On portraits of humans and other animals

or rather how the humanity of painters slips out when they paint accidental animals

Currently I’m best known as a journalist, but before Tunisia and a whole load of other stuff, I was better known as a photographer and mainly a portrait and fashion photographer, so it is somewhat ridiculous that I have never been to the National Portrait Gallery (Trafalgar Square, London for non UK readers).

Something had always put me off, going inside, I’d convinced myself that they unlike the National Gallery that they charged an entrance fee, it is in fact, like all national museumsInternational free entry, except for the special exhibitions.

It was one of those rare precious crisp and sunny November days in London and I had a meeting with the International editor and the Africa editor at the Economist which is housed in a gem of art deco style architecture known as the Adelphi building, should you ever get the chance it’s worth popping into the foyer to marvel at the bas reliefs and the furniture, I don’t think the security will mind too much or maybe they will, I was there on legitimate business. As a freelancer I am now incredibly envious of my fully employed colleagues and the comfort of their office suites, with coffee lounges and large espresso machines (and regular salaries and benefits), my one consolation is that they don’t seem to have office cats or dogs, something that I think needs to change in newsrooms, but this is another story.

Coffee House at the Royal Society of Arts, I’ve not kept up my fellowship fees…ummm in decades, but with my departure from Tunisia beginning to loom and spending more time in London I’m budgeting fellowship in, it’s a nice place to work and the coffee is pretty good…and more importantly on this day, it was warm and cozy. I’m really not re-adapting that quickly to UK weather. I am a warmth seeking moth, I find myself hovering, drinking coffee slowly to extract all essence of coziness into my bones.

Despite feeling grizzly my feet were determined to leave the warmth and walk into the sunshine. In Trafalgar Square I felt the heat of the sun, only briefly. I considered going to the National Gallery but the queue was excessively long, so I turned to walk up Charing Cross Road and seeing the new entrance to the National Portrait Gallery and despite my virally aching body I decided to not waste the day and go inside.

The volunteer guide agreed with me, the old set up was off putting, it wasn’t just me. I was debating between ancient and modern, I knew wouldn’t last the full course and why would you want to “do the whole gallery” in one go? Modern won out.

The downstairs exhibition space is hung with painted portraits of 20th and 21st century leading lights, many queer, some like activist Peter Tatchell are people I know, but the most striking portrait for me is of author Jeanette Winterson, painted in her vegetable garden, leaning on her gardening fork. She’s not the real focus of attention, but her wild eyed tabby, staring with luminous chartreuse green eyes. Winterson looks out languidly but her tabby stares arrestingly, he holds your gaze with resolute intent and a certain mad intensity. Behind her is a forlorn black cat and at her side is her dog, who leans into her legs with such adoring love and care you can feel his gentle heartbeat. The cabbages and fellow brassicas seem more like exotic jungle plants, vibrating with energy under a bright lemon yellow sky. It’s an extraordinary painting.

Animals crop up occasionally in the portraits, they lurk in corners, but what I’ve noticed is that accidental animals in pictures tell us more about the humanity of the painter than their human subject. Winterson is as we’ve seen her in her books’ dust jacket photographs but her pets tell stories of other sides of not just Winterson’s personality, but of the painter. To sense and portray these animals’ emotions first you must feel them and translate them.

The painter Susanne de Toit’s preparatory sketches are on the NPG website. One sketch is just of Winterson, it’s a good drawing, but the next sketch which includes her round headed tabby is more interesting. Compare these with the final painting with her two cats and loving Weimaraner, Winterson seems only to really come to life flanked by her furry family, or maybe better to call them her familiars, as Winterson’s writing is alchemical, it’s literary witchcraft.

In my previous career I was a conceptual artist. We are a rather arch bunch, revealing little of our true selves, preferring to contemplate serious subjects, always presenting the cool exterior and David Hockney is no exception, until he revealed his true self in his drawings and water colours of his beloved Dachshunds. I think they are Hockney’s best works. Not only does it show off his draughtsmanship, but there’s an immediacy and energy in this quickly done sketches that lacks in most of his works. His early portraits of friends remain mysteries. I can read so little of these people however, his latter day portraits, especially his Normandy portrait series he seems to approach the capturing of the essence of the sitters and their inner magic.

When you draw animals you have to work very quickly, even when they sleep, they don’t sleep in one position for a very long time, you need to open up your senses and your hands must move quickly, not care for precision, capture the essence, draw the next position and the next and the next, you must obliterate your ego and only be at one with the dog, or cat and your drawing materials, not care about mistakes, just draw, just paint just move on.

Hockney’s later human portraits, have more of this energy, and I believe his portraiture work would not have developed had he not surrendered to the process of sketching his Dachshunds.

However, he still cannot draw hands to save his life.

Da Vinci however, was excellent at drawing hands, the hands of Lady With an Ermine (1489-90), a portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, an alluring young woman from the Milanese court who was an adored mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, who was of course married. Engineer Pascal Cotte spent three years using reflective light technology to analyse the painting revealing that the first version was ermine-less, the second iteration had a grey ermine that really was …honestly it’s crap, truly the worst portrayal of any weasel related animal until finally settling on the elegant, well muscled white ermine cradled by Cecilia.

The ermine’s significance is debated, it’s mooted that it’s skit on her surname, or related to Sforza in his heraldic emblems, as an allusion to chastity but it’s also posited to be a coded yet open declaration of the lovers’ relationship. The painting is nothing without the ermine. Cecilia’s face is turned away, she’s not engaged with us or anyone, she looks quite bored as any young woman sitting for hours on end for a portrait would be, all the character, wit, charm and allure is in Mr. Ermine. All attention and all her love and sensuality resides in the hand that holds and caresses Mr furry Ermine. Cecilia would have faded into total obscurity if it was not for this heraldic beast who carries the story of hers and Sforza’s love affair. In truth Mr. Ermine’s face has more character than Cecilia’s smooth young oval face.

The journey from the first portrait is fascinating, Cecilia’s exposed hand in the first version is disproportionately small. The first grey ermine is spectacularly bad compared with the flawlessly executed painting of Cecila’s face. It seems that Da Vinci’s real battle was to master the art of ermine drawing, if you look at the first ermine there’s no perceivable spine, it’s forelegs are deformed and the head is flat, it looks like the drawing attempts of a teenager GCSE with moderate talent. It belies the idea of effortless genius, and reveals that like the rest of Da Vinci had to practice and slog away at getting things right, it’s not just a case of creative indecisiveness but a moment when an artist has to admit that there are some things they really cannot paint for toffee.

Hockney can’t paint hands, and up this point Da Vinci couldn’t draw a ferret or a polecat let alone a convincing ermine. Again the encounter with painting an animal tests the artist, makes them confront themselves and the limitations of ego.

We reveal ourselves through animals In the presence of an animal we meet our weaknesses and our relationship with our own soft underbellies. Our digital age might be full of self professed “vulnerability” and the bravery to talk about our “lived experiences”, and yet we seem to have an increasing problem with our own humanity and revealing it. Animals, especially our nearest companions cats and dogs have become proxies for our humanity and this is what increasingly fascinates me and I will continue to write about.