Posted on 02/03/2020 10:41:27 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
A U.K. exhibit commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz includes works by an artist more often seen in front of the camera than behind it: Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and an avid amateur photographer.
Middleton contributed two portraits to the Royal Photographic Society’s exhibit of photos of Holocaust survivors with their grandchildren...
In a statement, Middleton said that she wanted to emulate Anne Frank’s “sensitive and intimate” depiction of the Holocaust. But even more visible in her portraits is the influence of the non-Jewish source from whom she took inspiration: the Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer. In both portraits, light intrudes subtly upon dark backgrounds, illuminating the subjects’ faces and richly colored clothes...
Middleton’s choice of Vermeer as an influence suggests a careful, detailed approach to her project... During the 17th-century Golden Age of Dutch painting, he and his peers reacted to an era of great turmoil by focusing on domestic scenes. In a century that saw an explosion of Dutch prosperity, a protracted war with Spain and a transition away from Catholicism, artists increasingly evinced the belief that societal upheaval can be depicted most effectively through scenes of everyday life, and that extraordinary events are most important for their effect on ordinary people.
During the Blitz, Middleton’s great-grandfather by marriage, George VI, regularly visited the scenes of destruction with his wife, exposing himself to the same danger faced by ordinary citizens... Yet just a few years before war broke out his own brother, who openly expressed sympathy for the Nazi regime...
By sympathetically portraying Jewish suffering and enfolding Jews into the larger British narrative of grit and survival, she’s beginning to correct yet another unsavory episode.
(Excerpt) Read more at forward.com ...
Evidently that’s a “thing” these days...friend of friend is a seamstress and does wedding dress fittings...chick’s kept coming in commando so she bought granny underwear for them to use....and this is in South Dakota!
Her name is NOT Kate Middleton.
Good on Kate. She seems to have a great deal of class in dealing with a very delicate subject.
Too bad that most of the rest of the British aristocracy didn’t give a rat’s ass about the Jews - not before, during or after WW2. There were, of course, some notable exceptions, with Sir Winston Churchill being the best known.
Thanks for posting these here. Those first 2 portraits are lovely. As is she.
Ping!
A wonderful article dying the composition to Vermeer. Would have missed it if you hadn’t posted. Thank you.
Beautiful Memorial.
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