Portraits of Love and Hate - a podcast by BBC Radio 3

Writer Polly Coles reads the next of her essays about portraiture and our obsession with ourselves: Portraits of Love and Hate. In this series, she looks at five different aspects of portraiture and makes the case that portraiture is the most intimate artistic conversation of all. Face to face with another human being, no other art form investigates and reveals more richly what it is to be human. Portraits can promote exploitation and self-aggrandisement, but at their best, they are instruments of honesty, love and profound attention.

In this essay, Polly looks at how double portraits have always worked to connect people intimately, whether in love, enmity or indifference.

Produced by Melanie Harris of Sparklab Productions
Photo by Ella Gradwell

You can find images of some of the paintings by artists referenced here: Jan van Eyk: bit.ly/JanVanEyck-Arnolfini
Thomas Gainsborough: bit.ly/ThomasGainsborough-Andrews
Thomas Gainsborough: bit.ly/ThomasGainsborough-Daughters
Quentin Massys: bit.ly/QuintenMassys
The BBC is not responsible for the contents of the sites listed.

Further episodes of The Essay

Further podcasts by BBC Radio 3

Website of BBC Radio 3