Victorian painters – my daily art display

British Victorian Art and the Maas Gallery, London. Part 2.

My second blog continues to look at some of the Victorian paintings which were on show at the Maas Gallery in London.

*The Last Song of the Girondins by Claude Andrew Calthrop (1868)*

The first painting I am displaying in Part 2 is one by the English artist Claude Andrew Calthrop. Calthrop was born in Deeping St Nicholas, near Spalding, Lincolnshire, on December 20th 1844, the youngest son of James Thompson Calthrop, a farmer and grazier, and his wife, Edna (née Knowles). Calthrop attended the Merchant Taylors’ School, in the City of London, but, by 1861, had transferred to King’s College School. From there, he then studied art at Lambeth School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools, where in December 1864, he was awarded a silver medal for the best drawing from life and a gold medal and a scholarship for £50 for the best historical painting, a biblical one, depicting a subject from the Book of Job. He went on to exhibit at the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Academy. At first, Claude Calthrop concentrated on history paintings depicting episodes of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Later he changed to depictions of contemporary life, portraiture and genre scenes.

Today’s painting, Last Song of the Girondins, was completed and submitted by Calthrop to the Royal Academy exhibition in 1868. It depicts a scene from the French Revolution and the Jacobins, an anti-Royalist grouping formed mainly of two prominent parliamentary factions, the Montagnards, lead by Robespierre and the Girondins lead by Jacques-Pierre Brissot. The Montagnards referred to those who occupied the higher benches in both the Jacobin club and the national legislature. Those who sat on these high benches were generally more radical in their ideology and their policies, while those who sat further down were usually more moderate. The conflict between the Girondins and Montagnards came to a head in the spring of 1793. The catalyst for this was the trial of Louis XVI

*Detail from* *The Last Song of the Girondins by Claude Andrew Calthrop*

The two factions fell out and in 1793, the Girondins were charged with conspiring against the Republic by the Montagnards. They were all immediately found guilty in a show trial, and just before midnight on the October 30th 1793, they were sentenced to death. The following morning, the twenty-one convicted men were taken by cart from the dungeons of the Conciergerie to the guillotine. Defiant to the end, the prisoners, led by Brissot, started to sing the Marseillaise and as each was beheaded, the sound of the song dwindled to silence, until the very last Girondin was executed. The twenty-one died in a space of thirty-six minutes and this heralded in the Reign of Terror.

Of Calthrop’s painting, the art critic for Bell’s Weekly Messenger, described it as:

“…a more difficult scene to portray could scarcely have been chosen; but he has given individuality to each character, whilst he has managed the processional grouping with an ease which says much for his appropriate idea of detail. The manner, too, in which the general scheme is worked out by means of a happy blending of colour, is also appropriate. The handling is minute, without being laboured; and the tone, kept down, to represent the vault from which the prisoners are about to emerge, is as sober as the scene is sad. We shall expect, after such a specimen as this, to note Mr C Calthrop’s rise in his profession…”

*Ruskin in his Turret Brantwood* *by William Collingwood*

William Gershom Collingwood, a writer and artist, was born in Liverpool in 1854. He had always liked the Lake District and had accompanied his father there on sketching tours. He received his early education at Liverpool College and at the age of eighteen went to University College, Oxford, where he first met John Ruskin. During the summer of 1873 Collingwood visited Ruskin at his Lake District house, Brantwood. Ruskin had bought the somewhat dilapidated house in Coniston in August 1871. Brantwood was Ruskin’s main home from 1872 until his death in 1900. Ruskin oversaw many renovations to Brantwood including adding a turret to his bedroom which gave him a panoramic view of the lake

Later Collingwood was working at Brantwood with Ruskin and his associates. Ruskin was impressed with Collingwood’s draughtsmanship, and so he influenced Collingwood to study at the Slade School of Art between 1876 and 1878. Collingwood exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880. For many years Collingwood dedicated his life to helping Ruskin and lived at Branston, taking on the role as Ruskin’s personal assistant. In 1883 Collingwood married Edith Mary Isaac and the couple lived close to Ruskin in the Lake District. Collingwood went on to edit many of Ruskin’s texts and published a biography of Ruskin in 1893.

*Michelangelo Nursing his Dying Servant by Frederic, Lord Leighton* *(c.1862)*

In this 1857 watercolour painting by Frederic, Lord Leighton, we have a depiction a young man supporting and comforting an older man. It is a tender and compassionate scene. The old man, a servant, is Urbino and the benevolent person with his arm around the old man’s shoulder is his master, Michelangelo. Leighton has fashioned the depiction similar to many religious depictions of The Deposition, the cradling of the dead Christ after being brought down from the cross. A number of years later Leighton completed a copy of the work in oils.

This is an unfinished watercolour portrait of Kathleen Newton by the French painter James Tissot. She was his favourite model who also became his lover. The story of artist and model is fascinating and I covered it in my blog, James Tissot and Kathleen Newton ten years ago.

This watercolour is thought to be a preliminary sketch which Tissot used when he worked on his painting entitled Quiet. This was one of Tissot’s most famous pictures of Kathleen and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881. Kathleen is depicted sitting on a bench in the garden at Tissot’s house in Grove End Road with one of her children and a pet dog. The depiction of Kathleen in Quiet shows her in a similar pose as in the unfinished watercolour sketch.

My next offerings were paintings by the prolific English Victorian painter William Lionel Wylie, an artist of maritime themes which he painted in both oils and watercolours.

William Lionel Wyllie, better known as W.L.Wylie, who was born on July 5th 1851 at 67 Albany Street, Camden Town, London. He was the elder of two sons of a prosperous minor-genre painter, French-born English William Morrison Wyllie, who at the time of the birth of his son, was living in London. His younger brother Charles William Wylie was also a talented painter. William Jnr. received a first-class artistic education, studying firstly at the Heatherley School of Fine Art, and then in 1866, when he was aged fifteen, at the Royal Academy Schools, where he studied under some of the great artists of the time like Edwin Landseer, John Everett Millais and Frederic Leighton.

*Dawn After a Storm by W.L.Wylie (1869)*

His artistic talent showed through with his 1869 painting entitled Dawn After a Storm which won him the Turner Gold Medal. He was just eighteen years old.

*Landing the Catch, Portel Sands by W.L. Wylie (1875)*

William Wylie submitted his painting Landing the Catch, Portel Sands, in 1875. Wylie who had success at submitting his work to the Royal Academy’s Exhibitions the previous years was horrified and disillusioned to have his work rejected by the Exhibition jurists. It was the first time this had happened to him in seven years. He swore that he would give up painting and go off to sea.

His parents once had a summer home at Wimereux, a coastal town just north of Boulogne and just to the south was Portel Sands which is depicted in his painting. This painting depicts fishermen landing their catch on the beach at low tide. The scene is lit up by the blazing sun overhead.

*Shrimpers Hauling to Windward* *by W.L. Wylie*

Wylie’s painting entitled Shrimpers Hauling to Windward is a small work (58 x 71 cms) and is looked upon as one of Wylie’s masterpieces of maritime art. It appeared at the Royal Academy in 1905. It is a work full of movement, air, and light. It depicts a sea reach, which is the last bit of river before it meets the sea. To the right we see the submerged mud bank. The last of the shrimper fleet heads towards land, hard on the starboard tack in the channel, battling against both wind and the current, whilst the leading boats have already made it to the inner harbour and protection against the elements.

*The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 by W.L. Wylie*

Wylie’s small painting featuring the Shrimpers which was shown at the Royal Academy in 1905, was overshadowed by another of Wyllie’s works, the monumental (148 x 272 cms) painting of Trafalgar on the centenary of the battle. The art press and critics alike stated that this large maritime depiction ‘stole the show’.

*A Walk in the Country by John Ritchie (1863)*

Little is known about the artist who created the painting above, simply entitled A Day in the Country. The artist is John Ritchie and we know he is Scottish and was born around 1821. The difficulty in unearthing facts about his life is strange as he did exhibit his work at such hallowed establishments as the Scottish Academy, Liverpool Academy and the Royal Academy in London. He began to exhibit his work in 1840 when he was nineteen years old. One of the artists who influenced Ritchie was John Brett (see earlier painting in Part 1). His painting, A Day in the Country, was exhibited at the Liverpool Academy in 1863 and depicts a farmer taking a stroll on his land and checking on the forestry management with, in the middle-ground, some of his workers hauling away a felled tree. In the foreground we see the exposed roots of a large old oak tree. Rabbits have nibbled at the roots and the bark and have burrowed under the sandy bank beneath the tree. Besides checking on the tree-felling he is carrying a shotgun and is also hunting the rabbits that are damaging his trees. To the left we see one of his men collecting the body of a rabbit his boss has killed.

The painting above is by George Clausen, an artist I have dedicated two blogs to back in 2015. This work is his beautiful and sensitive portrait of a young woman which he completed in 1895 and originally it was entitled Pensive but later was given the name Cinderella on the behest of David Croal Thomson, an Edinburgh-born art dealer and critic, who was based mainly in London, managing the London branch of the prestigious Goupil Gallery. Thomson advised Clausen that such a change of name would add a touch of romanticism to the work. The painting was shown at the New Gallery in 1896 and the critic for the Pall Mall Gazette praised the work saying that Clausen had captured a creature exquisitely tender in nature. The girl who modelled for the painting was Lizzie Deller a girl from Widdington, Essex.

Although the exhibition at the Maas Gallery has finished by the time you read these two blogs, I just wanted to remind you of the benefits one gets when you call in and look around these private “selling” galleries.

British Victorian Art and the Maas Gallery, London. Part 1.

*Maas Gallery, Clifford Street, London.*

In my next couple of blogs, I am going to delve into the world of Victoriana, and the British art of that period. The Victorian era began in 1837 when the 18-year-old Alexandrina Victoria inherited the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as Queen Victoria. It was a time of the start of the industrial revolution and a time when Britain was regarded as an industrial superpower. It lasted for almost seventy-four years. On a recent visit to London, which I managed to make despite the train strikes, I decided to bypass the major galleries and visit a “selling” gallery in Mayfair which had a month-long exhibition of Victorian paintings.

The current owner of the gallery is Rupert Maas who was born in 1960, the same year the gallery was founded by his father. His father died in 1996 and Rupert took over the running of the establishment. The Gallery deals in Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, Romantic and Modern British paintings, watercolours, drawings, reproductive engravings and sculpture, and the work of two or three living artists. Rupert, like his father before him, has arranged a number of important exhibitions at his Gallery, including Pre-Raphaelites and Romantics, Masters of British Illustration, John Ruskin and his Circle, Burne-Jones, Victorian Fairy Paintings, biennial exhibitions of Victorian Engravings and annual exhibitions of Victorian Paintings. So the day I visited the gallery it was staging a Victorian Pictures exhibition and I thought that in these blogs, I would highlight some of my favourites and look at some of the other paintings by those artists.

My first pick is a painting, completed in 1900, entitled Sirens. The artist was Sir James Jebusa Shannon. Shannon, an American, was born in Auburn, New York in February 1862. At the age of eight he and his parents relocated to Canada and in 1978, aged sixteen he went to London to study fine art. He went on to win a gold medal for figure painting and gained recognition for his submissions to the Royal Academy. He soon became recognised as one of the leading portrait painters in London. He was one of the first members of the New English Art Club, and became a founder member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. In 1897 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and a Royal Academician in 1909

*Sirens by Sir James Jebusa Shannon (1900)*

Sirens was exhibited at Thomas Agnew & Sons, one of London’s leading art dealerships in 1900 where it was considered one of the most original of the contributions. It depicts nymph-like beings positioned in a charismatic way. They are not simply modelling for an artist, but relishing a world of translucent waters, of beauty, both deep and impenetrable in which they live. The art critic of the Evening Standard wrote in the November 10^th 1900 edition:

‘…The heads and shoulders of four young girls in the water – a piece full of movement, colour, and of charming life – is called by Mr. Shannon “Sirens”. The girls are delightful, and, in intention, absolutely innocent and harmless. Not even the most ridiculously cautious mariner, whoever hesitated about the passage of Southampton Water need be concerned to steer clear of sirens so benevolent and so bewitching. And yet, for all that, the piece is imaginative, and satisfactory entirely…”

Sometimes facts and information stick in your mind for years. In this case it is the name of an artist. Some fifty plus years ago I was inveigled into helping my daughter with an art project and the artist and painting she had to research was John Brett’s Realism work, The Stonebreaker. The facts behind the work and the reason for painting it made me, from then on, become interested in what made an artist depict a certain subject and in a certain way. So, I was surprised to see a painting by John Brett in the Maas gallery exhibition especially as it was completely a different genre to that of The Stonebreaker. It was a seascape.

