When Freud's grandson Lisjen came to paint Queen Elizabeth II, it was a collision of two names, two famous families, two era markers. For that encounter, Che Guevara would have chosen the sentence of his grandfather Robert: the only nobility I believe in is the nobility of gifted people; and then he would sit somewhere on the side, to light a cigarette, in a break between two battles.
And what would Che see?
The greatest portraitist of the XNUMXth century, whatever that means, Lissien Freud slightly bent over the easel. On the other hand, a seventy-something grandmother, stiff as if in a photo, reconciled and reduced, with a barely perceptible discomfort, which may be happening to me. Or is it happening to Che himself, so tired, did I say, between two battles.
The picture would be less seductive if Freud had not put Elizabeth II, Queen of the Commonwealth, on a 24x15cm canvas, which is the craziest precedent in the history of portraying crowned heads and scenes that make you burst out laughing.
Freud's pastiness and nervous brush stroke, which he did not give up to please her highness, are famous. There is also a well-known theory, not entirely without foundation, that Freud actually painted a self-portrait, probably following in the footsteps of his grandfather, who sought the author's relationship with himself in every work.
The deep sea is an interpretation, but I prefer to be silent and enjoy. I look at the queen, sitting in front of that crap made of canvas on a giant easel that comes to him like an empty crucifix; Elizabeth II is sitting there, even if she is in the dentist's waiting room, with the heavy smell of turpentine in her nostrils and who knows what worries under her crown. I am looking at an artist who reduced the tradition of British politics, norms and power to the face of an old woman, and introduced it into a frame the size of a children's coloring book.
These are all uploads, quite possibly; for a year and a half, the queen came to pose for Freud several times, and their relationship must have been layered and important. The painter is the recipient of important decorations of the British court. The late Elizabeta knew who she was dealing with, she bravely put her face to contemporary art. That is commendable. But it seems to me that Freud had to count on the image of himself while painting the queen, that the composition of the artist who determines the measure of earthly power is more important than the portrait itself - something that would have spoiled even Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, provided that he had not dozed off, tired as he was , in a respite between two battles.
What does that small format mean?
No one can know that for sure. Some say that the reason was practical, so that the queen would pose less. Freud asked Elizabeth for a portrait, not him. But we also know that the English kingdom was swallowed up by the advancing new age, that only the concentration of one woman, in this case a painter's model, maintained a symbolic appearance that was largely lost after her death.
The queen on the small canvas, painted in 2001, seems to say that the crown was taken within the limits of this world, that she is looking at her old self in the mirror, with a facial pretension within which the eyes that desire glory are still burning. But, in iPad format, the crown becomes just another image, an attraction, a worn-out form of fashionable worship of past power.
It is an interesting story that the painter's grandfather Sigmund treated Elizabeth's mother-in-law Alice, who at one time talked with Buddha and Jesus, which is a novel in itself, very unusual, as befits the restless beginning of the thirties of the last century and a reader willing to google.
But only Freud's grandson managed to capture all the contradictions of English history and its present, the heavy aura of a former empire imprisoned in a rectangle, while millions draw dirty fingers and look down on a lady leaving.
This is called the breakthrough of art, the power that condenses the moment and turns it into a symbol of what is to come. Photography two people, the queen and the painter, is probably the most famous work of the photographer David Dawson.
That's your life, Che would say and order the movement; the pause between the two battles is over, he is gone, he is back in his place, ready to die for an idea.
May the land be easy for the old queen. Hasta la victoria siempre, Comandante.
Bonus video:
