I learned something interesting today.
Back in 2006 the English artist Jonathan Myles-Lea was asked by Oprah Winfrey to paint three views of her estate, Montecito in Santa Barbara, to hang in the entrance hall of the main house. By his own account he was paid enough to buy a two-bedroom flat in London at the time, so very high six figures if not seven. To be fair, there’s a lot to paint, seventy acres of land with a large house surrounded by seven satellite properties, each with pool and tennis court. I think the job was compled around 2012.
If you’ve not come across him Myles-Lea is well worth looking up, as he is an outspoken warrior in the culture wars and supporter of tradition, truth, and beauty, as well as being an excellent artist. He specialises in birds eye portraits of country houses and estates, very much in the style of the 17th and 18th century landscape artists like Leonard Knijff and Jan Kipp. He also paints portraits of people. Here is a painting by him of Burleigh House, Lincolnshire.
And here is a link to a YT video of him in conversation with the excllent Peter Whittle of the New culture Forum.
What struck me as interesting is how things change while staying the same. Oprah is a black American woman who could hardly be more removed from the world of perriwigs and lace, convoluted etiquette and country houses. And yet, she was very much following in the footsteps of those 17th and 18th century European aristocrats. For example, three centuries ago, Knijff was commissioned by the 2nd Baron Onslow to paint pictures of his newly remodelled mansion at Clandon, Surrey, just as La Winfrey commissioned Myles-Lea.
There are important differences though.
One became hugely powerful and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice by using thousands upon thousands of weak, ordinary people. Profiting from their misery, consuming their dignity and building an empire on their backs.
The other was an early eighteenth-century English nobleman who made some of his money from the slave trade.