athena art foundation — Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's Portraits: A Dialogue Across The Centuries

By Esme Garlake

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s show at Tate Britain (finishing at the end of February) draws together 80 of her paintings, each one accompanied only by an elusive title, which Yiadom-Boakye describes as “an extra brushstroke”. Although Yiadom-Boakye creates (often very large) oil paintings of people, these are not portraits of real people. Instead, as art critic Jonathan Jones explains, the people in Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings are “fictional creations, imagined characters. ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe,’ Magritte wrote beneath a painting of a pipe. Yiadom-Boakye’s exhibition could have been simply called ‘This is not a portrait.’” The first painting visitors see upon entering the exhibition is the large oil on linen Black Allegiance to the Cunning (2018), a smiling figure sat on a chair, under which sits a relaxed fox. The fact of knowing that this person is a figment of the artist’s imagination allows the viewer to pass over any thoughts of the relationship between artist and sitter, or the personality, history or appearance of the sitter. Instead, the artist invites viewers into her mind, a scrapbook of impressions, images, feelings, associations. The exhibition’s pamphlet (the only piece of extended writing offered to visitors in the exhibition) explains that Yiadom-Boakye composes her paintings by collating images she collects and creates over time. In one interview, Yiadom-Boakye explains that her art gives “my sense of how I see the world. That’s not to say that it’s right, or accurate, or that it even makes any sense. But I’ve always wanted that to come through somehow.”

Yiadom-Boakye is constantly asking us to re-evaluate the tradition of portraiture. Reviews of the Tate Britain exhibition have hailed it as pushing the boundaries of figurative oil painting, and shaking up what visitors might have in mind when we think of ‘portrait painting’. As Aindrea Emelife writes, “For all its merits in contributing to depictions of Black people in art, and the poignancy of filling Tate Britain with proud Black figures, the exhibition cements how Yiadom-Boakye triumphs as a figurative painter, irrespective of her chosen subject.” Of course, any visitor will feel the power of filling the exhibition rooms with paintings of proud Black figures, particularly in an institution like Tate Britain. Jonathan Jones remarks: “it’s like you’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up in the 18th-century galleries. Except the Black people who only play servile, secondary roles in those portraits now occupy the foreground and the high spiritual plane once reserved for white faces in art.” Indeed, many of Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings seem to enter a dialogue with art historical portraits; viewers may have a sense of having seen something like it before, in mood, composition, brushwork, although often it is also the differences which emerge most starkly. The beauty and power of this dialogue is that it is never direct or explicit, but rather suggestive, and dependent upon the interpretation and associations of each viewer. The following parallels, then, which we have made between Yiadom-Boakye’s works and portraits from pre-modern art history, are very much only starting points or suggestions.

Mystic Edifice (2020) and The Saviour by El Greco (1608-14)

The angular folds of red cloth in Yiadom-Boakye’s Mystic Edifice are what first reminded me of El Greco’s paintwork. In her painting, the young man’s expression is difficult to read; he seems relaxed, but there might also a hint of anticipation (or is it exasperation?) in his slightly raised eyebrows. Why does he lift the red cloth around his head? Is it an item of clothing, a towel, a blanket? Perhaps it is the richness of the red, laid onto the canvas in thick oil paint, which lends him an air of majesty. El Greco’s Christ demands respect through direct eye contact, and his commanding raised hand. The halo around Christ is rendered only as a rough square of white paint around his head, with space for the brown canvas background around it. In Yiadom-Boakye’s painting, the top of the young man’s head does not fit into the canvas; a halo is not important here.

