The 3D model of Mary, Queen of Scots

[AdamSmith]

Interesting.

The 3D model of Mary, Queen of Scots is the face of a historical divide

Portraits from the past reveal that medicine plus the consumer society remade human beings in the 1960s

• Jonathan Jones
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 28 June 2013 12.07 EDT

A computer-generated image from the University of Dundee of the face of Mary, Queen of Scots, as she would have looked at the time of her reign. Photograph: Wilkinson/Aitken/University of D/PA

Their faces look back at us out of portraits, marble busts and old photographs. The people of the past are as human as we are, maybe more so, and yet their noses are longer, their faces thinner, the skin more sallow or dry or scarred. This is not just a product of different artistic styles, but a glimpse of a great divide in history.

A newly released 3D modelling of the face of Mary, Queen of Scots reveals how strange 16th-century portraits look if we see them as real faces: Mary, as in her paintings, has bags under her eyes and less-than-dewy skin. Her portrait is part of a recent vogue for revisiting portraiture in digital exercises of wildly varying scientific value, from medical reconstructions of faces to people who are descended from Napoleon and Cromwell being inserted into ancestral portraits to dressing classical statues in hipster outfits.

When the body of Richard III was discovered by archaeologists in a Leicester car park, one of the studies conducted on it was a facial reconstruction of the 15th-century king based on his skull. His living descendant Michael Ibsen posed beside the model: the picture was a snapshot of two worlds. The gaunt and severe face of Richard III contrasts with the plump and well-kept features of a 21st-century middle-aged man. It's as if we are more relaxed in our skins, yet also less striking and characterful, than our ancestors.

There was another remarkable thing about Richard III's scientifically modelled face: it looks just like his Renaissance portraits. Far from being invented by Tudor portraitists, the image of Richard III that has come down through history – long nose, hard features – is historically accurate. It is conventional to think of portraits before the age of photography as unreliable images, either idealising or occasionally demonising their subjects. But accuracy was highly prized.

It's not only Richard III's portraits that appear to be grimly truthful. When King Henry VII, who won the crown from the slaughtered Richard at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, came to the end of his own reign he had his portrait taken by the Italian artist Pietro Torrigiano: I say "taken" because Torrigiano's terracotta bust is an accurate replica of Henry's appearance, made by moulding a death mask on the real face. In fact, it looks very akin to a modern facial reconstruction.

Faces from the past are often depicted with this kind of scrupulous accuracy in portraits, either from death masks or by acute observation, and the results are unsettling. People look less healthy, less primped, less beautified than westerners tend to appear today. Hans Holbein's portrait A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling shows a 16th-century English woman with bad skin, fat under her chin and traces of blackheads on her nose. A bust of Michelangelo reveals the battered face of old age. Rembrandt's wife Saskia looks ill – and would die young.

In general, faces look less fleshed out and smaller, and more wizened. This is not just a quality of Renaissance and Baroque art but very visible in early photographs. The camera came along in time to capture the strange, dark-eyed face of Abraham Lincoln: are there any faces today like his? The brilliance of Daniel Day-Lewis's performance as the venerated president – and that of his make-up artists – was to recreate this totally archaic-looking human being.

Does anyone today look like George Orwell? Orwell was ill, and the dividing line between the present and the past that faces reveal is a gulf defined by modern medicine, health systems and an abundance of food. It is a gulf that Europeans crossed in the 60s, although North Americans got there a bit sooner. Christine Keeler in 1963 still looks modern. Mick Jagger at Glastonbury in 2013 can still live on how he looked half a century ago. Faces from the past reveal that medicine plus the consumer society remade human beings in the 60s – and are still remaking us.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/28/3d-model-mary-queen-scots-face

Mary, Queen of Scots modelled in 3D

BBC

There were no portraits which were painted during Mary's time in Scotland

The face of Mary, Queen of Scots has been recreated in 3D by a team of experts from the University of Dundee.

The team were commissioned to produce a virtual sculpture of Mary's face, for a new exhibition opening in Edinburgh.

They have previously worked on major projects to reconstruct the faces of Bach and Richard III, among others.

Images show her face as it would have been throughout her reign in Scotland, from the ages of 19 to 26.

"The paleness of her skin, red hair, and strong features meant she had a very striking appearance”

Professor Caroline Wilkinson University of Dundee

Professor Caroline Wilkinson, from the Forensic and Medical Art Research Group, has created a head-and-neck model using portraits of Mary.

The model was created using 3D modelling software and craniofacial templates.

Digital artist Janice Aitken sculpted clothing and hair - then added textures and lighting to create the finished image.

Difficult time

Prof Wilkinson said: "There were no portraits painted during Mary's time in Scotland, but there were both before and after this period.

"What we wanted to do was depict how she would have looked at the time she lived in Scotland.

"Mary had quite a big nose and a strong chin so when you describe her verbally she doesn't sound attractive, but the paleness of her skin, red hair, and strong features meant she had a very striking appearance."

Ms Aitken then put textures on the model and coloured the skin, hair and eyes to ensure it looked as realistic as possible.