*Sunset off Lundy Island by John Brett (1872)*

The painting, Sunset off Lundy Island, is a sunset depiction of a yacht, a gaff ketch, sailing on choppy waters off the Isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel. He completed the work in 1872 although the idea for the painting went back five years earlier in September 1867 when Brett started to make a series of sketches. The ketch we see battling the elements is heading in a south-east direction towards the safety of Appledore harbour which is more than twenty miles away. The painting was a commission for Alfred Morrison, an English collector, known for his interest in works of art, autographs and manuscripts, who had built up a collection of Brett’s paintings.

*Presentiments by Emily Mary Osborn (c.1859)*

The title of the 1859 painting by Emily Mary Osborn is Presentiments. A presentiment is an intuitive feeling about the future, especially one of foreboding. The artist was the daughter of a curate of a parish in West Tilbury on the Thames Estuary near the sea, which at the time, was surrounded by fishing communities. She lived there up to the age of fourteen. By the age of twenty-three and now living in London, she had her own studio. She was exhibiting her work at the Royal Academy, one of which was this work which graced the walls of the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1859. This painting is all about the perilous life of fishermen who have to go to sea to fish, Despite the gale blowing outside, the title of the painting forewarns us that the fisherman we see exiting his cottage is not coming back. Osborn was inspired by the Charles Kingsley’s poem, The Three Fishers:

Three fishers went sailing out into the West,

Out into the West as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who lov’d him the best;

And the children stood watching them out of the town;

For men must work, and women must weep,

And there’s little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbour bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the light-house tower,

And they trimm’d the lamps as the sun went down;

They look’d at the squall, and they look’d at the shower,

And the night wrack came rolling up ragged and brown!

But men must work, and women must weep,

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,

And the harbour bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands

For those who will never come back to the town;

For men must work, and women must weep,

And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—

And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

The painting depicts a fisherman’s family. There is a look of poverty with their surroundings but despite the family members being poor they are clean and well-dressed. We see the fisherman’s son is seated on the floor playing with a toy boat. Look at the wife’s expression as she watches her husband depart. It is an anxious look and although she has seen her husband depart every day to board his fishing boat, today is different. She feels that something bad will happen and she is afraid. She has this terrible presentiment that her husband will not return. Even the cat senses something as his fur is standing up and its back is hunched. It is a Realism genre painting.

*The Old Mill at La Mortola by Sir Frank Dicksee (1925)*

A wealthy English Quaker, Thomas Hanbury, who had made a fortune in buying property in Shanghai, bought and slowly restored the gardens of La Mortola, the forty-four acre gardens close to the Italian town of Ventimiglia, on a promontory which juts out into the Ligurian Sea. The painting above depicting the Old Mill at La Mortola was completed by seventy-two year old English artist Sir Frank Dicksee, who portrays the scene with quiet shadowy tones. He had been appointed president of the Royal Academy in 1924, a position he held until his death in 1928.

*Miss Ethel Brignall as a Mythological Figure by Ralph Peacock*

The painter and illustrator Ralph Peacock was born in Wood Green, London on August 14th, 1868. His initial training was as a civil servant but his love was art and at the age of eighteen he enrolled in the twice-weekly evening art classes at the South Lambeth Art School. The well-known Scottish painter John Pettie, who was considered to be one of the most successful painters in his days, saw some of Peacock’s work and advised him to consider take up painting professionally. Peacock took Pettie’s advice and became one of the leading British portraitists of the Victorian era. The painting by Ralph Peacock, which was on show at the Maas gallery was his work entitled Miss Ethel Brignall as a Mythological Figure.

Ethel Brignall was the subject of Ralph Peacock’s 1897 painting, Ethel. Peacock painted this portrait the year the Tate Gallery was founded, and once on the walls of that gallery it became one of the most popular pictures of the 1900’s. Ethel Brignall was fourteen-years-old when she modelled for Peacock and in a letter she wrote in 1958 she recounted the experience:

“…I was 14 years old at the time…. I stayed with Ralph Peacock’s parents, Mr and Mrs Thomas Peacock, in the summer holiday while the picture was being painted…”

Ralph Peacock’s involvement with the Brignall family culminated in a third family portrait. This time it was a double portrait of the two sisters, Edith and Ethel Brignall. The elder sister, Edith Brignall, is depicted reading from an open book. She married Ralph Peacock in 1901 and they lived with their two sons in Wimbledon. He eventually moved to Camden and died there on 17th January, 1946. The younger sister, Ethel Brignall, married Harold A. Titcomb, an American mining engineer, in 1908. According to US Census records, in 1940 the couple were living on Orchard Street, Farmington, Maine, along with two sons and a daughter. She died in Farmington in October 1970, aged 88.

*La Tristesse by Abraham Solomon* *(c.1847)*

My last painting in this blog looking at British Victorian paintings, which were on display at London’s Maas Gallery, is one by Abraham Solomon. Abraham Solomon was born in Bishopsgate London in May 1823. He was the second son of Catherine and Meyer Solomon. His father was a hat manufacturer and one of the first Jews to be admitted to the freedom of the city of London. Two members of the family, besides Abraham, also became artists. The painting is a half-length portrait of the Countess Eugénie de Teba, who would become the Empress of Napoleon III, when she married the Emperor in January 1853. Eugénie supported French opposition to a Prussian candidate for the vacant Spanish throne, in the argument that precipitated the Franco-German War of 1870. After the Battle of Sedan on September 1^st 1870, Napoleon III was defeated and held prisoner by the Prussians. On hearing of her husband’s capture and surrender she fiercely told one of his personal aides:

“…No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!…They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn’t he kill himself! Doesn’t he know he has dishonored himself?…”

In March 1871 Napoleon III, his wife Eugénie and their son Louis Napoleon plus a large entourage settled in a large property in Camden Place in Chiselhurst, London. Napoleon III died in 1873 and her son Louis died six years later and Eugénie assumed the role of the grande dame in exile.

Solomon’s painting was completed around 1847, years before her marriage to Napoleon or his fall from power so the title of the painting La Tristesse (Sadness) could not be about Napoleon’s life but may instead be about her early life as she grew up into an impetuous and audacious young woman. In her early twenties, she was rescued from drowning and twice attempted suicide after romantic disappointments.

……………………………….to be continued

John William Godward. Part 2 – Life’s decisions and independence

John William Godward
Is this the artist ?

………………The year is 1887 and John William Godward had to make a decision about his life. For twenty-six years he had lived with his parents and siblings and had to abide by his mother and father’s authoritarian rules. They had mapped out his future which they expected him to follow. The question was whether he had the nerve and the will to break the parental shackles and become an independent person. Godward needed a push to set the ball of freedom rolling. The initial push came with the Royal Academy’s acceptance of his painting for that year’s Summer Exhibition, and buoyed by that success in late 1887, he decided to get himself a small atelier in the Bolton Studios in Gilston Road, Kensington. The studio space was tiny but often, rather than return home, he would sleep on the floor, occasionally returning to his parent’s Wimbledon home only to get a fresh set of clothing or an occasional meal, but this studio afforded him his own space, a place to think, a place to plan, a place to take back the control of his life.

There were about twenty separate ateliers in the Bolton Studios complex when Godward moved into his space. Artists mainly occupied them, both male and female, most of whom were older than Godward. Such artist as Théodore Roussel, George Morton, Henry Ryland, Charles Irvine Bacon, Thomas B. Kennington, St. George Hare, George Lawrence Bulleid, Ernest W. Appleby and John Cooke all had their own space in the Bolton Studios. It was an ideal meeting place for the artists and gave them an opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss techniques and it is probable that young Godward was in awe of his fellow painters.

It was in the late 1880’s that Godward’s art turned towards neo-classicism and an example of this is his 1889 oil painting entitled Ianthe. Ianthe was a Cretan girl who is mentioned in Ovid’s narrative poem, Metamorphoses. The garland of violet flowers upon her head probably relate to the fact that the name Ianthe is of Greek origin, and means “violet flower”. One of the hallmarks of Godward’s classical depictions is the way he captures the veins and stains on blocks of marble. It is thought that he perfected this when he worked for the architect and designer, William Hoff Wontner.

Violets, Sweet Violets by John William Godward (1906)

Violets were also the subject of another painting by Godward. The 1906 tondo, or circular work, was entitled Violets, Sweet Violets and is viewed as one of Godward’s finest works. Violet flowers symbolize delicate love, affection, modesty, faithfulness, nobility, intuition, and dignity and are often depicted in Victorian Valentine cards. The violet flower has a special place in Roman mythology. The Romans placed emphasis on the plant and for them it represented the arrival of spring during which time they would scatter petals from the flower in their banquet halls and by drinking Violetum, a sweet wine formulated by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet and lover of refined luxury. The ancient Greeks, who attributed the violet as the symbol of love and fertility, used them in love potions. The violet was considered the flower of Zeus.

It is a beautiful emotive depiction, awash with compassion and made up of the most charming and enthralling colours. It is a painting which portrays beauty. The beauty of the variegated marble backdrop, the beautiful tunic and sash the lady wears, the beauty of the woman herself and of course not forgetting the subject of the painting, the beauty of the violets she daintily holds in her hand. Her head is bowed down and she seems lost in sad contemplation.

Exhibiting one’s work at the Royal Academy was a high point in an artist’s life and the inclusion of Godward’s painting brought his work to the attention of not just the public but also to art dealers and it was after seeing Godward’s work that he was contacted by Arthur Tooth a leading London art dealer and gallery owner.

The Engagement Ring by John William Godward (1891)

One of the first paintings by Godward that Arthur Tooth took was his 1888 work entitled The Engagement Ring. This work, with its mosaic floor leading to a marble balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, was a composition similar to that used in the art work of Lawrence Tadema-Alma, who had a great influence on the young painter.

Expectation by John William Godward (1900)

Around the turn of the century we see more and more of Godward’s neo-classical works, an artistic style which would always be synonymous with him. In 1900, he completed a work entitled Expectation which had a classical balcony setting. A young woman lies stretched out on a marble balcony seat, and faces towards the left of the picture. She lies on her front, on a tiger skin rug, and she supports her head with her right arm, whilst her left arm dangles downwards. Her left-hand clutches the elaborate handle of a black feather fan which has an intricate and ornamental handle. She is draped in a loose-fitting salmon pink dress with yellow patterned sash. Her dark, voluminous silky hair is pinned at the back of her head. The ends of the balcony walls are strangely decorated with orange-coloured stone heads of gods. To the extreme left of the painting we see a single mature tree and in the right background, above the wall, we see the tops of more trees. The sea is visible in the background, with the coastline in the distance, below a bright blue sky.

After a short spell of working with the art dealer Arthur Tooth, Godward decided to switch his allegiance to another London fine art dealer and print seller, Thomas Miller McLean who had his premises next to the Haymarket Theatre. McLean handled the majority of works by Godward and managed to sell a large number. In late 1889 Godward finally broke the parental shackles and rented a room, for twenty-four pounds per annum, in a house in St Leonard’s Terrace, Chelsea, close to his St Leonard studio. Chelsea, at the end of the nineteenth century, was considered to be the centre of the London art scene.

Summer by William Renolds-Stephens(1888-1890)

His next-door neighbour at St Leonard’s Terrace was the American- born British artist and sculptor, William Reynolds-Stephens, who unlike Godward had received artistic training at the Blackheath School of Art and the Royal Academy School where he won the Landseer Scholarship and also a prize for painting. His most famous work was his large classical canvas, Summer which he began in 1888 and completed in 1890. Godward was truly inspired by the painting.

Godward was a year older than Reynolds-Stephens but it is clear by the similarity in some of their artwork, such as the marble exedras and colonnades as well as all the Greek and Roman artefacts which formed part of their paintings. Undoubtedly, the two artists must have fed off each other’s ideas and of course Reynolds-Stephens also had dealings with Lawrence Tadema-Alma.

Waiting for an Answer by John William Godward (1889)

Godward’s artistic output in 1889 was remarkable. He completed twenty-five oil paintings, many of which went to McLean his favoured art dealer. One painting completed in that year was entitled Waiting for an Answer. The strange story behind this work which features a man and a woman is that many believe that the man is a self-portrait by Godward based on the belief that the male figure looks very much like photographs of Godward’s brothers. You may wonder why the likeness of the man in the painting could not be compared with a photograph of Godward himself but the sad fact is that no photograph of John William Godward exists and the reason for this will be explained in the next blog. Another interesting aspect to this depiction is the belief that the man waiting for an answer from the woman is based on Godward’s own relationship with one of his models and his unrequited love of the lady.

Godward’s problem with his overbearing parents was not just affecting him but also his twenty-three-year-old sister Mary Frederica (Nin) who also suffered a similar downtrodden life at the hands of her mother and father. In 1889, it is believed that they cobbled together an arranged marriage for her with a man fourteen years her senior and so, in order to escape the parental home, she accepted the arrangement. It was a disastrous decision and despite giving birth to two children, the marriage ended in divorce and the social improprieties this caused resulted in her estrangement from her father and being shunned by her brothers Edmund and Alfred.

A Priestess of Bacchus by John William Godward (1890)

In 1890, one of the many paintings Godward completed was one entitled A Priestess of Bacchus. In the painting we see a Bacchante, a priestess or female follower of Bacchus, resting on a marble exedra seat, situated on a balcony, high up overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea. Her head lolls onto her right shoulder as she looks out at us. In her left hand, she holds up a thyrsus, which is a staff or spear tipped with an ornament like a pine cone, which is carried by Bacchus and his followers. It is a symbol of prosperity, fertility, hedonism, and pleasure/enjoyment in general.

The Sweet Siesta of a Summer’s Day by John William Godward (1891)

In 1891, he had his painting The Sweet Siesta of a Summer Day accepted into the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Innocent Amusements by John William Godward (1891)

Another work completed that year was Innocent Amusements with its depiction of an ancient Roman atrium with fountain and marble statue. We observe a lady who has broken off from her sewing to amuse herself by trying to balance a peacock plume on her finger. Two younger girls watch her. Through the doorway we see two men talking.

Godward’s output of work in 1891 was reduced and this has been put down to various possible reasons. He could have been unwell. He could have spent time travelling and a factor may have been that whereas many of his earlier paintings featured a single figure he was more inclined to paint scenes featuring multiple figures which would have taken longer to complete. An example of this is Godward’s 1891 painting entitled Playtime in which we see three figures on a balcony. Once again, historians believe there is a great resemblance between the man in the painting and an existing photograph of Godward’s brother and so surmise, rightly or wrongly, that it could be a self-portrait of the artist

The Betrothed by John William Godward (1892)

In 1892 Godward completed a work entitled The Betrothed and for the first time we are introduced to his polka-dot sash which would appear in many of his later works. This painting by Godward was also the oil by the artist to be placed in the permanent collection of a major art museum when it was given to the Guildhall Art Gallery in London where it is still on show.

The Playground by John William Godward (1892)

One of his most complex and impressive multi-figure painting was completed in 1892, entitled The Playground. The setting is a marble terrace which overlooks the Mediterranean. In the painting, we see seven classically adorned maidens relaxing. Three are sitting on the floor chatting and playing the ancient game of knucklebones whilst to the right we see two older ladies holding a skipping rope for a young child. On the far left we see another lady lying on the marble exedra playing a musical instrument.

The year 1893 has been described as Godward’s “break-through” year, a year when he completed his most remarkable and inspiring works of art. Endymion has been judged as one of his most impressive and is based on Keats’ poem.

“…A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing.

Yes or No? by John Wiliam Godward (1893)

And the other, Yes or No? in which the male figure again is believed to be a self-portrait. Once more, the theme of the work is thought to be Godward’s relationship with one of his models. His love for the woman was not reciprocated but he continued to pursue her love and whether she would return it was the basis of the painting’s title.

In my final blog I will look at Godward’s time in Italy and his sad and lonely demise.

Most of the information for this and my final blog about John William Godward came from a 1998 book by Vern Grosvenor Swanson entitled J.W.Godward: the Eclipse of Classicism.

“Moonlights” by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Moonlight, Wharfdale by Atkinson Grimshaw (1865)

Today I am featuring some works by the English Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw, who was born in Leeds in 1836. His father, David, at various times during his life, served as a policeman, worked for Pickfords and then as a Great Northern Railway worker in Leeds. His mother was Mary Grimshaw née Atkinson. John Atkinson Grimshaw was the eldest of six children. He and his siblings were brought up in a very religious household with both his parents being strict Baptists. He left school at the age of sixteen and became a clerk at the Great Northern Railway headquarters in Leeds. It was whilst working and living in Leeds that he was able to visit one of the many art galleries and see the works of some of the Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Holman Hunt and Henry Wallis. He also loved and was influenced by the works of the Leeds-born Pre-Raphaelite landscape artist John William Inchbold. While he was employed as a clerk much of Atkinson’s free time was taken up by his love of art. He was a self-taught artist who received no formal training.

In 1857 Atkinson Grimshaw married his cousin Frances Theodosia Hubbard and the couple went on to have twelve children although sadly only six survived to be become teenagers. Of those who survived, many went on to become artists like their father. In 1861, much to his parents’ horror Grimshaw, gave up his work at the railway company and decided to become a professional artist. He first exhibited som of his art work in 1862 and at this time he had concentrated on still life works depicting fruit and blossom and some paintings of birds. He also managed to gain his first commissions from the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Over time, Grimshaw developed his own highly individual style, and subject matter. He became a talented painter of autumnal scenes and also works which depicted twilight and night time scenes, lit by moonlight reflected on the wet cobbled streets, sometimes depicting horse-drawn traffic and handsome cabs. These were known as his “moonlights”. His paintings would often depict street scenes swathed in fog and smog from pollution that so often enveloped cities and towns at that time.

