Poet's Face
Portraits of Wordsworth. By Frances Blanshard. (Allen and Unwin, 50s.) MRS. BLANSHARD knows of eighty-seven portraits of Wordsworth—twice as many as anybody be- fore her—and the sixty-three she has found to be extant are reproduced here. They are of all kinds, from a silhouette to the monument in Westminster Abbey, and represent him at ages between twenty- eight and seventy-seven. They are all exhaustively described in the catalogue, and the relevant cir- cumstances in tbe poet's life set out in the text of the book, which is primarily an iconography. It is impossible to exaggerate its interest to anybody who cares for Wordsworth. Looking at these im- ages, one sees the inherent probability of De Quincey's comment on the poet's physiognomy, which, he said, reflected a 'preternatural animal sensibility diffused through all the animal pas- sions (or appetites),' adding that 'something of
that will be found to hold of all poets who have been great by original force and power.' He had in mind the resemblance to Milton, which an en- graving of Richardson's portrait, here repro- duced, corroborates.
Nothing else in the collection compares with Haydon's Wordsworth on Helvellyn, and the earlier portraits are naturally enough by undis- tinguished painters; but there is Haydon's life- mask of the poet at forty-five, by which, as Mrs. Blanshard says, we can judge some of the devia- tions of artists who, under the influence of Rey- nolds, wanted their work to show the poet rather than simply Wordsworth. The span of Words- worth's life was long enough to give these por- traits the secondary interest of illustrating the variety of techniques and the changes introduced into the art as it moved on 'from Reynolds to the camera; and on these topics Mrs. Blanshard is also minute and authori!ative. Everything in her book has the same entirely satisfactory minute- ness and perceptiveness; and whether one's inter- ests are Wordsworthian, art-historical or general, this is a work to be recommended as exactly per- forming an exacting and fascinating task.
FRANK KERMODE
Previous page
