Queen Elizabeth was known for being a very intelligent woman. Not only did she have a good understanding of politics, speak fluently in 6 six languages and have a gift for public speaking she also had a fantasic knowledge of how to present to herself to her subjects to win their affection and support, and indeed much of her success was gained through controling her self image.
As a young woman Elizabeth was thought to be extremely beautiful, her pale complexion and golden hair had come to be desired by many Elizabthan women and was a style icon of her time. However She realised quickly the importance of personal marketing, and keeping her image as a natural beauty and icon status for as long as possible and used the reputation of being the virgin Queen as propaganda, portraying her as a strong, very able woman who had her priorities straight and who loved her country dearly, this worked fantastically to her advantage in keeping heself on the throne famously telling her subjets she was married to England. Therefore filling them with confidence in her abilities to reign as Queen.
Art and portraits played a huge role in Elizabeths portrayal, and she recognised this. She was said to order amendments to any portraits she did not see fit to be seen or that she considered ugly and if after ammendment the portraits failed to meet her standards she would order them to be destroyed, not only was she a proud woman but in carefully monitoring the image allowed to been seen by others she had had full control of building and maintaining her reputation.
Not only did Elizabeth understand the importance of looking good in her pictures she understood the power of symbolism and used this method of subliminal messages to assert and remind her subjects just what a great monarch she was. Some of the most famous portraits of Elizabeth including symbolism include the Armada painting, some of the interesting points to take upon observing this portrait are the fact that Elizabeth is seen to be holding a globe in her hand, this symbolises the fact that under her reign much exploration occured and that Britain was a strong and wealthy empire. The pearls that she is wearing have may have more than one meaning. At first glance you would assume that they merely symbolise purity and virginity which they indeed do but these pearls were no ordinary jewellery piece to the Queen infact they were once given to the Virgin Queen by none other than the Earl of Leicester, Robert Dudly who she is rumoured to have had a romantic affair with before completely cutting contact from on ending the relationship. A question that arises from this fact is did the Queen wear flaunt gift to be seen in portrait as a dig at the Earl who was already married to another woman? Due to the nature of king Henry VIII and Anne Bolynne (Elizabeths mothers) relationship and the termination of it with Anne being beheaded under rumours of witchcraft and incest some tudors refered to Elizabeth as the bastard queen, it is no mistake or coincidence that the Tudor rose is used within the portrait, Elizabeth is clearly and undoubtedly claiming it her her right to be on the throne.
Another painting in which the use of symbolism can be seen is the Pelican Portrait 1572, this portrait clearly represents Elizabeths love of England using the myth surrounding the bird, the pelican, which in tudor times was believed to pluck it's own chest in order to feed its young it was believed that the mother bird would pluck away until she herself died in order to ensure her offspring were able to survive. Although this myth is not actually true it is a clever idea to use this story to represent Elizabeths love for her country, sacrificing her personal needs to ensure the best for her people. The colours Queen Elizabeth is wearing in this picture are also of upmost importance in symbolising her status as Queen, monarch and a lady of wealth, dressed to the nines in rich black and red garments. Dying fabrich with Cochineal in the 15th century would have been extremely expensive so onlyvthe wealthiest in society would be able to afford such elaborate clothing but black was seen to represent power as well as also being a costly investment in the wardrobe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/elizabeth_I
factbook of british history, rainbow books, 1996
No comments:
Post a Comment