:36

you did that. book, and you deeper

28:39

delving deeper these layers. layers. What

28:41

was was going on in your life when you

28:43

were working on this book? on this book? suffice

28:45

to say that I had

28:47

the idea the February 2020. February 2020. So

28:49

I I probably don't even need

28:51

to say what to say what? What ensued? So I

28:54

wrote this book pretty much. It

28:56

was bookended by the pandemic and

28:58

by lockdown. And And essentially, actually,

29:00

Lucrezia and her brothers and sisters

29:02

lived in lockdown their whole lives. whole

29:04

lives. You know, to be the daughter of

29:06

an incredibly powerful Cosimo to be to

29:08

be born into that dynasty. Obviously,

29:10

she was born into a life

29:13

of enormous, of enormous privilege. But

29:15

at the same time, it was

29:17

too dangerous for Lucrezia and and

29:19

sisters, because they were the very,

29:21

very precious were their very very the Medici to

29:23

the They could be kidnapped, They they

29:25

could be assassinated, they so they

29:27

were kept indoors so much all their

29:29

life. As children, they lived in

29:31

two rooms up on the in

29:33

floor of the up and if they

29:35

wanted exercise, of they would walk

29:38

around the exercise they and that was

29:40

it. battlements and that was it. And so you related as you

29:42

were... during the the pandemic. I only thought

29:44

about it really afterwards, thought but it I

29:46

don't think it's a coincidence but yeah I

29:48

was writing about a life of

29:50

confinement. that I was writing you think -

29:52

of confinement. How do you think

29:55

photography, photography

29:58

can show things show things in? a different

30:00

way from that portraiture, or how

30:02

is it the same? I mean,

30:04

I look back at these gorgeous

30:06

layers of paint and think that

30:08

stands forever, and then these kind

30:10

of fleeting Instagram things that can

30:12

be deleted, but maybe they are

30:14

forever, too. I mean, our online

30:16

persona can be forever. That's true.

30:18

Yeah. I will say that's my

30:21

kids as a warning. I think

30:23

in a lot of ways, it's...

30:25

pretty much the same. You know,

30:27

obviously the world changes all the

30:29

time. The world of Lecratea living

30:31

in the Palazzivacio is completely gone.

30:33

Our world would be utterly alien

30:35

to her, but I think at

30:37

the same time human hearts and

30:39

minds and brains and brains haven't

30:41

really changed that much at all.

30:43

And when people are posting pictures

30:45

on Instagram, they want to wear

30:47

the nicest clothes and their best

30:49

jewelry and their makeup and their

30:51

hair to look good. cloth fluttered

30:53

them the most. They were thinking

30:55

of what's jewelry, how to wear

30:57

their hair, you know, how to

31:00

stand. Did they want to lean

31:02

on books to look clever? Did

31:04

they want to have their region

31:06

behind them to say, check out

31:08

how powerful I am? You know,

31:10

it's actually just the same, isn't

31:12

it? So interesting. Maggie, this is

31:14

great. I just so enjoy reading

31:16

your books. Beautiful. Thank you so

31:18

much. It's a pleasure to be

31:20

here. That

31:28

was novelist Maggie O'Farrell, author

31:31

of The Marriage Portrait. She

31:33

talked with Shannon Henry Clyber

31:35

from her home in Edinburgh.

31:38

Why does the portrait figure

31:40

so prominently in the history

31:43

of art? Most of the

31:45

paintings, he made like the

31:48

big ones, they hung them

31:50

on the walls and they

31:53

kind of looked like wall

31:55

paintings. Very big civic arts.

