{"id":297068,"date":"2024-10-21T07:04:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T07:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=297068"},"modified":"2024-10-22T06:56:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T06:56:16","slug":"what-the-shakespeare-portrait-controversy-can-teach-us-about-our-relationship-with-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=297068","title":{"rendered":"What the \u201cShakespeare portrait\u201d controversy can teach us about our relationship with reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kit Knightly \u2013 Off-Guardian Oct 20, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is having the portrait of William Shakespeare removed from No. 10, according to various reports across the legacy media.<\/p>\n

This has \u201csparked a backlash\u201d<\/a>according to the Evening Standard.<\/p>\n

People on social media are asking \u201cWhat does this mean?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Telegraph<\/a> quoted former-Culture Secretary Sir Oliver Dowden:<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister spent the election loudly proclaiming his patriotism, but now the election is over he\u2019s succumbing to the usual Left-wing cringing embarrassment about our past [\u2026] Not content with removing Thatcher, Gladstone, Raleigh and Elizabeth I, he\u2019s now consigning Shakespeare to the dustbin.<\/p>\n

If you want my opinion \u2013 well, here it is\u2026<\/p>\n

The portrait was removed (or is said to have been removed) simply to create more fuel for the \u201cLabour hates Britain\u201d fire.<\/p>\n

The \u201ccontroversy\u201d is \u00a0a psy-op designed to outrage those people who probably \u00a0don\u2019t<\/em> read Shakespeare but do<\/em> read Tommy Robinson\u2019s twitter account. It\u2019s another irrelevant non-issue designed to get people screaming at each other in impotent rage.<\/p>\n

Just garbage.<\/p>\n

Of much much more interest is the portrait itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Firstly, it\u2019s not<\/strong> exactly a painting of \u201cWilliam Shakespeare\u201d the playwright.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s at absolute best a copy<\/em> of a painting of Shakespeare, but in fact is quite unlikely to even be that.<\/p>\n

It was painted circa 1758, around a hundred and fifty years after the author\u2019s death, and is \u00a0a (bad) copy of the famous \u201cChandos Portrait\u201d<\/a> seen here:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u2018Chandos portrait\u2019 allegedly depicting William Shakespeare.Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2026but the Chandos portrait probably isn\u2019t of Shakespeare either.<\/p>\n

Or at least it has zero provenance before 1719, and nobody knows exactly who painted it, when they painted it or who it\u2019s intended to portray.<\/p>\n

A note in the margin of a book owned by antiquary George Vertue<\/a>, dated 1719, purports to give a brief history of the painting. It reads as follows (idiosyncratic spelling and random punctuation is in the original):<\/p>\n

The picture of Shakespear one Original in Possession of Mr Keyck of The Temple. he bought for forty guuineas of Mr Baterton who bought it of Sr W. Davenant. to whom it was left by will of John Taylor. who had it of Shakespear. it was painted by one Taylor a player and painter contemp: with Shakes and his intimate friend.<\/p>\n

Mr Betterton told Mr Keck several times that the Picture of Shakespeare he had, was painted by one John Taylor a Player, who acted for Shakespear and this John Taylor in his will left it to Sr Willm. Davenant. at the death of \u00a0Sir Will Davenant \u2013 Mr Betterton bought it, at his death Mr. Keck bought it in whose poss. it now is.<\/p>\n

This note, written 103 years after Shakespeare is said to have died, is the ONLY provenance linking the portrait to him. The rest is \u201chearsay and assumption\u201d, according to art historian Tarnya Cooper\u2019s book on the subject:<\/p>\n

The early history of the painting relies upon hearsay, half-remembered facts and assumptions\u201d
\nTarnya Cooper \u2013 Searching for Shakespeare<\/a>, Yale University Press, 2006 (p 54)<\/p>\n

And from \u00a0Wikipedia<\/a>, emphasis added:<\/p>\n

It has not been possible to determine with certainty who painted the portrait, or whether it really depicts Shakespeare<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

None of its claims have been independently verified at this time. There is no evidence the painter John Taylor <\/a>painted this picture. His will is extant and does not include any mention of a portrait of Shakespeare being left to sir William Davenant or anyone else (Cooper, ibid).<\/p>\n

There is no hard evidence it was passed on from Davenant to a man called Baterton (or Betterton), no hard evidence it went from him to a man called Keyck (or Keck).<\/p>\n

But even if we take this completely unsupported \u201cprovenance\u201d as true it only leads us back to William Davenant<\/a>. To describe this man as a somewhat unreliable narrator would be a profund understatement. He was in fact a \u201cShakespeare fantasist\u201d, who claimed on different occasions, and on the basis of no evidence, to be William Shakespeare\u2019s godson and\/or his illegitimate \u00a0child.<\/p>\n

Again, from Cooper\u2019s \u201cSearching for Shakespeare\u201d (p.55, emphasis added):<\/p>\n

There are a number of unanswered questions that make us want to challenge the chain of events recorded by Vertue. For example, who decided this particular picture was a portrait of Shakespeare, and not another fashionable Jacobean urban dweller?<\/strong> William Davenant [who] was known to embroider upon his association with Shakespeare.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So even if \u201cSir Will. Davenent\u201d did<\/em> once own this picture and claim it was a portrait of his \u201cgodfather\/dear old dad\u201d, that does little to nothing to validate it as a genuine artefact.<\/p>\n

In a rational world that really should be the end of it shouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Very bad picture of unidentified man with no provenance is worth nothing evidentially and must be dismissed out of hand unless or until some further provenance emerges.<\/p>\n

Oh but hold on there. You\u2019re forgetting something way more important than facts and reason.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re forgetting the urgent and irresistible need to believe<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n

You know that lovely warm cozy feeling you get when you decide those pesky facts don\u2019t matter any more, because you just don\u2019t want them to.<\/p>\n

The National Portrait Gallery know that feeling well. They think it\u2019s \u201ccertainly fairly likely\u201d<\/strong> that completely anonymous, unsourced uncorroborated picture does depict the Bard.<\/p>\n

Why? Well, the subject is about the \u201cright age\u201d (though how you determine that without knowing when the portrait was painted is hard to ascertain), might resemble other paintings alleged to be the Bard and\u2026<\/p>\n

In 2006, art historian Tarnya Cooper of the National Portrait Gallery completed a three-and-a-half-year study of portraits purported to be of Shakespeare and concluded that the Chandos portrait was most likely a representation of Shakespeare. Cooper points to the earring and the loose shirt-ties of the sitter, which were emblematic of poets<\/em><\/p>\n

Forget the total absence of any evidence whatsoever. Wipe that from your mind. The sitter\u2019s totally subjective age, his earring <\/em>\u00a0and those loose shirt-ties \u00a0are all we need to tell us it\u2019s \u201cmost likely\u201d Shakespeare after all!<\/p>\n

Because how many non-poets \u00a0aged somewhere in their 30s or 40s EVER wore earrings or loose shirt-ties? I would guess NONE!<\/p>\n

And if he must be a poet \u2013 well then he\u2019s probably THE poet \u2013 Shakespeare<\/p>\n

Deductive reasoning at its finest.<\/p>\n

Most curious and telling might be that the Tarnya Cooper who makes these strained claims for the authenticity of this picture is the same Tarnya Cooper we quote above, making \u00a0the eloquent point that it is entirely un<\/em>authenticated!<\/p>\n

She points out the \u201chearsay and assumptions\u201d<\/em>, the \u201cunanswered questions\u201d<\/em> and that a key witness has a history of \u201cembroidering his association with Shakespeare\u201d<\/em> and then concludes the painting is\u00a0 \u201ccertainly fairly likely\u201d<\/em> authentic\u2026because of the earring.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the world of Shakespearian history, where a little fact goes a very long way and \u201callegedly\u201d, \u201cmay have\u201d, \u201cprobably\u201d, and \u201ccould be\u201d do serious power-lifting as a matter of course.<\/p>\n

The final level of strangeness is the same thing that overlays all discussion of Shakespeare \u2013 the meta-weirdness of \u201cthe authorship question\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There is good evidence to suggest \u201cWilliam Shaksper, the man from Stratford\u201d and \u201cShakespeare the playwright\u201d were not the same person, and the name \u201cShakespeare\u201d was \u00a0a pen-name for someone else (or multiple people).<\/p>\n

So, when analysts discuss the sitter \u201cappearing to be the right age\u201d because Shakespeare was 36-46 when this painting was supposedly<\/em> painted, they could well be talking about entirely the wrong person anyway.<\/p>\n

In summary, for those keeping score at home, the painting everyone is so upset about:<\/p>\n

Is a later copy of an earlier work\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026that has no reliable provenance\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026and was painted by an unknown artist\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026at an unproven time\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026for an unknown patron\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026of an unnamed subject.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re so many layers deep in speculation and doubt and articles of belief that the truth has long vanished over the horizon.<\/p>\n

And to top it all off, the whole story about Starmer having the painting taken down might just have been made up to annoy people.<\/p>\n

To return to an earlier question: What does this mean?<\/p>\n

Absolutely nothing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That kind of thing is just interesting to me.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kit Knightly on the world of Shakespearian history, where a little fact goes a very long way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":297071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=297068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297070,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297068\/revisions\/297070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/297071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=297068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=297068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=297068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}