Religious strife

Mary succeeded to the Scottish throne when her father, King James V died just days after her birth, meaning Scotland was ruled by regents for most of her early years.

She was sent to live in France aged just five and remained there until she returned a widow 14 years later to find a country in the midst of serious religious strife.

Following a tumultuous reign, Mary was forced to abdicate in favour of her infant son and, after an unsuccessful attempt to regain her throne, fled to England seeking the protection of her cousin Queen Elizabeth I.

She spent 18 years in custody before finally being found guilty of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and was subsequently executed.

The Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition opens on Friday at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and runs until November.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23086520

[Lucky]

I know that Adam Smith will soon surpass me on the highest posts count, but seriously- Mary, Queen of Scots? I read Margaret George's fascinating 800 page fictionalized history of Mary, but doubt that gay message boards will thrive on posts about her. One can always try...

[AdamSmith]

You got something against Mary? I think the drag king Queen of Scots ought to be more widely enjoyed as a gay icon. But what with the bad press by Elizabeth, and all...

As for post count, having held the lead back when it mattered to the tune of 1500 bucks, one can now graciously leave that to others.

Or I could post The Song of Hiawatha, line by line...

[AdamSmith]

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

[AdamSmith]

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

[AdamSmith]

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

[AdamSmith]

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis...

[AdamSmith]

HIAWATHA'S PHOTOGRAPHING

by Lewis Carroll

[in an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practised writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running metre of 'The Song of Hiawatha.' Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.]

FROM his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the Second Book of Euclid.

This he perched upon a tripod -
Crouched beneath its dusky cover -
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence -
Said "Be motionless, I beg you!"
Mystic, awful was the process.

First, a piece of glass he coated
With collodion, and plunged it
In a bath of lunar caustic
Carefully dissolved in water -
There he left it certain minutes.

Secondly, my Hiawatha
Made with cunning hand a mixture
Of the acid pyrro-gallic,
And of glacial-acetic,
And of alcohol and water
This developed all the picture.

Finally, he fixed each picture
With a saturate solution
Which was made of hyposulphite
Which, again, was made of soda.
(Very difficult the name is
For a metre like the present
But periphrasis has done it.)

All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His ingenious suggestions.

First the Governor, the Father:
He suggested velvet curtains
looped about a massy pillar;
And the corner of a table,
Of a rosewood dining-table.
He would hold a scroll of something,
Hold it firmly in his left-hand;
He would keep his right-hand buried
(Like Napoleon) in his waistcoat;
He would contemplate the distance
With a look of pensive meaning,
As of ducks that die in tempests.

Grand, heroic was the notion:
Yet the picture failed entirely:
Failed, because he moved a little,
Moved, because he couldn't help it.

Next, his better half took courage;
She would have her picture taken.
She came dressed beyond description,
Dressed in jewels and in satin
Far too gorgeous for an empress.
Gracefully she sat down sideways,
With a simper scarcely human,
Holding in her hand a bouquet
Rather larger than a cabbage.
All the while that she was sitting,
Still the lady chattered, chattered,

Like a monkey in the forest.
"Am I sitting still ?" she asked him.
"Is my face enough in profile?
Shall I hold the bouquet higher?
Will it come into the picture?"
And the picture failed completely.

Next the Son, the Stunning-Cantab:
He suggested curves of beauty,
Curves pervading all his figure,
Which the eye might follow onward,
Till they centered in the breast-pin,
Centered in the golden breast-pin.
He had learnt it all from Ruskin
(Author of 'The Stones of Venice,'
'Seven Lamps of Architecture,'
'Modern Painters,' and some others);
And perhaps he had not fully
Understood his author's meaning;
But, whatever was the reason
All was fruitless, as the picture
Ended in an utter failure.

Next to him the eldest daughter:
She suggested very little
Only asked if he would take her
With her look of 'passive beauty-'

Her idea of passive beauty
Was a squinting of the left-eye,
Was a drooping of the right-eye,
Was a smile that went up Sideways
To the corner of the nostrils.

Hiawatha, when she asked him
Took no notice of the question
Looked as if he hadn't heared it;
But, when pointedly appealed to,
Smiled in his peculiar manner,
Coughed and said it 'didn't matter,'
Bit his lip and changed the subject.

Nor in this was he mistaken,
As the picture failed completely.

So in turn the other sisters.

Last, the youngest son was taken:
Very rough and thick his hair was,
Very round and red his face was,
Very dusty was his jacket,
Very fidgety his manner.
And his overbearing sisters
Called him names he disapproved of:
Called him Johnny, 'Daddy's Darling,'
Called him Jacky, 'Scrubby School-boy.'
And, so awful was the picture,
In comparison the others
Seemed, to one's bewildered fancy,
To have partially succeeded.

Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together,
('Grouped' is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.

Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.
'Giving one such strange expressions--
Sullen, stupid, pert expressions.
Really any one would take us
(Any one that did not know us)
For the most unpleasant people!'
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely).
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.

But my Hiawatha's patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he'd be before he'd stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:

Thus departed Hiawatha.

[TampaYankee]

Gives me a new appreciation for the word 'severe'. I now know what Romney meant when he said he was a 'severe conservative'.