31:57

Follow just rooms. Coming

32:00

up, we travel to the to

32:02

the Franz in the Netherlands, in the

32:04

looking to uncover the secrets of

32:06

one of Europe's greatest portrait

32:08

painters. Europe's I'm Ann portrait It's to

32:10

the best of our knowledge,

32:12

from Wisconsin Public Radio of our knowledge, from

32:14

Wisconsin Public Radio, and PRX. If

32:29

you you want to get

32:31

a sense of why of looms

32:33

so large in the history

32:35

of art, in no better

32:37

place to go than the

32:39

old city of better place just

32:41

outside the old city of Harlem, just outside Amsterdam. Steve

32:43

takes us there. us there. Just a

32:45

few blocks from the huge a few

32:47

blocks from the huge cathedral

32:49

that towers over Haarlem's main

32:52

square, Hall's museum Museum holds an

32:54

exquisite collection of 16th Museum Dutch

32:56

art, art. and the largest collection

32:58

of paintings by of himself. by Haltz

33:00

Franz Haalts was one of

33:02

the great painters of the

33:04

Dutch Golden Age. Unlike

33:06

his contemporary Age, unlike he only

33:08

ever painted portraits, and

33:10

today he's regarded as one

33:12

of the greatest portrait painters

33:14

who ever lived. regarded as one of

33:16

the greatest portrait painters who ever lived. So my

33:18

name is is De Huerwelle, is

33:20

a very difficult Dutch name, Dutch

33:22

name, but I'm an an educator at

33:24

the Haltz Museum. The thing to

33:26

know about Haarlem in the the

33:28

17th century that it was a

33:30

city of migrants. Once

33:32

the Catholic kingdom of Spain

33:34

conquered Flanders, there was a

33:37

a exodus of Protestants moving moving

33:39

Amsterdam and other Dutch cities. cities. They

33:41

They brought new skills and

33:43

trades and created a new merchant

33:45

class. And Harlem Haarlem facilitated a

33:47

lot of those people, including the

33:49

family of France House, because they mostly

33:51

making draperies, linen, or beer. or beer. was

33:53

Haarlem was very famous for

33:55

its beer, and why? Because we're next

33:57

sea, sea the dunes, the lots of

33:59

fresh water coming from. of fresh water

34:01

lot of people from So a

34:03

made beer, from and those people

34:05

became incredibly rich, people those people

34:07

shaped the history of the city.

34:09

history of the did that mean for

34:11

the artists who were here? who

34:13

were The Netherlands are famous for

34:15

the amount of paintings that

34:17

were produced, millions were produced. were

34:19

That's much more than in any

34:21

other country in Europe at

34:23

that time. at that time. see lots

34:25

of people, ordinary citizens, of course,

34:27

with a lot of money, money.

34:29

but also you could see see, for example, a

34:32

baker who owns a painting. and that would of

34:34

course of course, not be a or a

34:36

a France House at that time.

34:38

But that would be a drawing, that

34:40

would be an etching, that would

34:42

be a smaller painting. But everyone had

34:44

paintings. had paintings the market was so

34:46

big was you could live you painting of painting

34:48

interiors alone. That's it. it and that

34:50

shows how much demand there was for

34:52

these kind of paintings. People build

34:55

new houses, houses you you need to fill

34:57

those houses. houses. need the the you

34:59

need the clock. you need a need a painting,

35:01

need a vase, and you combine those

35:03

things. combine all these Dutch painters, not

35:05

just the famous ones the famous ones, but they

35:07

could make a living just painting? they could

35:09

make all of them, of course. And

35:11

I mean the fact that all Hals in

35:13

the end of his life needed funding

35:15

from the state to sustain his living

35:17

with all his children, funding but most

35:19

could. to If you were a painter,

35:21

you became a master, so to speak, and you

35:24

had to join a you were a Only if you

35:26

were in a guild, you could have your

35:28

own workshop. Why did you did you have to join

35:30

a guild if you were a painter? For economic

35:32

reasons. They wanted to control,

35:34

in a certain way, the quality of

35:36

the product. joining a guild, you were joining a

35:38

guild, it meant to be had proven yourself

35:40

to be a master. had a lot of students,

35:42

had a lot of students, lot of like

35:45

Rembrandt had a lot of students, like a

35:47

had a lot of students. All those

35:49

master painters had students. Why? Because those

35:51

students paid money to become a

35:53

student. after year a year of you

35:55

would become a master. course,

35:58

you first painted the tradition of your mind. master,

36:00

and then gradually he developed

36:02

your own style. The

36:06

style that Franz Hall's developed

36:08

was distinctive, and today it's considered

36:10

a transformative turn in the

36:12

history of art. He seemed to

36:14

capture the ordinary moments of

36:16

daily life, and he painted with

36:18

broad brushstrokes. It's no accident

36:20

that centuries later the French Impressionists

36:23

would come to revere Hall's.

