| Event type: | Meeting |
| Date: | 20th June 2024 |
| Time: | 2:30 pm |
| Venue: | Kenilworth Methodist Church |
| Organiser: | |
| Cost: | Entry is free to members (non-members welcome for a £1 donation) |
Speaker: Dr. Gillian White
This talk examines the portraiture of ‘Good Queen Bess’ and traces the development of an English icon from tentative beginnings to the triumph of royal propaganda. As a young girl, Elizabeth was a minor cog in the machinery of the Tudor dynasty, destined to move from docile and obedient daughter to modest and submissive wife. As queen, Elizabeth and her ministers struggled to find a suitable visual image but with passing years her image grew in confidence until the realm of England became too small a canvas and Elizabeth triumphed as Queen, Empress and Goddess. Dr. Gillian White specialises in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England. She began her career at the Warwickshire Museum and then worked for the National Trust as Curator /Collections Manager at Hardwick Hall, about which she then wrote her PhD at Warwick University. She now teaches art history part-time in the Continuing Education Department at Oxford University, as well as freelance lecturing and teaching.
A Review
Well, what a fabulous dramatic presentation we received from Gillain Wright, lots of gorgeous pictures with symbols and hidden messages and meanings, - a talk full of humour.
Queen Elizabeth 1 st of England has been the subject of many portraits, all of which tell a story over and above the actual content of the picture. During the course of her reign, Queen Elizabeth I became a public icon. Her likeness appeared on many objects, from the coins in purses to large-scale painted portraits.
These images were carefully designed and served as a tool to manipulate the public image of the queen. - the first spin doctors??
Dr Gill White, a specialist in the history and visual arts of late medieval and sixteenth-century England, examined the portraitures of ‘Good Queen Bess’ and traced the development of an English icon through her portraiture from tentative beginnings to the triumph of royal propaganda as Elizabeth evolved to become Queen, Empress and Goddess.
The range of portraits shown guided us through the life of Elizabeth 1 st , Daughter of King Henry 8th and sister of Mary, Queen of Scots, showing the change in the public perception of Elizabeth from “girl to goddess” and from “daughter to deity”
Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the
last monarch of the House of Tudor.
Elizabeth was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed when Elizabeth was two years old.
Queen Elizabeth 1 st was crowned queen on 17 th November 1559, age 27.
In 1562 Elizabeth was close to dying but she survived Smallpox and lived on until 24 th March 1603, when she died, aged 69.
Without modern media the portraits were used to advertise the virgin bride,
This picture has the young virgin Elizabeth next to an open book with blank pages, as her future was yet to be written.
Society expected that she would marry and bear children to a foreign King. The pictures were also used to show the queen as a “clotheshorse” and her jewellery to symbolise her attributes, even the birds that had meaning to the Elizabethan society of the time were used. The humble Pelican was a symbol of charity and redemption since, when necessity required, the mother bird pierces her own chest so that her young may feed on her blood. The perennial Phoenix, constantly renewing itself yet “Sempre Eaden” remaining “always the same.”
All these symbols were utilised in the portraits to reinforce the position of Elizabeth in the eyes of her people and to send the message about her power, even over the weather, the storm which helped her navy triumph over the Spanish Armada in 1588 - could Elizabeth really have conjured that up???
Symbols, Flowers, Colours, Jewellery and references to Classical Literature, even the language of birds are all in the portraits to be read by the informed observer. I shall never look at an Elizabethan portrait in the same way again!