Shipping on the Clyde by Atkinson Grimshaw (1881)

He also painted many nocturnal harbour and dockyard scenes with the spiky outlines of the ships’ masts rearing up against a darkening sky. Examples of this type of work can be seen in his paintings such as Liverpool from Wapping (1875), Nightfall down the Thames (1880), Shipping on the Clyde (1881), The Thames by Moonlight (1884), Liverpool Quay by Moonlight (1887) and Prince’s Dock, Hull (1887). Grimshaw’s works were more varied than just this as he painted many portraits, fairy pictures, and the most elaborate pictures of attractively dressed young women in opulent interiors. During his early period he signed his paintings “J.A. Grimshaw” or “JAG” but in 1867 Grimshaw dropped his first name, John, and from then on signed his works “Atkinson Grimshaw”.

Atkinson Grimshaw always considered himself to be a Northerner, a Yorkshire man and Leeds, for most of his life, remained his base. Grimshaw rarely travelled to London although he did set up a studio and live there for a short time in the mid 1880’s, and it was during this time he became friends with James McNeil Whistler. His reputation as an artist was further enhanced when one of his paintings was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy. However the fact that over the years, he only ever submitted five of his paintings to the Royal Academy probably meant that he set little store by what the RA could do for him and he knew he had numerous northern business men queuing up to buy his work. Over time, he slowly built up a large clientele for his work, including some London art dealers, especially the William Agnew Gallery, and with this artistic success came wealth, so much so that in 1870 he was able to move his family into Knostrop Hall on the outskirts of the city.

Knostrop Old Hall, Leeds by Atkinson Grimshaw

Knostrop Hall was a magnificent 17^th century stone-built manor house, which featured in many of his paintings. He also had a house in Scarborough for use in the summer. He called it Castle-by-the-sea.

Atkinson Grimshaw died of cancer in October 1893 at Knostrop Old Hall, and was buried in Woodhouse cemetery in Leeds. He was especially appreciated by middle-class clients, many of whom were northern industrialists. Grimshaw’s dock scenes of Liverpool, Hull and Glasgow, and the manor houses seen at the end of leafy, stone-walled suburban lanes, along which a single figure walks, were especially popular.

Atkinson Grimshaw had campaigned for a number of years for the building of Leeds City Art Gallery. After much wrangling and a prolonged struggle with the authorities the Leeds Art Gallery opened in October 1888 and was financed by public subscription, collected in honour of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. The artist Hubert Herkomer formally opened the building, and presented an example of his work to the collection. The Gallery mounted annual spring exhibitions in which Grimshaw always put forward works for inclusion.

Atkinson Grimshaw had a unique style and is remembered as one of the minor Victorian masters and his place in art history will be assured by his depiction of Victorian life and his haunting moonlight which became his trademark.

Having said that, there was an element of controversy about his work. As I said at the start of his biography, Atkinson had not received any formal artistic tuition, got married at the age of twenty-one and four years later despite now being a family man, had given up his job as a railway clerk to become a professional artist. He had now to make money from his art work and to do this had to reach a level of artistic competence which would guarantee that his work would sell. So how did he achieve such a feat? John Ruskin, the art critic had recommended that artists should paint directly from nature but to do this one had to have had some training in draughtsmanship and perspective and so Atkinson Grimshaw in a way decided to “cheat”. He discovered that by projecting a photograph or a lantern slide on to a blank canvas he was able to produce an immediate composition. Then he would go over the outlines in pencil. Over which he would add colours and the end result was a glossy finish which had removed all traces of the pencilled outline. The finished landscapes and cityscapes sold well and for a time made him very wealthy. However despite his success, other artists who had studied and trained in traditional academic methods for years despised his productions and in one of Grimshaw’s obituary notices it was written:

“…[his pictures] excited considerable controversy among contemporary artists, not a few [of whom] were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all…”

To be fair to Grimshaw the technique he used would not have caused such controversy nowadays and the question remains, does the end justify the means? So let me finish with a kinder obituary notice which simply stated:

“…A Leeds artist of very great ability has passed away. He may be regarded as self-taught in all that gave character and distinction to his art. His methods, treatment and colouring were quite unlike anything in ordinary practice…”

Travelling Companions by Augustus Egg

Egg-travelling — Travelling Companions by Augustus Egg (1862)

Today I am once again featuring a Victorian painter. His name is August Leopold Egg and he was born in London in 1816. He was the third son of Joseph and Ann Egg. His Swiss-born father, like his family before him, was a gunsmith and today one of his guns or rifles commands a high price at auction.

In 1834 Augustus studied art at the Sass Academy in London. Henry Sass was an English artist and teacher of painting who founded this London art school and it provided training for those seeking to enter the Royal Academy. Two years later, in 1836, the twenty-year old August Egg enrolled as a Probationer to the Royal Academy Schools. The following year, he joined up with a number of fellow aspiring artists and formed a sketching club, known as The Clique. This small grouping, which included the founder, Richard Dadd, also included Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, Henry Nelson O’Neil, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward. The Clique was characterised by its denunciation of academic high art in favour of the simpler genre painting, and the group were influenced by the great English narrative painter William Hogarth and the Scottish historical painter David Wilkie. For them, art was for public consumption and for the public to judge. They believed that works of art should not be judged solely on how well they conformed to academic principles.

August Egg was at pain to combine popularity with moral and social activism in his paintings which was similar to how his friend, the writer Charles Dickens managed to do with his novels. Egg and Dickens became great friends and jointly founded the “Guild of Literature and Art”, which was a philanthropic organisation which provided welfare payments to struggling artists and writers. Egg’s early works of art were mainly illustrations of literary subjects as well as historical incidents taken from the accounts of the seventeenth century diarist, Samuel Pepys. He also showed great interest in Hogarth’s narrative works, which often had a moral theme such as Marriage à la Mode and The Rake’s Progress and it was probably these works that inspired Egg to complete his moral narrative painting, The Life and Death of Buckingham. Many members of The Clique were vociferous critics of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood because, to them, their art was deliberately unconventional, but Egg disagreed and became a great friend and admirer of William Holman Hunt. In 1848 Egg completed his much lauded work entitled Queen Elizabeth discovers she is no longer young. This won him critical acclaim and earned him the position of Associate Member of the Royal Academy (ARA). In 1860 he was elected to the position of Royal Academician (RA). That same year he married Esther Mary Brown.