36:25

To the modern eye, we like

36:27

this Impressionist idea of seeing

36:29

the brushstroke instead of concealing the

36:31

brushstroke. Norbert Middlecope is the

36:33

curator of old masters at the

36:35

Franz Hall's museum. It is

36:37

sometimes as if the people hardly

36:40

posed for him, as if

36:42

they are still moving around with

36:44

their eyes, with their heads,

36:46

as if we just came on

36:48

the moment that Franz Hall if

36:50

in paint, so it always

36:52

makes an impression that he hardly

36:55

needed any time to paint

36:57

a full portrait. He's published widely

36:59

on the Dutch masters, and

37:01

he has a very personal connection

37:03

to Hall's himself. I grew

37:05

up in Haarlem, and as a

37:07

young child I used to

37:09

come here after school, so the

37:12

Franz Hall's museum is really

37:14

the museum of my childhood, but

37:16

he's so much part of

37:18

the city's consciousness. Every Haarlem school

37:20

child will visit Franz Hall's

37:22

museum at least once. That's how

37:24

it started with me. I

37:26

came here with school when I

37:29

was even, well, maybe nine

37:31

or ten, and that's how it

37:33

started. Today,

37:42

Franz Hall's is considered Haarlem's

37:44

greatest painter, and the Hall's

37:46

museum has many of his

37:48

masterpieces, including one entire room

37:50

of group portraits of Haarlem's

37:52

old civic guard. These are

37:54

massive paintings, some stretch more

37:56

than a dozen feet across.

38:00

wearing a sash in the color

38:02

of his brigade. his Some men

38:04

are feasting and laughing at

38:06

a banquet. and Others look serious,

38:08

even haughty. look What's so striking

38:10

about a hall's portrait is how the

38:12

personality of the sitter almost seems to

38:14

leap out from the canvas. of

38:17

the sitter almost seems to

38:19

leap out from the canvas.

38:21

After I left Harlem, I

38:24

After I left Harlem, I kept thinking

38:26

about Franz Hall's... and how an artist who

38:28

lived 400 years ago can still feel

38:30

so fresh today. and And would it meant

38:32

to be a portrait painter in the

38:34

17th the 17th I wanted to know more,

38:36

so I sat down with the newest

38:38

biographer of Franz Hall's. Franz Hall's. I

38:40

think he's think he's an undersung

38:43

hero of what has often been

38:45

called the Dutch Golden Age, but but Hall's I

38:47

I think is certainly one of

38:49

the great triumvirate of century Dutch painters,

38:51

along with Rembrandt and Vermeer. and

38:53

But I think he really really... recreated or

38:55

renewed renewed what it is to

38:57

paint a portrait of somebody. is Steve

38:59

This is a philosopher a philosopher who's

39:02

written widely on Dutch history and

39:04

culture, and and he happens to live

39:06

just a few blocks from where

39:08

I do in Madison, Wisconsin. in Wisconsin.

39:11

His biography of France Halls

39:13

is called The Portraitist. We know that

39:16

by the 16 teens and know

39:18

that by the has and the himself

39:20

as an himself as an important

39:22

portraitist. All he painted were portraits.

39:25

Which is sort of an astonishing thing in itself.

39:27

For instance, Rembrandt, of course, did paint portraits, did

39:29

but he painted a lot of other stuff

39:31

as well. He did. other stuff as well. a

39:33

portrait painter, you better have a lot of

39:35

good commissions. have a And we know that Hall

39:37

suffered from financial difficulties throughout his life. And

39:40

even in the 1620s, he turned

39:42

to what we now call genre

39:44

painting. now call But even these are

39:46

portrait even these are portrait-like. of anonymous individuals,

39:48

drinking, blowing bubbles, laughing, fooling

39:50

around in various ways. that's how we

39:52

that's how we made so you're So

39:54

you're absolutely right. was It was

39:56

unique for somebody to develop

39:59

themselves so singularly. to just one genre

40:01

of painting. Now, Franz Hall's has

40:03

a very distinctive style of painting. Very

40:05

different than Rembrandt, for instance, noteworthy because

40:07

it's sort of broad brushstrokes, right? Yeah.

