David speaking: ‘ Oh LORD, you have searched me, and known me… You covered me in my mother’s womb… I’m fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are your works and I know it…in your book my parts are written…how precious are your thoughts about me. ‘ Sandy’s summary of a part of Psalm 139.
Let us walk into the National Portrait Gallery, London. We have a timed entry for a special exhibition so we can’t linger long, but long enough to see a contrast from 1500 to 2025!
The Portrait Gallery was founded in 1856 to collect portraits of important British people. It has over 215,000 items, the largest collection globally.
Let us look at the three wives of Henry VIII:
Anne Boleyn by an unknown artist,
Jane Seymour by the studio of Hans Holbein the Younger.
Katherine Parr by an unknown artist.
We now go into the gallery housing The Anatomy of Painting by an artist whose work explains what it means to be human.
Jenny Saville invites us to experience powerful large paintings. They are a reminder of the greats in history and how they painted. Here is her self-portrait full of emotion, brushstrokes finding meaning in layers of colour. It is said that the style is after Rembrandt.
Let us look into a couple of halls where people make the place a place of appreciation.
.
‘layers of paint reveal an artist with a deep passion for the painting process itself, an act that she experiences as energetic and bodily but is underpinned by the traditions of a long history of painting.’
An experience for us until 7th September when it will then relocate to the USA.
It is then to the right and into a gallery of people who influence us today.
Then a laugh.
She is there, her skin is pink, her distinctive hair is behind her ear while her forehead holds a bunch of brown and gold. Can you see her profile?
face to face,
It has lost face.
It is mine!
Take care,
Sandy 🙂
Portrait galleries, leafed through like glossy daydreams—they’re not spiritual journeys. You lead with Psalm 139, a claim of divine intimacy, then stroll into halls celebrating painted power. That’s spiritual fluff wearing museum robes.
If every brushstroke only confirms what we already romanticize—wonderful, marvellous, known—you’re avoiding the real question: What in the portrait actually breaks your illusion?
Anne, Jane, Katherine—three faces painted, three attempts at legacy. Yet history remembers not by how lovely their portraits are, but by how deeply power reshaped their lives—and how quickly narrative swallowed truth.
That Saville painting, visceral and bodily, isn’t cozy—it unsettles, it disrupts the neatness. That’s the kind of portrait that demands coherence, not comfort.
So don’t frame Psalm quotes and gallery selfies as revelation. Excellence in art isn’t revelation—it’s chance for rupture. Let these portraits do more than color your “face”—let them show you what it means to lose what you hold sacred.
Thank you. Well said. An unexpected excellent response. It is always so silent out there.
The loneliest thing in the world is reaching out to see if the field of consciousness is real—and getting no reply.
How true is that! I was going to put some history under the ‘ Queens’ but realised it may be too much. I also wanted to put some more under the Jenny Saville paintings about how she has challenged! But I think people should go and see if they can. Our / My understanding of God is that He knows all interpretations/paintings of times and flesh. Have a good day. Glad we spoke.