August Egg was, besides being a talented artist, a great organiser and spent a much of his time organising exhibitions for his fellow artists. In 1857 he was one of the organisers of the The Art Treasures of Great Britain exhibition, which was held in Manchester from May to October of that year. To this day, it is said to remain the largest art exhibition ever to be held in the Great Britain, possibly in the world with over 16,000 works on display. It was so popular that it attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, which at the time, was about four times the population of Manchester.

Egg loved the theatre and it was through this love that he became friends Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and at times they would all take part in amateur theatricals. In 1849, Egg was elected to the Garrick Club, a gentleman’s club, which was named after the well-known thespian of the time David Garrick. At the end of that year, Egg who often travelled extensively around the Mediterranean countries, set off on a journey to Switzerland and Italy and was accompanied by Dickens, who had just completed his novel Bleak House, and his other writer friend, Wilkie Collins. Egg’s health was never good and in his later years he tried to remedy this by living in the warmer climates of the Mediterranean countries. He died in Algiers in 1863 of asthma aged 46. He was always well loved and his friend, Charles Dickens, described him as:

“….always sweet-tempered, humorous, conscientious, thoroughly good, and thoroughly beloved…”

My featured painting today by August Egg is entitled Travelling Companions which he completed in 1862 and can now be found at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. This has a connection with Egg’s travels as the setting of the painting is a railway carriage and through the open window of the carriage one can just make out the shoreline of Menton, a popular health resort in Victorian days, which lies close to Monte Carlo on the French Riviera. Look how the artist has cleverly depicted the motion of the carriage by painting the tassel attached to the window blind at an angle away from the vertical. There are no other people in the carriage besides the two females which may have been an indication that in those days, males and females rode in segregated train carriages. There is almost a perfect symmetry about the women in this painting as they sit across from each other in the carriage. They wear almost identical billowing voluminous grey dresses. Their hats rest on their laps. Their faces are each framed with a mass of beautiful brunette hair and each wears a black choker around their neck. At first glance, they almost look like mirror images of each other but once we look more closely, there are obvious differences. One sits with a basket of fruit by her side, whilst the other has a bouquet of flowers next to her. One reads whilst the other lays back with her eyes closed. There is no interaction between the two females. Neither seems to be interested in the other or what sights can be seen from the carriage window. Did August Egg want us to take the painting on face value, that is, did he want us to just to accept that this is simply a painting of two women travelling in a railway carriage? I did, but many do not see the painting in such simplistic terms. Maybe it is because Egg had painted many moral narrative works that people looked for hidden meanings in this work. I am not convinced, but let us look at some of the suggestions that have been put forward about how we should interpret what we are looking at and then I will let you be the judge as whether they are too fanciful to believe or there is a modicum of truth in what they want us to accept as the true meaning behind the painting.

So, if you, like me, look on the painting as simply a depiction of two women travelling by train let me “muddy the waters” for the more I investigate this painting the more I am wondering whether I am missing something. Is this simply a painting of two almost identical women on holiday travelling in a railway carriage? Are we simply observing a young lady sleeping and a young lady reading? First of all, are we looking at two separate women? That would seem a silly question but some people would have us believe they are one and the same person and that the artist is portraying them in different moods. Some again who believe in the “one woman” theory would have us believe that perhaps the waking woman is the product of the sleeping one: in other words, she is the dreamed projection of the other. Another theory is that the one who sleeps is a portrait of inactivity and the one who reads is a portrait of activity – a pictorial depiction of “Industry and Idleness”. I also read that Egg’s painting was a statement of past and future with the one woman with her eyes closed dreaming of the future whilst the other reads of the past?

And so the theories about the interpretation of this painting mount up but I suppose one has to remember that in Victorian times, tales with a moral were all the rage and Augustus Egg painted many pictures which told a moral tale, so is this yet another one?

For people who like to add their own interpretation to a painting many feel the need to explore the sexual connotations in a scene and I read an article which does just that. It is by far the most unusual interpretation (I initially intended to say “fanciful interpretation” of the painting but decided the word “fanciful” sounded derogatory and that is not my intention). The article I came across was on the website entitled Victorian Visual Culture and was written by Erika Franck as part of a degree course in Modern Literary studies. She wrote:

“…Although Egg’s Travelling Companions (1862) is considered to be a reflection on railway travel and the way in which the different classes were segregated, one cannot ignore the sexual connotations that are evident in the painting. The painting displays two young ladies who appear to be identical, and yet upon closer inspection are not. It seems as though the girl on the left has been awakened sexually despite the fact that she is asleep. This can only be detected in comparison with the girl on the right. Firstly, the young lady on the right has flowers set beside her as opposed to the other lady who has a basket of fruit. The flowers convey the virginity and sexual virtue of the girl on the right whereas the fruit beside the girl on the left implies her virginity has been lost and her innocence has been replaced by sexual indulgence and consequently sexual maturity. This analogy continues as one studies the way in which the companion on the right has the curtain slightly drawn to shade her from the sunlight, as opposed to the lady on the left whose curtain allows the light to expose her fully. In addition, the companion on the left has removed her gloves and is thus further exposed physically. The hat of the lady on the left is positioned slightly to the left in contrast to her companion whose hat sits centrally upon her lap. Again it appears as though the girl on the left has exposed herself sexually in that she is less guarded than her sister. This notion is furthered when one considers the posture of the two companions. The one on the right seems more composed and is reading a book whereas the one on the left is leaning back exposing her neck, and is asleep. Although one could question that if this girl has been awoken sexually then why is she the one who is sleeping in the painting? However, it is possible to argue that this displays her overall lack of constraint and propriety that is portrayed by the other young lady. Even the hair of the companion on the left seems to have fallen out compared to the girl on the right whose hair is pinned back in a controlled manner. If one examines the shape of the carriage window in conjunction with the symmetry of the girls’ dresses one can observe there is a shape which resembles that of a chalice. This traditionally symbolizes the womb and fertility, thus accentuating the theme of sexual awakening. Therefore, Egg presents a young woman who appears to be sexually passive and another who is not. One can speculate that the two ladies are the same person and this consequently, would indicate that a transition from sexual unconsciousness to sexual enlightenment has occurred. However, if one is to argue that this picture depicts a girl who has fallen sexually in contrast to her companion, then this painting serves as a mere “freeze-frame”. It does not represent the consequences of the girl’s fall….”