40:10

Although even Rembrandt, as his career progressed,

40:12

adapted that technique. It's possible that Rembrandt

40:14

himself started using that rougher brush work.

40:16

after having seen Halz do it in

40:18

Olinberg Studio. And Halz was a little

40:20

bit older than Rembrandt. Yes, he was.

40:23

So it's more likely the influence went

40:25

from Halz to Rembrandt. But you're absolutely

40:27

right, as we see Halz's work develop

40:29

over the decades, the brushwork becomes rougher.

40:31

Now we call it rough, and contemporary

40:33

art theorists in the 17th century distinguished

40:36

the rough from the smooth, but we

40:38

shouldn't think that this is something that

40:40

he just tossed off very quickly. went

40:42

through a very careful process of priming

40:44

the canvas, doing preliminary brushwork on the

40:46

canvas, which is called dead coloring, and

40:49

then finishing it off. But it's not

40:51

as if he sat in front of

40:53

a canvas and just went, right? And

40:55

when you go and see a house

40:57

painting in person, if you go to

40:59

the Franz Haus Museum or the Frick

41:02

in New York or anywhere, it's simply

41:04

amazing how the effect that you took

41:06

for fine detail from a distance is

41:08

up close, really just a series of

41:10

abstract. Dabs and slashes of paint. The

41:12

other thing that's so striking about a

41:15

lot of the Hall's portraits is it

41:17

seems like they capture this moment in

41:19

time. There's an odd gesture, there's a

41:21

smile or a laugh, or it reminds

41:23

me of a photograph today. Sort of

41:25

like this instant moment that he's often

41:28

getting. I mean, there's some that are

41:30

sort of more studied portraits with people

41:32

sitting, but was that unusual at the

41:34

time? I think it was innovative. There

41:36

are a lot of lifeless portraits coming

41:38

out of the 17th century. So I

41:41

think, I think you're absolutely right to

41:43

pick up on that, that there's something

41:45

lively about a house portrait. Everyone seems

41:47

to be in motion. to have

41:49

captured them at

41:51

a moment. a Many

41:53

of the of the militia

41:56

where they're shown celebrating

41:58

the end of

42:00

their service, there's a

42:02

banquet, end of there's

42:04

laughing, there's drinking, there's

42:06

food being passed

42:09

along. You can almost

42:11

hear the noise. being passed then later

42:13

on, centuries later, the later on, centuries

42:15

the French Impressionists the French French

42:17

halls, right? rediscovered Fronzalz, Gogh

42:19

was a huge fan. fan. Sometimes

42:21

told told that he was rediscovered

42:24

in the I I don't think

42:26

he was ever lost. lost. It's likewise

42:28

Vermeer. But he really didn't come

42:30

back onto the main stage

42:32

until French critics in the 19th

42:34

century. really paid paid more attention

42:36

to him. Van Gogh Van Gogh was

42:38

was probably the greatest colorist he'd

42:41

ever seen, the way he

42:43

was able to blend colors and

42:45

make everything come alive everything come alive

42:47

the other thing about portraits,

42:49

and I'm really curious I'm really curious the

42:51

portrait seems to fascinate us, us,

42:53

it has always fascinated us

42:55

to this day this and... The self-portrait

42:58

in if you think about if you for instance,

43:00

mean those self -portraits when he was old,

43:02

I mean it's almost like he was... when

43:04

he his own mortality. like he

43:07

was Do you see that in a

43:09

his painting? mean, you the sense that,

43:11

oh, maybe you're kind of getting a

43:13

glimpse of someone's soul. kind of

43:15

It's tempting to say that, and

43:17

you think that. It's tempting to say that,

43:20

true. think that it's temptation. true. The

43:22

that I try to resist. resist... is

43:24

is looking at a portrait and

43:26

thinking, know what I know what

43:28

this person is thinking, or I

43:30

know this person's character, personality. Let's

43:33

go back to to for

43:35

example, Descartes, who was

43:37

a notoriously arrogant person arrogant

43:40

hosted a portrait of Descartes

43:42

in 1649. in 1649.

