Portrait of a Prince

Stuart Pearson Wright, graduate of London's prestigious Slade school, was recently selected to paint a portrait of Prince Philip. The commission was a disaster for sitter and artist. First of all I have to ask, why did Prince Philip choose this artist?

There is no doubt that Pearson Wright is an important and talented artist. Take a look at his paintings and drawings on his website. His sense of form is superb, his draughtsmanship expert. But there is something disquieting about his images; his view of humanity is bleak. For his portrait of world-weary actor John Hurt, this view enhances rather than detracts from the success of the portrait. Perhaps the portfolio of work that led Philip to choose Pearson Wright played down the exposure of human frailty in the artist's work. Perhaps he wanted to choose an important artist, and chose to ignore the alarm bells that should have rung: 'Is this how I want to be portrayed?'

The role of the portrait artist has never been to produce his own vision of the subject - the sitter hopes that the artist will see the best in them, and that that artistic convention will imbue them with timeless nobility as it has for so many painted faces. But the favourites of the art historians are those edgy portraits that seem to flatter while revealing the impoverished humanity of the nobles they portray. Certainly there are occasional portraits of individuals whose personal power and personality shine; but how often do we see one where a veneer of respectability is allowed to obscure the human weaknesses we all share? Contemporary portraiture has taken this to its logical extreme: for a portrait to be considered 'art', it must strip bare the sitter and reveal them to the world.

So why did Philip choose an exponent of this form of portraiture? Did he for a moment imagine that the public face of royal respectability would be nobly defined by Pearson Wright? Perhaps he thought that this was truth - and could not see for himself the tired old man that the artist put on canvas.

But why too did Pearson Wright undertake the commission? If the artist had the slightest insight into his sitter's mind, he should have known that the bare hard truth has no place in a royal portrait. Give us the benevolent prince in royal regalia. That is why we have a royal family.

The Greek philosopher Plato spoke of art as laying a 'veil' over reality, and the classical tradition with its idealised beauty and mythological stories certianly bears little relationship to real life. But while might disapprove of rose-colored glasses, looking at humanity through a grey-tinted microscope lens is no more noble. Why should we always look for the worst in humanity? Is it possible, that if we look instead for the best, we might just find it ?