Family portrait | 6 December 2008

From Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, on the Obsborne family:

There was a picture of the family over the mantelpiece, removed thither from the front room after Mrs. Osborne’s death — George was on a pony, the elder sister holding him up a bunch of flowers; the younger led by her mother’s hand; all with red cheeks and large red mouths, simpering on each other in the approved family-portrait manner. The mother lay underground now, long since forgotten — the sisters and brother had a hundred different interests of their own, and, familiar still, were utterly estranged from each other. Some few score of years afterwards, when all the parties represented are grown old, what bitter satire there is in those flaunting childish family portraits, with their farce of sentiment and smiling lies, and innocence so self-conscious and self-satisfied.

My mother likes to orchestrate family portraits whenever we’re all together as an immediate family (all thirteen of us, including partners and baby). The most recent one was in October, the day before Thanksgiving, on the front porch of my parents’ house, where we all stood stiffly (except for the baby, who drooled languidly), uncomfortable spaces between bodies, arms awkwardly reaching out to each other, smiling inanely for the camera. In our case, the family portraits fail to portray the ease and fun we have together. But at Christmas we will all be together again, and I am determined to get a good comfortable portrait for once, with sentiment and smiling eyes.

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