43:44

And the The man in this portrait

43:46

seems to be a touch arrogant. a touch

43:48

arrogant. But would I think that if

43:50

I didn't know that know was already

43:52

arrogant? was So seeing the soul of

43:54

a portrait sitter, sitter, how much of

43:56

it is really something that the

43:58

painter themselves have captured? or what

44:00

we bring to what we know. But

44:02

that's the fascinating question, is just seeing

44:05

a painting of someone. It's never gonna

44:07

reveal exactly who that person is, although

44:09

we might guess who that is, but

44:12

then also it's like, would we bring

44:14

to that? Yeah. And I think that's

44:16

the difference between a great portrait painter

44:19

and a mediocre one. Let's put the

44:21

poor portrait pagers aside. I think part

44:23

of what's fascinating for us lay people

44:26

in portrait painting is how incredibly accurate.

44:28

person's face is captured, that this creative

44:30

individual can take emulsified pigment, put it

44:32

on a flat surface, and somehow create

44:35

a three-dimensional picture that tells us exactly

44:37

a good portrait painter, tells us what

44:39

this person looked like. I think that's

44:42

part of our fascination with portraits. Perhaps

44:44

the other fascination is that we do

44:46

think we're being given more than just

44:49

an image of what they look like,

44:51

but some feeling for who they were.

44:53

Well, I'm also thinking that humans are

44:56

a very visual animal. And the thing

44:58

that we look at more than anything

45:00

is someone else's face. And we're trying

45:02

to get some sense of the emotion

45:05

of the other person, and that's what

45:07

comes through in a good portrait. So

45:09

what do you look at first in

45:12

a portrait? The eyes or the mouth?

45:14

That's a very good question. I don't

45:16

know. I'm fascinated. Well, I actually look

45:19

at hands. Only because hands are really

45:21

difficult to get right. And a lot

45:23

of painters hide the hands. There's been

45:26

a great deal of debate lately about

45:28

whether a girl with a flute, Vermeer's

45:30

painting in the National Gallery in Washington

45:32

is a Vermeer, is how poorly the

45:35

hands are done. Would Vermeer really have

45:37

done hands like that? But once they

45:39

get past the hands, I think it's

45:42

the eyes to me. The highlights, the

45:44

gleams. the shape, the look, you can

45:46

tell a lot of a person's eyes.

45:49

If you think about probably the most

45:51

famous portrait in the history of art,

45:53

the Mona Lisa, what is it that

45:55

draws us to that? I mean, I...

45:58

I think it's something about, we're trying

46:00

to figure out what she's thinking. I

46:02

mean, it seems like a smile, but

46:05

is it really a smile? So there

46:07

we go for the mouth first, right?

46:09

We go for the mouth, but the

46:12

smile is in the eyes too, I

46:14

think. Or is it a real smile?

46:16

So we're sort of trying to guess

46:19

at what that is, or you know,

46:21

some of the other famous portraits in

46:23

the history of art. Vengo's self-portrait. Vermeers,

46:25

girl with a girl with a pearl-with-with-a-a-with-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-

46:28

Maybe that's the sign of the greatness

46:30

in a portrait is it can be

46:32

interpreted in different ways. The other thing

46:35

about eyes and mouths and ears and

46:37

maybe hands is there was an art

46:39

writer named was Morelli and he came

46:42

up with what he thought was a

46:44

scientific technique for connoisseurship for determining who

46:46

painted what. He said painters have their

46:49

characteristic ways of doing certain body parts

46:51

and so he focused sometimes on ears.

46:53

There's a halce way of doing in

46:55

ears. Rembrandt way of doing ear. There's

46:58

a Van Gogh way of doing a

47:00

missing ear. I think of the Van

47:02

Gogh ear, not just the missing ear,

47:05

but I don't think of other people's

47:07

ears. That's interesting. I mean, other portrait

47:09

painters. Well, he thought maybe because the

47:12

ear is not front and center, that

47:14

that's where you're going to see their

47:16

characteristic, the painter's characteristic mark. But why

47:19

not think the same is true of

47:21

eyes. There's a way of doing an

47:23

eye or a way of doing a

47:25

way of doing a mouth. and Rembrand

47:28

as well. They built their facial features

47:30

up with layers of color. If you

47:32

think about the history of art and

47:35

the fact that there are entire museums

47:37

that are just portraits, the National Portrait

47:39

Gallery in DC, there's the comparable version

47:42

in London I believe, I'm sure there

47:44

are other, it's not obvious why we

47:46

would have this fascination with portraits, just

47:49

like one portrait after another in an

47:51

entire museum. How do you explain that?

