A SHAPELY left arm flung over her head draws attention to a magnificent décolletage, but it is the raised corners of her mouth that make Lady Colin Campbell such an unusual presence in Giovanni Boldini's portrait of 1894. For, out of more than 1,000 works on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, only a small handful are engaged in that most commonplace activity: smiling.
As a divorcée, Lady Colin was a controversial personality and notoriety continued after her death, when London galleries considered how to display a fine work of art with indelicate associations. She had the last laugh, however, now cutting a stupendous figure among other 19th-century worthies, her eternal smile eclipsing the stern features of the more conventional people that surround her. Boldini was much admired by John Singer Sargent, whose British High Society subjects, notably the sultry Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, can peer from the canvas with a look that suggests a private joke ('More than a pretty face', February 14). Emma Hamilton, too, could, in character for one of her famous tableaux, beam for artists such as George Romney, with his gift for immortalising roseate faces flushed with health or pleasure-but she was another exception. Smiles in art are so rare that, although most people recall Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Frans Hals's Laughing Cavalier, they can probably think of no other. Portraiture, traditionally considered second only to history painting in the hierarchy of respectability, seems to demand solemnity.
Denne historien er fra June 19, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 19, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds