Comparing the Three Faces of William Shakespeare
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The Three Faces of William Shakespeare
The only one of the three that is, beyond doubt, of Will was engraved after his death by a man who'd never met him. The other two fit the time frame and are heavy in circumstantial evidence, but aside from the right place at the right time (and a generous helping of artistic implication) neither case has any hard proof. Despite this, the argument for both is compelling enough for the experts to generally agree (see their individual pages for further details); quite a rare circumstance in objective investigative academia.
If we allow for an element of the common practise (Queen Elizabeth wasn't above it so why should anyone else be?) of artistic flattery from the Cobbe portrait (he does look very well-kept for a man in his mid forties), and perhaps a less flattering but also less technically accomplished artist for the Chandos, and then think of the Droeshout as having been engraved in brass (significantly harder than brush on canvas) by a young man who had only seen Shakespeare through word of mouth and the other portraits, then we begin to notice a definite similarity; maybe even a step towards looking at the man himself.
Though none can be the 'perfect photograph', they do arguably share characteristics. The sunken eyelids, the receding hairline, the arch from brow to nose, the wry upturn of the lips, the depth of the eyes, the shape of the face; there's definitely... something.
Even in photography you can have a thousand contrasting images of the same subject. Lighting, angle, lense, quality, exposition; all of these play their part, and that's without even starting on variations in the model themselves. This in mind, why can they not all be portraits of Stratford's greatest export? Each a different style, each a different view, each a different side.
That William Shakespeare was multi-faceted is an understatement. Perhaps in comparing the three we can get closer to seeing the man behind the canvas than we ever would with a single definitive portrait. Perhaps not; perhaps all are right, perhaps three are right, perhaps one is right, perhaps none are right. In the end, does it matter?
"This figure that thou here seest put,
it was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With nature, to out-do the life:
Oh but he could have drawn the wit
As well in brass as he hath hit
The face: the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot,
Reader, look Not on his picture, but his book."
-Ben Jonson (on the Droeshout Engraving)
The rest, as they say, is silence.
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See Also:
Wikipedia's entry on the Shakespeare Portraits
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraits_of_William_Shakespeare#Portraits_clearly_identified_as_Shakespeare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobbe_portrait
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chandos_portrait
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Droeshout
The National Portrait Gallery's 48 Portraits of Shakespeare
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?search=ss&sText=shakespeare&LinkID=mp04051
BBC Article on the Cobbe Portrait
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7936629.stm
The Pictures of William Shakespeare
http://www.william-shakespeare.info/william-shakespeare-pictures.htm
Online Facsimile's of the Quarto and Folio Editions of Shakespeare's Sonnets and Plays
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/facsimile/overview/play.html