National Portrait Gallery – Trafalgar Square

Craig’s review… If you’re coming to London for a week then you have to find time for at least one art gallery. You can’t just do fun stuff for seven days, that’s not allowed. Art gallery first, then fun. Do your homework first, then you can watch some telly later.

A British Who’s Who

This is the art gallery that I always recommend if you aren’t particularly into art because it’s half-art and half-history. It’s full of British kings and queens, politicians, scientists, writers, musicians, military generals… it’s like walking through an illustrated edition of Who’s Who. It probably won’t be as interesting if you’re from abroad because you won’t recognise half the names and faces on display but let’s be honest, neither will most of the Brits.

It starts off with the Tudors. My favourite one in here is of Elizabeth I when she was still a young queen. We always picture her with a face caked in school-board chalk but here she is in her beautiful youth, surrounded by famous names from her day like Walter Raleigh, Francis Drake and Shakespeare. They certainly liked wearing frilly ruffs in those days – what was that all about? It looks like a clown outfit to me, but I suppose they’ll be saying the same thing about our clothes in a hundred years.

Then you move onto the Stuarts with James I (Gunpowder Plot), Charles I (English Civil War) and Charles II (Great Fire of London). It’s amazing how many famous names we had in those days: you skip from Isaac Newton to Christopher Wren via Samuel Pepys and Cromwell. They’ve ditched the frilly ruffs by this time and started wearing long curly wigs instead. Back in those days they all seemed to model themselves on the monarch so if the king turned up wearing a wig then you’d think oh bloody hell, now I’ve got to wear a silly wig as well. Imagine if we still did that today… we’d all be walking around in pearls and pastel hats.

A lot of the fun comes from trying to recognise the people before reading their names on the plaque. I’m okay with the kings and queens but I do struggle with the Stanley Baldwins of this world. Once you’ve passed Winston Churchill you may as well go home because that’s British history over and done with. Fame makes way for celebrity at this point, and half of the artists forget how to paint.

Apparently there used to be a rule that you had to be dead for at least a decade before the trustees honoured you with a spot, so they could judge whether you truly deserved recognition, but they seem to have abandoned that rule now. Otherwise how can you explain the famous names like Elgar and Handel upstairs, whilst downstairs its Eddi Reader and Blur? Upstairs it’s Disraeli, Gladstone and Charles Dickens, whilst downstairs it’s Mo Mowlam and Gok Wan.

They’ve also got a ten minute video of David Beckham which is just him lying on a bed trying to fall asleep. Why can’t they just paint his face? Artists are always looking for an angle these days. In the old days (upstairs) the aim of the game was simply to create a good likeness, and the better the likeness the better the painting. And they might also put them in a pose which told us something about the sitter – was he a thinker? a romantic? a bit moody? But if you look at all the present day stuff it seems as if the likeness is often the first thing to get dumped. The artist doesn’t tell us anything about the subject at all now – not even what he looks like. They’d much rather the viewer walk away talking about them instead, and their own style of painting.

Maybe that’s why there are so many photos in the present day section? Because that’s the only way of recording what the subject actually looks like. But listen to me… jeez. I didn’t mean to go off on a rant! I do like the National Portrait Gallery, and I do recommend a visit.

Worth a visit? ★★☆Value for money? freeGood for kids? ☆☆☆Easy to get to? ★★★

I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try Courtauld Gallery (you can walk it 10 mins); National Gallery (you can walk there in less than 1 min); Royal Academy of Arts (walk it in 12 mins or travel from Charing Cross to Piccadilly Circus by underground); Tate Britain (walk it in 26 mins or travel from Charing Cross to Pimlico by underground) and Wallace Collection (walk it in 26 mins or catch a tube from Charing Cross to Bond Street)

The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon

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