Saturday, June 24, 2023

Portrayals of Royal Academy Artists by Royal Academicians

Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of Francis Hayman
1756
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

James Northcote
Portrait of Thomas Banks
1792
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Benjamin West
Self Portrait
1793
oil on panel
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Francis Rigaud
Portrait of Joseph Bonomi
1794
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

William Owen
Self Portrait
ca. 1795-1805
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Opie
Self Portrait
1801-1802
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Samuel Woodforde
Self Portrait
1805
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Thomas Phillips
Self Portrait
ca. 1820-30
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Edward Hodges Baily
Bust of Thomas Stothard
1826
marble
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Charles Robert Leslie
Portrait of John Constable
ca. 1830
oil on panel
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Prescott Knight
Portrait of Charles Lock Eastlake
1857
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Henry Tanworth Wells
Portrait of Charles West Cope
1879
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

John Pettie
Portrait of Thomas Faed
1887
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Frederic Watts
Portrait of Frederic, Lord Leighton
1888
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Frampton
Bust of William Strang
1903
bronze
Royal Academy of Arts, London

George Clausen
Portrait of Stanhope Forbes
1915
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

William McMillan
J.M.W. Turner
1936
bronze statue
Royal Academy of Arts, London

Waste

One of the geese, stereotypically silly,
has left an egg in plain sight at the edge
of the silty pond that only days ago
swallowed the last of its ice: the paper-white
shell against the new green of the grass tuft
she thought would do for a nest is almost
shouting for notice. Which it soon will get,
poised keen for calamity between
the bike path and the water's tarnished mirror.
Midnight snack for a skunk or a raccoon,
or handful for some unreflective child
to clamp and  heave, it has already had
its future signed away by what appears
the unembarrassed absentmindedness
of Nature. Nothing to do, it's cold already,
just as null as that antique darning egg
that used to pop up as an annual joke
in an Easter basket, unfunny even then.
Tantalized by its tactility,
I scan it one last time and do not touch.
Here where I see it I will see it gone
tomorrow, having done with its poor docile
journey back to the heedlessness it never
adequately escaped. If keeping track
of things were something I were better at,
I might adopt it as a white reminder,
something of worth abandoned that I ought
to pledge allegiance to even as I
in turn desert it, turning to walk on. 
But could I fairly promise to remember?
Who am I to arraign the Great Carelessness,
given those hosts of tender true beginnings
molded in mind, each perfect as that oval
and pulsing with incipience, brought to light
only to pass through dormancy to doom,
finished by this brisk air I seem to thrive on? 

– Robert B. Shaw (2002)