Van Dyck 'Selfie' returns to London
September 8 2015
Picture: BG
The National Portrait Gallery has put on a good display to welcome the Van Dyck self-portrait back to London. It's there until 3rd January, when it goes to Dulwich Picture Gallery, and then Birmingham. When I went to see the picture on Friday, it was being assiduously copied by a number of admirers.
The show includes a number of Van Dycks from the NPG's collection, as well as two portraits of Charles I and Henrietta Maria on loan from Chequers, the country home of the UK Prime Minister. These pictures benefit from being in good condition, but are perhaps not the first version of their type by Van Dyck. Inevitably, there was demand for multiple versions of Van Dyck's royal portraits, and it's interesting to see the varying levels of vivacity he was able to impart on each one. The Chequers Henrietta Maria is a fine autograph work, for example, but I've seen better versions of that head by Van Dyck. The format of the drapery is re-used in other portraits, and gives us an idea of how Van Dyck's studio was sometimes involved in laying in these areas in his portraits.
Anyway, the point of the show, which is called 'Van Dyck - Transforming British Art', is to demonstrate that even in these repetitions, Van Dyck was so much better than any other artist at work in England, and in that it succeeds. Poor old Cornelius Johnson, whose work can be seen in a fine selection in the next room at the NPG, could never match Van Dyck's portraits for characterisation and overall presence, even if he could, for example, paint the detail of silk ruffs with extraordinary skill.
The self-portrait is back in the same place it was hanging when, almost two years ago, the NPG began its campaign to buy the picture. What a lot has happened since then.
I was pleasantly surprised by how good the self-portrait is looking, after its recent 'surface clean'. It's always surprising to see even the slightest layer of dirt can alter a picture's appearance, especially a portrait.
