National Portrait Gallery

I've visited the National Portrait Gallery twice now, and have seen practically the entire permanent collection (it's not a very big museum) :)

It's an interesting place, especially if you take time to read the history of the people painted. I especially enjoyed the older portraits from the time of the Tudors to the early 19th century paintings.


I found it thrilling to walk among these great people - kings, queens, princes, princesses, mistresses, advisers, etc., of a by-gone era. There was this one room where I felt especially small. It was a section on the theme of scientific discovery, and there staring at you were the likes of Joseph Priestly who discovered oxygen, and Robert Boyle who came up with Boyle's law (P≈1/V). All these brilliant brains in one room.

Also interesting was to see the real faces of Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley, William Cecil, and Sir Francis Walsingham, especially after having watched the movie "Elizabeth" on tv during our Cornwall trip. So the reality of the tv characters was emphasized by seeing these portraits of them, portraits which were present at the time of Elizabeth's reign, portraits which were only a few metres away from these famed people!

There was a painting of Elizabeth I the illustrated the importance of images as propaganda even at that time. She was in her late 40s or early 50s, but in order to sustain her 'Virgin Queen' image the painter smoothed out her wrinkles, and painted her in a low cut dress - the kind of neckline that only younger women wore. Also to give her a more authorative presence, the dress she wore was extravagant and over-the-top, with huge shoulders and an immense skirt. I thought she looked a little bit preposterous, but well, who's to say anything about the Queen's choice of attire? And yet more propaganda: she was pictured standing on the map of England, with her back turned away from the dark storms and facing the bright blue skies, illustrative of the still positive times ahead.


Anyway the funniest thing that happened in the museum was this. I was in one of the rooms, and as I glanced across to the other side of the room at one of the paintings, the first thought in my head was "Sir Stamford Raffles!!!". And true enough, when I walked over to read the tag, it said "Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles"! My history teacher/s will be so proud of me. He wasn't even in his famous standing, arms crossed pose, like the sculptures you see in Singapore. He was just sitting down. And I couldn't see any distinctive features that made me know it was him. I think maybe his face is just imprinted in my mind after all those lessons on him since primary school during Social Studies classes, all the way to secondary school history lessons. Anyway, kudos to me! haha ;)