Bound Over To Keep The Faith (2012) and Peeckelhaeringh by Frans Hals (1628-30)

It is not often that we see oil paintings of people laughing; so when I saw Yiadom-Boakye’s painting Bound Over To Keep The Faith, I immediately recalled the laughing paintings by Frans Hals. In both cases, viewers might feel a mixed sense of amusement and discomfort; what are they laughing at, as they stare directly at us? Are we in on the joke, or are we the joke? In one review, Tara Advaney suggests that Yiadom-Boakye’s painting is “contemptuously snickering at you for not understanding what’s really going on”. In Frans Hals’ portrait, the artist depicts a comic theatrical character (or ‘type’) called Mr. Peeckelhaering (an old Dutch word for pickled herring). The stock character is a drunkard and buffoon, whose diet of herring supposedly gave him an insatiable thirst. We therefore probably know why he is laughing: he is drunk, tankard in hand, lips wet with beer. Yiadom-Boakye denies us any such clues or narrative. Instead, as Advaney continues: “the best part of the work ends up being the subject’s glinty eyes, offering at least one conclusive element: that we won’t ever be able to answer these questions.”

Accompanied To The Kindness (2012) and Lady Cockburn and her Three Eldest Sons by Joshua Reynolds (1775)

Perhaps the only thing that these two paintings have in common is the inclusion of a parrot; more specifically, a scarlet macaw. In the painting by Joshua Reynolds, the parrot sits in the background, assuming a decorative role in front of the column. Its presence largely functions as a signifier of the sitters’ wealth; an indication that Lady Cockburn and her family could afford access to the most luxurious foreign goods (including animals). Another function of the parrot has been explained by a descendent of Lady Cockburn: “It has always been understood in my family that we were all descended from the parrot. Not that we are actually birds, but family legend has it that there were four children, but one had measles, so the parrot stood in for him.” However much the parrot plays a significant role in the painting, it is marginalised to the far right-hand side, and looks in the other direction away from the family scene. So when we see the same parrot in Yiadom-Boakye’s painting Accompanied To The Kindness, the interaction between man and bird is even more striking. There is a mutual respect, a sense of connection and knowing. In a fascinating video about the show, Tate Britain’s Director of Exhibitions and Displays Andrea Schlieker talks about the inclusion of animals in so many of Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings: “Lynette is also a writer, and she writes… non-rhyming prose poems that are very reminiscent of Aesop’s Fables or La Fontaine’s Fables… very much with animals being the prime actors. The animals often are the powerful ones, they are the ones who know all about the weaknesses of the humans.”

Condor and The Mole (2011) and On The Beach by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (1908)

When I first saw Joaquín Sorolla’s paintings, I remember being immediately struck by the freedom with which he applies oil paint to the canvas; and I had the same reaction when I saw Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings in this show. Sorolla is most famous for his beach scenes, often depicting children playing in the sea under the hot Valencian sun. In this painting On The Beach from 1908, Sorolla captures the intense evening sunlight on the woman’s face, with an explosion of bright orange, amidst a whirl of lively brushstrokes. We see a very different injection of orange in Yiadom-Boakye’s painting Condor and the Mole; the skirt of one of the girls is a duller, rusty orange, but it stands out boldly against the muted tones of the white-grey beach. Unlike in Sorolla’s painting, which includes an adult woman in the role of caregiver to two children, Yiadom-Boakye’s girls are alone, and totally absorbed in their own world. It seems to capture the magic of childhood imagination and friendship.

A Passion Like No Other (2012) and Gilles by Antoine Watteau (1718-19)

A Passion Like No Other is the poster boy of Yiadom-Boakye’s show at Tate Britain, and with good reason; it seems to encapsulate the artist’s fascination with the blurred lines between reality and fantasy. As Jonathan Jones observes: “The young man who stands in a strange medium of aquamarine blueness, as if under water, wearing a frilly collar like a clown… gazes outwards with the intense solitude of the rococo artist Watteau’s triste harlequin Gilles, someone caught on the anxious borderline between theatre and life.” I think that theatre, in this sense, can also include the idea of spectacle, of being looked at as an object of entertainment, comedy, or even mockery. The strength of Yiadom-Boakye’s direct eye contact seems to call out the viewer, in some way, asking us to question and re-think our expectations about performance and costume.

I am sure that each painting in this exhibition will bring up rich and varied associations for each individual visitor; from personal memories, films, conversations, books, photographs, artworks, and so much more. Here are a few more images, connections and contrasts which may spark questions or ideas…