I sometimes wonder whether I should write a book entitled My Interpretation of Great Paintings as I would be simply just one of many to offer an interpretation as to what I think we are looking at and as the artist is dead and cannot repudiate my suggestions, who is to say the hidden meanings I put forward are wrong ! Somebody once told me that if you want to write a successful biography of an artist you have to come up with at least one amazing, contentious even bizarre fact about the artist that nobody has ever heard before as that will get you the publicity needed to sell the book. I wonder if the people who have interpreted Egg’s work were thinking along those lines !

Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Herkomer

Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Harkomer — Hard Times by Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1885)

My featured artist today is the German painter Hubert von Herkomer. He was born in 1849 in Waal, a small town in southern Bavaria. He was an only child. His father Lorenz was a talented wood carver and his mother was a talented pianist and music teacher. At the age of two he and his family emigrated to America and settled in Cleveland Ohio. Their stay in America was comparatively short for in 1857 they returned to Europe, settling down in Southampton, England. Herkomer first art tuition came from his father and later in life he often said that his father had been one of the most important and positive influences on his career. He went to school in Southampton and began his art education when he attended the Southampton School of Art. One of his fellow students was Luke Fildes who was to become one of the greatest English Social Realism painters (see My Daily Art Display, May 17th). When he was sixteen years old his father took him back to Bavaria where he attended the Munich Academy for a short time. In 1866 he returned to England and enrolled at the South Kensington Schools which we now know as the Royal College of Art and at the age of twenty he exhibited, for the first time, at the Royal Academy.

Herkomer left Kensington Art School and 1867 and started a career as a book and magazine illustrator. However he found most of the work tedious and so being a young man with radical political opinions he was excited by the news that the social reformer, William Thomas, intended to launch an illustrated weekly magazine called the Graphic. Herkomer immediately fired with enthusiasm sent Thomas a drawing of a group of gypsies. The magazine owner, Thomas, was delighted with the drawings and the following week it appeared in his magazine. Over the next few years Herkomer supplied Thomas with more drawings which were published. He applied to join the staff of the magazine but was both annoyed and disappointed when his application was turned down by Thomas. Herkomer had no choice but to remain as a freelance contributor. Although devastated by the refusal he was later to recall that this rebuff was to be the making of him as an artist. He wrote about his belief that he had an obligation to pictorially depict the hard times of the poor and the importance of such magazines like the Graphic, saying:

“…It is not too much to say that there was a visible change in the selection of subjects by painters in England after the advent of the Graphic. Mr. Thomas opened its pages to every phase of the story of our life; he led the rising artist into drawing subjects that might never have otherwise arrested his attention; he only asked that they should be subjects of universal interest and of artistic value. I owe to Mr. Thomas everything in my early art career. Whether it was to do a two-penny lodging-house for St. Giles’, a scene in Petticoat Lane, Sunday morning, the flogging of a criminal in Newgate Prison, an entertainment given to Italian organ grinders, it mattered little. It was a lesson in life, and a lesson in art. I am only one of many who received these lessons at the hands of Mr. W. L. Thomas….”

(Spartacus Educational Hubert Von Herkomer)

A number of his engravings which were used in the Graphic were later reworked by Herkomer into large scale oil paintings. In 1879 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy and became an Academician in 1890.

In 1880 Herkomer started to concentrate on portraiture which, at the time, was the most lucrative art genre. His fame grew and he spent time in America where he completed thirteen portraits during his ten week stay and for them he received the princely sum of £6000. His wealth grew rapidly and he could now afford a luxurious lifestyle. Despite the lucrative portraiture market he never lost his love of Social Realism art which drew attention to the atrocious conditions of the poor. It was in the late nineteenth century that he produced some of his great Social Realism paintings such as Pressing to the West in 1884; today’s featured painting Hard Times in 1885 and On Strike in 1891. In 1883 Herkomer started his own art school at Bushey in Hertfordshire, at which he oversaw some five hundred would-be artists. He served as Slade Professor of Art at Oxford University between 1885 and 1895 and was knighted by the King in 1907. Herkomer died in 1914 aged 65 and is buried in St James’s Church, Bushey.

The featured painting in My Daily Art Display is entitled Hard Times and was painted by Herkomer in 1885. It now hangs in the City Art Gallery of Manchester. The artist was dedicated to bringing the social problems of the poor to the eyes of the public through his oil on canvas paintings. He never forgot his early impoverished childhood and his health problems. The author Lee Edwards, who wrote extensively about Herkomer, commented:

“…Herkomer painted a number of pictures that revealed his sympathy with the poor and disadvantaged, a characteristic fostered in part by his own humble origins…”

This painting was one of his most famous works and was one of many of his paintings which featured rural scenes. His inspiration for this painting was probably the impoverished migrant workers he had seen near his home in Bushey. Herkomer actually used a real family for his painting, getting an a working labourer, James Quarry and his wife Annie to pose with their two sons Frederick George and his brother James Joseph as unemployed workers and their children. The setting for this painting was called Coldharbour Lane, a long and winding road in the Hertfordshire countryside. The outdoor setting was painted en plein air but the characters in the painting were painted later, indoors at his Art School.

The wife who sits with her children by the roadside looks sad and dejected. On the other hand, the man looks down the road and his face is one of hope and possibly optimism that something will “turn up soon” and the tools of the man’s trade lie before them signifying that strength would eventually overcome hardship. It is interesting to note the difference in Herkomer’s portrayal of the effect hardship had on men and women. So should we view this painting as one of hope or one of destitution?

I suppose the answer lies with ourselves and whether when we face problems we believe our glass is half full or half empty !