A Withering Winston Battles the Soul of a Portrait

“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

In Season One, Episode #9 of The Crown, Winston Churchill is getting his portrait done by Modernist artist Graham Sutherland, commissioned by Parliament in honor of his 80th birthday. The year is 1954, the day is November 30th and the legendary Prime Minister is on the verge of retirement.

He and Sutherland chat during their sittings and engage in light conversation. Churchill feels like he has found some common ground with Sutherland, being an avid painter of landscapes himself, and starts to feel somewhat comforted that he won’t be depicted too harshly in the man’s brushstrokes, as in the manner of a bullfrog. 

“There are plenty of things in history that are best left in the shadows. Accurate knowledge does not improve people’s lives. The objective does not necessarily surpass the subjective, you know. Reality does not necessarily extinguish the fantasy.”

― Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore 

Or rather he hopes this to be the case. Simultaneously, he fears that the painter will be unduly harsh. Sutherland manages to get Churchill to open up about his own paintings. In particular, we learn about a disturbing connection to a long ago personal tragedy. We begin to understand that Churchill has never truly understood how his particular preoccupation with painting a specific pond carried a deeper note for him. Sutherland plucks that tiny bit of reality straight from his mind, it seems. Like a sleeping goldfish, shimmering vaguely through the light refracting from the leaves of trees, suddenly blinking into consciousness.

“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

It’s a humbling experience as the Prime Minister begins to understand that Sutherland is tapping into more than just his iconic character. He is attempting to reveal a bit of his soul as a mere man rather than wholly memorialized as an accomplished British legend. We see that Churchill is deeply burdened by his old age, failing health and less than successful last bouts of diplomacy during employment. His diminishing abilities compounded with his insecurity and vulnerability in front of the painter start to forebode a poor experiment in trust and expectation. For the truth is a crumbling wall of unpleasant geriatric realness that the whole of the world save one had already acknowledged. His denial could not possibly survive the unveiling. 

“I found it odd somehow. There were times it felt like my soul was being stolen from me.”

― Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore

He feels betrayed as he comments that the painting is so modernist. The nuance understood here is that rather than memorialized in the manner of traditional portraiture (think about all the wig wearing royals and old presidents) he is caught on canvas as closer to his authentic vulnerable self. When the portrait is unveiled to the public, an old shrunken man cast in sepia tones with half tragic eyes, he is no longer able to control his own story, his own denial. He vehemently hates the work, even though he does in fact see the artistry of truth in it. His wife, Clementine, likely in an act of loyalty and hopeful perseverance, makes a point of destroying the painting later, privately, burning it into oblivion. Too many people had kept on requesting a viewing. Its destiny, after all, had been slated as a preservation of history. It is deemed a loss to said history that the portrait no longer exists. It is also debatable just how unflattering or how true to form the final piece brought to life. There are, of course, pictures of the portrait so we can all stare and theorize internally from our computers.

“Paintings are strange things: as they near the end they acquire their own will, their own viewpoint, even their own powers of speech. They tell the artist when they are done…”

― Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore

In conjuring contemporary portraiture, (via photography) one naturally thinks of the selfie and portrait-mode. With our smartphones and other gadgets of technical wonder, a selfie can be taken a multitude of times, erased and re-taken again until we find the view that flatters us best. I wonder if there is a word to describe the mild unease we feel when someone else snaps our photo and thereby has the power to release our non-approved, unedited visage to the world. It is a very modern courtesy we extend to our friends, getting the okay to publish, delete or edit. I almost wish the saying “Oh, don’t broadcast a withering Winston” were a thing. The dedication to honest portraiture in social media is not exactly trending. And when a candid photo is published, the goal of the publisher is likely one of critique or not so subtle slander. Imagine a photo of a seemingly dignified public official getting caught in that perfect awkward moment, as a gust of wind mischievously tickles the spaces between toupee and temple.

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”

― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

When I studied studio art, I never really dabbled in portraiture. It’s intense. Also, I’m an introvert who probably couldn’t tell you the color of some of my closest friends’ eyes. A failing for sure. Beyond that, I have to admit I love the idea that someone else, even possibly a stranger, often has the keen awareness of providing a realism that an individual has no grasp of. Other people truly see us in a way we can never see ourselves. But also, our ability as people to discern faces, to recognize the smallest details and see a whole human and character is uniquely fascinating. A dedicated portrait artist truly accomplishes something exquisite in the documentation of our humanity when they capture an earnest visage. 

“Look deep enough into any person and you will find something shining within. My job was to uncover this and, if the surface is fogged up (which was more than the case), polish it with a cloth to make it shine again. Otherwise the darker side would naturally reveal itself in the portrait.”― Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore