London The Execution of Lady Jane Grey

Of my own free will, I got trapped in the Painting History: Paul Delaroche and Lady Jane Grey Exhibition on Friday, a pre-paid ticketed exhibition to prevent too many people entering the space at the same time. All of the rooms were empty when I got there. I set aside the day to be there, not something an ordinary visitor to London could do. Someone who has to see all of the sights of London in 14 days or less would be out on this one, but only because the major attractions are many.

I was alone for the day and when I am, my modus operandi is to take a quick walk through every room to get an overview of what I am about to see, and then to begin in earnest, the hard hours I know I am going to spend there.

First, I watched the continuous running movie to see how what the curators wanted me to know.

Next, I did a slow walk of the gallery with the audio guide, knowing that I would do the same thing with the audio guide at the end of the day, walk the gallery, listening to the text once more, to solidify what I had learned. I love the sound of the theatrical diction of the voices and the swelling of the music in and out of the clips on the audio guide.

Finally, I went back to the exhibit’s beginning, this time to check out every original and print that was not on the audio guide for only about 20% of them were described that way. I know that the plaque on the wall beside the pictures is packed with information, but I wear out reading it.

Read the text, step back a few paces to take a look, then going back to read it again. Given all of the other factors that make up museum fatigue, I could see I wanted to eliminate this one.

So I tested out the large-print guide. It is not so much seeing the text with large print that is good, but the fact of having the text in front of me and not having to return to the wall.

I can sit down, read the text and then do a number of pictures without having to refer to the words on the paper again.

As well, this exhibit was so intellectually exhausting for me that I began to take out another of my tricks to keep me going. I put myself in a position on one of the viewing boxes as though I were on one of the pews at church, and then drop my eye lids. I can be asleep in 30 seconds, only to wake when the pencil in my hand slips to the floor or when the book slides off of my lap.

At one point, sitting down, I was thinking of Leo always working with wood, because I sat on beautifully hand finished boxes lined up so that 3 to 4 patrons can sit in front of the painting at the same time. The wood is so beautiful that I run my hand along its edges and can feel a six inch strip of wood etching along both sides of the boxes. I quit look at the paintings to look at the details on the furniture. That is when I notice that the style of it exactly matches the trailing vines and leaves of white stencilling to the left of the explanatory text on the wall of each room as I have been entering it.

At a wall called the Shakespeare Gallery, I stop to look at prints: mezzo-tints, a grey/blue/brown wash over graphite, etchings and all hanging on the wall together, brought together by a theme. Boydell opened a gallery and wanted to found a school where painting was done of historical events. He was successful in that he published 2 books: one, an illustrated edition of Shakespeare’s plays and the second book was a folio of 100 prints, illustrations supplied by artists all across Europe. They were looking at dramatic and historical composition. Boring to other patrons, for they move quickly on by. Fascinating to me and I linger to see which of the Shakespeare plays were illustrated.

For a small break I go into the shop where I can buy a catalogue from the exhibition: £20, which is too much for me, though I doubt it is the price that is holding me back from the purchase because I really enjoy what I scan on the pages. It is just that I have figured out how many books I can read in the rest of my lifetime, and bought them already.

Pearls, medieval candles holders, a hand-carved Tudor rose to hang on my wall, a red moleskin book, so soft that I open it up and examine the binding of it and the grosgrain ribbon that is attached to it for a book mark. Still I buy nothing yet read a few more pages from the catalogue. There is so much interesting detail there that is not on the audio guide or on written the walls beside the paintings, but still I resist its purchase.

Paul Delaroche had a love affair with the model he used for Lady Jane Grey: Madame Annais, a woman who played ingénue parts in the theatre. Research for the exhibition brought the correspondence to light. A glass covered case in the middle of the room with two examples of the letters and a translation from the French to the English. I read the text there and wonder if anything was lost in the translation, so I try to check English translation against my basic and now rusty French. Looks good to me since I do know the word amour. Delaroche’s tender and playful letter to Anaiis Aubert give a sense of the relationship that was between them at the time when he was preparing to paint The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. The fact is that the letters are touching and I lingered over them, looking at his careful handwriting, re-reading his beautiful phrases to her, and looking again at her face as he had captured it on the sketches he did of her, preparing for the larger work, which I then go back to view.

I began to study the small print on the plaques, the tiny line that tells where each of the paintings came from: the British Museum; Gallery de Terrades, Paris; the Louvre; National Museum, Liverpool; Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; Koninklyk Museum voor Schone Junisten, Antwerp; Musee National des Chateaux de Main Maison et Bois-Preau; Depot de Musee Carnivalet, Paris; plus many paintings gathered together with only the words, Private Collection. I start to become overwhelmed, for I know that in the lifetimes of those who have lived before me, they could never have seen such a collection of the world’s treasures. A world of travel to other countries and negotiations to get into private collections could not have revealed what I saw, and there, for the price of $20 and 5 hours of my time I get to drink it all in.
The frames that the curators have chosen catch my interest. I have a measuring tape – my hand. I know that from the tip of my thumb to the end of my baby finger is six inches. I get close enough to the paintings that I can measure the depth and width of the frames – one of them is 12 inches deep and twelve inches wide, gold, sculptured, the relief revealing flowers and vines. So I go on for a while, frame to frame, trying to get words to describe their differences.

Next, I am drawn to the picture of St. Joan being interrogated by Cardinal Bauford of Winchester. This print is from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I have flashback to all I know about Joan of Arc – the George Bernard Shaw play of the same name, the movies where she was the star and I was young girl watching her, and I remember a few years ago, me as a mature student, studying Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), -- seeing the inquisitors pass by in that stunning long shot of the close-ups that reveals their wrinkles and warts. All of that seems to be mixed into the painting I am seeing in front of me.

I am getting tired and go for another of my power naps.

The audio guide promises a wrap up if I will push the play button once more. The text reminds me of Delaroche’s dramatic use of space and his careful attention to accurate detail. Further, the words remind me how he was a precursor to the visual culture of cinema with its moving frame that scans fields and draws the viewer into what is outside of the field of the frame.

When I leave the exhibition, there is one thing more I must do. A Delaroche painting, thought to be destroyed during one of the World War II bombings of London, has been unrolled, and the restoration committee of the Gallery are going to have it repaired. That will take a couple of years. But for now, it is hanging in Room 1, so that all can see the shrapnel damage to it, a painting called Charles I, Insulted. The interrogators are around him, one blowing pipe smoke in his face, others in positions mocking him. I stop by to observe for the text tells me to think about how this pose is a mirroring scenes from paintings where Jesus is mocked. I sit for a long time there before returning to the real world where I hop on the Bus 24 or Bus 29 and head home.

Love,

Arta