The Conversation Piece: Scenes of Fashionable Life
Until September 20; Queen’s Gallery, Edinburgh

“Conversation” didn’t always mean verbal communication; the word once referred to a polite social gathering. Think refined tea parties, and musical get-togethers in the parlour. The Conversation Piece – a particular category of painting – was the 18th century equivalent of Hello magazine, portraying elegant society at leisure, lounging in all their finery at home or in the park.

The conversation piece was born in 17th century Dutch art, catering to a growing merchant class which valued family and domesticity, but was also keen to show off the spoils of its prosperity. Charles I wanted to apply these values to his public image, and so he imported Dutch artists to do the job.

The result was a trend in England for casual, small-scale group portraits, where country estates, elegant drawing rooms and fine satins were recorded as carefully as the people in them. The genre was used to bring kings, queens and princes closer to the hearts of the masses, so for instance Frederick, Prince of Wales is hard to pick out from among the fashionable throngs as he strolls through St James’s Park. It was a powerful PR tool, which Queen Victoria was later to use with skill (and not a little sentimentality) to promote the ideals of a well-ordered family life.

It’s hard for the modern eye to accept many of these paintings as being in any way informal – Zoffany’s family portraits for Queen Charlotte may be playful, but they are still posed with great precision.

Coming hard on the heels of a breathtaking show of Italian Baroque, this exhibition is unlikely to set pulses racing. Despite its Dutch beginnings, and its many Continental exponents, the conversation piece is, to borrow a phrase from the show’s curator, “as English as rain”. The shallowness of these casually-posed tableaux is such that two satirical versions have edged their way in, brimming with comedy character types from all sections of society.

All of these are easily surpassed by the undisputed star of the show, The Tribuna Of The Uffizi, painted by master of the conversation piece, Johan Zoffany. It’s the ultimate picture of pictures: the sumptuous Florence gallery is crammed full of masterpieces, with gentlemen tourists crowded amongst them. The colours are lavish and jewel-like; no space is left empty. The eye wanders from real figure to painted figure to marble figure without interruption, blending art and reality with virtuoso panache.

Catrìona Black, Sunday Herald 12.04.09