Figurative paintings always date. In the short term this is often seen as commercially undesirable. In the long term it’s a wonderful window into the stylistic art of its period, and tantalisingly into the people of its time. These immortals, for that is what the artist has made them, are there for our visual pleasure and close examination, especially of their faces, unencumbered with the usual awkwardness of reality. Perhaps an alternative way of experiencing period paintings is to acknowledge that although they are always there, you are just passing through their everlasting life. In this surrogate reality the paintings’ subjects are observing you, perpetually looking into the future. When we view them, we are visiting their world, temporary guests in their space.

This concept can be a little disconcerting when one imagines oneself as dead. If you’re lucky enough to have had your portrait painted, your galleried image has become the deathless face for future generations to scrutinise. You now have become the never decaying face of your period. Future people will visit your space and you will briefly observe them as they hopefully pass through your fissured time, just as you once did.

It is an interesting way to immerse or lose oneself in the art and people of a given period. Also, perhaps the better the painting, the easier it is to suspend your reality for theirs. Although we cannot effortlessly embrace their time, we can make social comparisons, because the human condition and its emotions are timeless.

This is beautifully told opposite in an extract of the book ‘The Vanishing Man’ by the art critic and author Laura Cummings.

An essay by Nicholas Robertson 31.3.26