Genius Fan

When office workers were sent home for the Covid lockdown of April 2020 we quickly adapted to video meetings using Teams, Zoom and Skype. We saw inside colleagues’ homes – what was behind them (the decor, wall art, bookcases etc), but we never saw what was in front of them. From where I sit at the dining room table (this has been my workspace for five years now!) I look onto a wall with three portraits of Eighteenth century personalities: Scottish philosopher David Hume, Scottish writer James Boswell and English novelist Fanny Burney. I buy these online from the UK’s National Portrait Gallery and I secretly daydream about covering the walls with all my favourite Eighteenth century people. I’d have Samuel Johnson, Benjamin Franklin, Edmund Burke, Edmond Malone, Oliver Goldsmith, George Washington, Denis Diderot and Voltaire. That’s to start with. My daydream continues as I think of all the characters I’ve encountered over the past four years, and which I would like to have around on my walls.

Now that I know more about the personalities and lives behind my three portraits, I’ll tell you this: Hume reminds me of the need for precision and simplicity in language and writing (a trait of his that leads many to claim he’s the greatest philosopher to have written in English); Boswell reminds me of life’s realities in which effort and good intent have to battle impulse and pleasure (Bozzy tried to lead a good life and often failed to match personal standards); Burney embodies immense, I repeat IMMENSE, grit and fortitude (her account of a mastectomy in 1811 is an incredible and also terrifying piece of writing that demonstrates her strength of character). These are not the reasons I bought their portraits, but they’re among the things I muse upon. When I’m in a video meeting discussing the security of data in the cloud, the other participants will never know that when I glance above the screen I’m thinking about Hume, Boswell or Burney. (What are the other participants looking at when they look away from their screens? This is financial services so I expect it’s children’s crayon drawings on their wall, a snoozing dog or even a BDSM rig.)

Notes
National Portrait Gallery shop online for portraits