I've finally made my contribution to the JOHN BLANKE PROJECT initiated by Michael Ohajuru.
This is the site http://www.johnblanke.com/
The image is tiny, but so eloquent!
Portraits of non-noble sitters
in Tudor Britain are very rare, because this new form of visual art in the
sixteenth century was aimed at sustaining the fame and power of high-status
individuals. Lesser folk might have pictorial images in woodcuts or manuscript
illustrations, but these were often crude and typically generic
representations, not recognisable figures. The Black trumpeter in the 1511
Tournament Roll is therefore amazing on many levels.
As the earliest depiction of an individual of African
ancestry in British pictorial culture it demonstrates how in recognition of his
unique or at least special qualities he literally stood out from his fellow
trumpeters, shown as a team of look-alikes in the yellow and grey livery worn
by all attendants in the procession.
They are bareheaded, too, whereas he wears a turban, which indicates the
personal appearance of a known individual, just like the dark skin carefully delineated
alongside dozens of white faced figures. As it happens, the Roll’s illuminator forgot
to colour in his visible right hand holding the trumpet, which remains as pale
as the others’.
This is more of a ‘thumbnail’ image than a carefully
observed portrait in the classic manner
exemplified by Holbein’s drawings
of Tudor courtiers, but it is a likeness which contemporaries would recognise,
of a known figure in the musical retinue.
Even more remarkably, it has proved possible to name this
exceptional musician using Court records.
Or at least find the name given to him at the courts of Henries VII and
VIII. It’s too bad there is no
surviving record of his real, or original name, which might have pointed to a
country or region of birth. ‘John
Blanke’ has the hallmark of official convenience, although one wonders whether it derives from
a functionary entering the name of ‘John Black’, a common way of registering
dark-skinned foreigners, or from ‘John -----’, a literal blank line in the
absence of a familiar cognomen.
One can assume he
came as an immigrant to England, presumably in the entourage of Katherine or
Catalina of Aragon when she arrived to marry Arthur Tudor in 1501. Following Arthur’s death, she married Henry
VIII in 1509, and the Westminster Tournament was held to mark the birth of
their son, who sadly died within six weeks.
Katherine’s later life was no happier,
but John Blanke evidently throve as a court musician, and may well have
had numerous British descendants.
Tudor portraiture also flourished, on a rather grander
scale than this tiny image – tiny, but invaluable as both portrait and history.
