Shakespeare's Face

Foreword

Like the painting that inspired it, this book can be read in different ways. One way is as a work of investigative journalism in which Stephanie Nolen goes behind the story she broke in May 2001 about a then-unknown portrait possibly of William Shakespeare. Her six chapters, which form the spine of the book, take us along on her voyage of discovery. As she notes, she is neither a Shakespeare scholar nor a trained art historian, but rather a curious layperson who attempts to unravel the mystery of the painting and to seek answers to the many questions it poses. From time to time, she calls on an expert to assist her in solving a particular puzzle or in separating fact from fiction.

Read another way, Shakespeare’s Face is a fascinating work of literary and art historical scholarship in which a distinguished group of experts from Canada, Great Britain and the United States bring all their wit and learning to bear on a very old picture. They look at the Sanders portrait as an artifact, as a work of art, as a cultural icon and as a fascinating window into Shakespeare’s world. I’ve met only two of these scholars in person, but I like to imagine them gathered around the painting as I saw it when it went on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, in the summer of 2001.

The portrait sits on a pedestal in the middle of a small gallery. The scholars form a circle around this enigmatic object -- are some of them trying to catch its eye? -- each one with a different point of vantage. At first the room is quiet, as each of them looks for the clues that mean the most to her or him. One scholar moves up to look at the painting face to face. Another inspects the back of the panel under a magnifying glass. Still another seems to be as interested in his Collected Works of Shakespeare as in the picture. Finally one of them offers an opinion. Another chimes in. And soon the room is filled with animated discourse. (Involved in this conversation and yet separate from it is Stephanie Nolen, who is writing furiously in her notebook and missing not one crucial detail.) The conversation they might have had if they had met around the portrait is the one they now hold in the pages of this book.

But perhaps the most satisfying way of reading Shakespeare’s Face is as a historical detective story in which some of the evidence is four hundred years old, some is still warm and some may still turn up. In this version of the book the skills of all its writers -- ten scholars and one journalist -- are needed: investigative reporting; art historical analysis; paleography; literary deduction; genealogy; cultural anthropology; scientific analysis; painstaking archival research, to name a few. All their skills combine in an attempt to answer the question that all of us must ask of the slightly naughty-looking fellow in the Sanders portrait: Are you Shakespeare, or aren’t you? Is yours the face of genius?

If your experience of reading Shakespeare’s Face is anything like mine has been as its editor, charged with bringing all these pieces together into what I hope makes for a coherent whole, then as you turn these pages, and move from one point of view to another, you will change your opinion time and again on its central question. In the process you will learn a great deal about a great many things, ranging from the forensic analysis of old works of art to the hidden messages in obscure Elizabethan poems. But most of all you will gain a new and more intimate sense of William Shakespeare.

However you read this book, you will always come back to Shakespeare and the extraordinary staying power of his genius. He is omnipresent in our world even if he comes from a place and time quite alien to our own. He is where we least expect him, including, some would argue, in a painted face on an old and somewhat battered oak panel that has gone unnoticed for most of its life since perhaps a fledgling player in Shakespeare’s company applied the paint, layer on layer on layer, until it formed a face -- a face of which one thing can be said for sure: it looked upon the same England that Shakespeare saw four centuries ago.

Rick Archbold
Toronto, Spring 2002
From the Hardcover edition.

“Nolen...deserves a lot of credit for restricting herself to her part of the story and leaving the rest to the experts, who weave in and out of her tale with separate essays as lively as they are illuminating....So is Shakespeare’s Face really much ado about nothing? Not on your life. For one thing, nothing’s settled, and the story of the forensic evidence is utterly fascinating. For another, what really makes the book are all the experts circling round and round the identity of Shakespeare and bringing us closer and closer to the man. Even if the fuss over the portrait turns out to be ephemeral, Shakespeare’s Face will still be worth looking at long after.” -- The Toronto Star

“A truly compelling detective story....Shakespeare’s Face makes fascinating reading on many levels. It is readable, and successfully resists becoming an arcane treatise on the most written about playwright in history. For the scientist, there are details of the tests, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the picture was painted around the cusp of the 16th and 17th centuries. For the art lover, there is a glimpse into the world of those who can “read” paintings. For the Shakespeare lover, just attending a performance at the Globe Theatre is to see Shakespeare’s plays in a totally new light, this book goes a long way in revealing the elusive Bard.” -- Kate Barlow, Hamilton Spectator

“The Sanders portrait is really only the starting point for a series of fascinating journeys.... Entirely lucid and entertaining.... The book boasts only the best Shakespeare scholars, who have long exhibited in their work a rare combination of erudition, readability and common sense... Nolen herself writes with vivacity and candour.... The general reader will learn many fascinating things that are usually reserved for experts.... Each expert and enthusiast quoted in the book is passionately engaged in the pursuit of truth.” -- The Globe and Mail

“Fascinating.... The most engaging sections are Nolen’s. Her writing is accessible and animated and her story of the whole quest -- with such typical journalistic frustrations as Globe editor Richard Addis often moving her filing deadlines up two hours -- is intelligently told and amusing.” -- Quill & Quire

“Art history reads like a thriller....The assembled experts in Shakespeare's Face write with insight and integrity....Nolen’s lively introductory and interlinking chapters make for great reading.” -- amazon.ca

“Nolen explores the genealogy of the Sanders family and deals painstakingly with the forensic testing.... We share the suspense as the painting passes each test, proving itself to be a genuine, unaltered example of early 17th Century art....Nolen and company have come up with an accessible, concisely informative book that every Shakespeare admirer will want to own.” -- Montreal Gazette

“Behold that special face. Is it Shakespeare’s?” -- The New York Times, May 24, 2001

“He is mischievous, keen-eyed, almost flirtatious. Half twinkle, half smirk, he looks out from his portrait with a tolerant, world-weary air. This is Shakespeare. Perhaps you thought you knew him: bald pate, thin brows, stiff white ruff. You thought wrong.” -- The Globe and Mail