Forgotten Faces What ties the portraits together to create the exhibition at the National Gallery is the lack of a story behind each portrait.

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While much of the recent coverage surrounding the National Gallery of Ireland has centred on the remodelling and re-opening of the old wing and the much lauded Vermeer exhibition, a smaller and humbler affair resides, for a short period longer, at the end of the gallery’s Milltown wing.

The premise of the Forgotten Faces exhibition is a unique one. It comprises of eleven portraits, mainly hailing from the Netherlands, but also Italy and Spain, which were painted throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. What ties the portraits together to create the exhibition is the story behind each portrait, or rather, the lack thereof. Upon entering the exhibition space, we read that the identities of the portrait’s sitters have faded from memory. The paintings themselves are the only relics the gallery has of them and while we can surmise, based on the clothing and objects with which the sitter is painted, some detail about the identities of the sitters, the portraits fail to reveal the whole story.

This does not detract from the experience but creates it. Upon walking into the relatively dark gallery space we are met by the penetrating gazes of the eleven individuals portrayed, a somewhat unnerving experience in itself. Each portrait is individually lit by a single spotlight, visually reinforcing the exhibition’s premise of individuals recovered from the fog of the past.

In the absence of biographical detail, the information plaques for each of the portraits ask questions about the individuals represented in the paintings, and the larger themes of the exhibition, such as mortality and the purpose of portraiture. Sometimes they provide insight into the possible purpose or story behind the portrait; the likeness of one soft-lipped and smouldering Dutch man, we are told, was likely created for his long-distance lover, for example.

The lack of archaic noble titles and details of aristocratic lives to which we cannot hope to relate, which are usually presented alongside portraits of this sort, encourage us to experience them in a way we perhaps had not considered before. Aided by the intimate surroundings, the portraits take on an unexpected level of humanity. We are encouraged to see the sitters as individuals subject to the same mortality as ourselves. Grouped together, the experience can be humbling and uplifting. The noble effort is well worth a visit.

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