While researching for the presentation today, I became rather engrossed in studying the symbolism used not only in Elizabeth's portraits, but in Tudor portraits as a whole. Several of the symbols were unfamiliar to me: the sieve, the armillary sphere, the pelican, the ermine, etc. Perhaps the people of the time would have caught on to the symbols more quickly than I did; however, after a bit of reading, I was on the same page as the Elizabethan portraitists.
The most surprising aspect of the portraits of Elizabeth, to me, was the amount of Greek mythology symbolism. In the Rainbow Portrait, especially, there are several references to Astraea and the goddess Diana. With the religious atmosphere being what it was in England at the time, I would have assumed that anything other than strict Christian (Protestant) imagery would have been taboo, but clearly I was wrong. I find it interesting that a country so concerned with the Christian faith would have been so accepting of a "heathen" religion's symbols. I wonder whether if the painter had surrounded Elizabeth with Catholic imagery, the public would have had a different reaction.
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