Page - 230 - in Der Arkadenhof der Universität Wien und die Tradition der Gelehrtenmemoria in Europa

hours of concentrated regard, offers us the illu- sion of a direct inhabitation of the artist’s know- ledge of that person.18 Commissioners canvassed across the research residency made the point that the relationship of the artist to sitter is very im- portant to its success – obviously so – but there is something about the painted portrait and its time investment which represents a special dis- tillation of that interaction, which an instantan- eous photograph perhaps cannot equal, even when taken by an intimate of the subject. The painted portrait offers the viewer the fantasy of acquiring a portion of time lived and now past, the time spent by the artist with the sitter. Audiences for the Hertfordshire portrait may be mapped over three tiers: the first consists of the University board and their peers; the second, the wider University of faculty, staff and stu- dents; and the third consists of an international network of academic peers, in research and ad- ministration; present, past and future students; opinion formers and decision makers in business and government internationally. This portrait is externally facing and reputation building; again, it has this in common with photographic CEO portraiture. Its status as a painted portrait signals Hertfordshire’s intention to articulate its history and heritage as a university institution, using the object-language traditionally reserved for creat- ing such histories. At the time of writing, the portrait has been very recently hung in a purpose built gallery showing a range of artworks in the University’s collections (Fig. 3). it remains a little too soon to speculate on its reception in relation to the audiences mapped above. However, as the case study below seeks to demonstrate, the per- formative effect of a scholar’s monument is not predicated so much on its reception, but rath- er on the institution’s possession of its material, unique presence in academic space. the darwin portrait: geoffrey hayzer professor william brown (2012) Professor William Brown’s academic research fo- cuses on industrial relations and the minimum wage. He was Master of Darwin from 2000 to 2012 and was awarded the CBE in 2002. He is well known as a respected mediator of nation- al-level negotiations between trade unions and employers. The portrait is full length, measures 147cm x 112cm and shows the subject seated in front of a background of bookshelves. The palette is blue, in keeping with the tonal range of the por- traits of Masters that Darwin has commissioned in the past and alongside which this portrait is now displayed. In contrast to many leadership portraits, Hayzer presents us with an image al- most of diffidence.19 Rather than the convention- al point of view constructed by a leadership por- trait, which shows the subject raised above the upward gaze produced by a low viewpoint, Pro- fessor Brown is shown looking upwards from a lower position than we might ordinarily expect from a scholar’s monument. We can even see a section of the floor carpet of what is presumably Professor Brown’s office. The figure appears com- pressed into the base of the frame; his hands ap- pear large and awkward. He is seated on a very ordinary office chair. Geoffrey Hayzer is clearly working in a very different iconographic register to Brendan Kel- ly. Interviews revealed that there are differen- sara ayres230 18 A mythic assumption, given that portraits are sometimes produced posthumously, or from photographs, as in this case. 19 The conventions of leadership portraiture are observed in E. Griffey/B. Jackson, The Portrait as Leader: Commis- sioned Portraits and the Power of Tradition, in: Leadership, 6:133, 2010, pp. 133–157. Open Access © 2018 by BÖHLAU VERLAG GMBH & CO.KG, WIEN KÖLN WEIMAR