47:53

How do you explain that? I think

47:55

it takes you back. If you're fascinated

47:58

by 18... century America, you want to

48:00

situate yourself among the people who were

48:02

there. See, how did they look? What

48:05

did they wear? How did they carry

48:07

themselves? I think this is true both

48:09

the painted portraits and especially photographic portraits.

48:12

I love photographs of Lincoln. This is

48:14

something that grabs me about those. I

48:16

mean, the other thing that's so striking

48:18

about so many of those older portraits

48:21

is they're very rarely smiling. Right. Because

48:23

if you smile, but you're not serious

48:25

or something, I don't know. Why would

48:28

that be? It might have been something

48:30

to do with 17th century teeth. So

48:32

I think that's the other striking thing

48:35

about Haus's portraits. I think there, there's

48:37

a lot of teeth. More smiles and

48:39

laughs in Haus paintings and any other

48:42

painting of early modernity. If you thought

48:44

much about portraits in photos, you mentioned

48:46

you really like Lincoln photos. What attracts

48:48

you to photographic portraits? photograph is of

48:51

being fascinated with Lincoln to begin with

48:53

or just generally I love seeing photographs

48:55

of US presidents from that period. The

48:58

technology fascinates me seeing the changes in

49:00

the ability to focus but also cultural

49:02

items what they're wearing. Lincoln's hair is

49:05

always a mess. Why is that? Was

49:07

there not a handler next in with

49:09

a comb? So maybe that was the

49:12

point that he wanted to convey a

49:14

certain image. Perhaps. Yeah, I don't care

49:16

about my hair. I've got a ward

49:18

and I've got a country to hold

49:21

together. So I want to come back

49:23

to this whole question of how much

49:25

a portrait, whether photograph or a painting,

49:28

can reveal the person. And I mean,

49:30

coming back to your example of Lincoln,

49:32

I mean, I too, I'm fascinated by

49:35

photos of Lincoln because I have a

49:37

sense of, oh, that's who he was.

49:39

Yeah. I mean, I can read lots

49:42

of books about Lincoln, I can get

49:44

some sense of them, but it, but

49:46

it's seeing that takes some sense of

49:48

them, but seeing that, takes me there,

49:51

takes me there, takes me there, of

49:53

a portrait. Yeah, it puts you there

49:55

and especially when it's more than just

49:58

a portrait of a

50:00

person but if if there's

50:02

a pendant and you see them interacting

50:04

with their spouse. spouse, the photographs of Lincoln

50:06

standing in the field with his generals his

50:08

over towering over them. And then series of

50:10

photographs of a younger man. as a younger

50:13

and seeing him age age as a war.

50:15

mean, there's the parallel with

50:17

Rembrandt's self-portraits. that final photograph of Lincoln,

50:19

he He looked a very old

50:21

man of the end of the

50:23

war. think of or even think of

50:25

Obama when he started his to when he

50:27

when he ended. a lot. He's aged quite

50:29

a lot. lot. He He has. we're But we're

50:31

fascinated by Pete Souza's photographs of

50:33

the whole Obama Obama Obama.

50:35

seeing Obama with others, others,

50:37

playing on the carpet with a young

50:39

African American boy sitting sitting at the

50:41

desk eating his almonds. want to We

50:44

want to see these people engaged in

50:46

the activities that made life meaningful

50:48

for them. for them. That's

50:55

Steve Nadler, a a philosopher at

50:57

the University of Wisconsin -Madison, of

50:59

and author of The Portraitist. and

51:01

author of The Portraitist, Franz Halz and his

51:03

world. He was talking with Steve Paulson.

51:06

So we took you all over the

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world today, but to the took

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51:34

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