my daily art display

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt

Normally I try and publish my daily blog in the morning but today I am late, but for a very good reason. I think we all agree that to stand in front of the actual painting is vastly more satisfying than looking at it on the internet or in a book, so although I had made notes for today’s blog I decided that I would go and see the actual painting before publishing my thoughts.

My featured artist today is William Holman Hunt, the English Pre-Raphaelite painter. In 1854 he had just completed The Light of the World, which to this day, remains one of the best known religious paintings of the 19^th century. Hunt wanted to carry on painting religious subjects but decided that any future paintings involving biblical subjects should be painted in the very places where they happened. So in 1854 Hunt decided to journey to the Holy Lands. This was typical of Hunt’s thoroughness, and also typical of the rational, scientific spirit of the age. Another reason for the journey was that it was also at this point in his life when he was suffering a crisis of religious faith and he believed that such a visit to the Holy Lands may bring him a better understanding of his faith. However, his move away from his friends, Millais and Rossetti effectively marked the beginning of the end of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which they had founded six years earlier.

The subject of today’s featured painting in My Daily Art Display is entitled The Scapegoat and the subject is derived from the Talmudic tradition of driving a sacrificial white goat out into the wilderness on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). A strip of red wool was bound to the goat’s horns, in the belief that it would turn white if the appeasement was accepted. This also harked back to the Book of Isaiah 1:18:

“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool.

Hunt regarded the Old Testament scapegoat as a forerunner of the New Testament Christ whose suffering and death similarly expunged man’s sins.

Hunt travelled first to Jerusalem in June 1854 and then in the October on to Oosdoom, a place on the southern edge of the salt-encrusted shallows of the Dead Sea. In his diary Hunt described this setting as:

‘“…never was so extraordinary a scene of beautifully arranged horrible wilderness. It is black, full of asphalte scum and in the hand slimy, and smarting as a sting — No one can stand and say that it is not accursed of God…”

Hunt saw the Dead Sea as a ‘horrible figure of sin’, believing as did many at this time, that it was the original site of the city of Sodom. Here he remained painting the landscape, the mountains of Edom, and the lake which would become the background of the painting. He also made preliminary sketches of the goat. However the goat proved to be a “fidgety model” refusing to stand still. Bad weather forced Hunt to head back to Jerusalem. He had not completed the picture of the goat so brought it, some Dead Sea mud and stones back to his studio in Jerusalem so as to complete the work. However, on the journey back the goat died. Hunt bought another goat and proceeded to have it stand in a tray of salty Dead Sea mud and stones which he had brought back to his studio and continued with the painting. To complete the details of the painting he bought a skeleton of a camel and the skull of an ibex both of which he incorporated into the painting.

The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt (Manchester Art Gallery) 1854

He made two copies of the painting, one (above) of which is a smaller version with a black goat and a rainbow symbolising hope and forgiveness of sins and this can be found in the Manchester Art Gallery, and the other (at the top of the page) hangs in the Lady Lever Gallery, Port Sunlight.

The Lady Lever Art Gallery painting has an inscription engraved onto its frame, which was designed by Hunt himself. It was intended to compliment the painting. The seven stars at the top may have come from the apocalyptic text mentioning the seven stars that fell on the day of wrath or it may indicate the Book of Revelation’s “ancient” Christ who held seven stars in his right hand. On the top of the frame, as wel,l is the inscribed a scriptural text from Isaiah 53:4:

” Surely he hath borne our Griefs, and carried our Sorrows:

yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD, and afflicted. “

and on the bottom part of the frame are the words from the Book of Leviticus 16:22:

“And the Goat shall bear upon him all their Iniquities unto a Land not inhabited.”

Hunt submitted the painting to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1856 where it was greeted with puzzlement and derogatory remarks. The landscape colour was described as “lurid”. Hunt was not put off by that comment and the purple colour of his mountains subsequently became the hallmark of much of his landscape painting.

John Ruskin, the foremost art critic of the time, commented:

‘…This picture, regarded merely as a landscape, or as a composition, is a total failure. Mr Hunt …in his earnest desire to paint the Scapegoat has forgotten to ask himself first, whether he could paint a goat at all…’

His Pre-Raphaelite Brethren commented differently. Dante Gabriel Rossetti said of the painting:

“…a grand thing, but not for the public…”

Ford Madox Brown wrote in his diary:

“….Hunt’s Scapegoat requires to be seen to be believed in. Only then can it be understood how, by the might of genius, out of an old goat, and some saline encrustations, can be made one of the most tragic and impressive works in the annals of art….”.

You must make up your own mind about this work of art. I side with Ford Madox Brown. I stood in front of the painting this afternoon and was moved by the tragic and heart-rending depiction of the goat as it stumbles alone along the salt-encrusted shoreline, to what we know will inevitably culminate in its lonely death.

I love the way in which Hunt’s use of colour to depict the Jordanian mountains in the background. This was certainly one of the most original painting by Holman Hunt. Maybe one should say it was one of his most peculiar works of art. People are divided in their views. Whilst some admire the painting for its exceptional and powerful image in such an unusual setting, others dislike it and wonder why the artist spent so much time and effort on such a gloomy subject.

I will let you be the judge.

The Mirror of Venus by Sir Edward Burne-Jones

Mirror of Venus by Edward Burne-Jones (1898)

The featured artist in My Daily Art Display today is the English painter Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. He had close connections with the later phase of the Pre-Raphelite movement and had close links with the textile designer and artist William Morris. Burne-Jones was born in Birmingham. His father, Edward, was Welsh and worked as a frame-maker. His mother, Elizabeth sadly died just six days after giving birth to Edward, who from then on was brought up by his father and the family housekeeper.

From the age of eleven Burne-Jones attended the King Edward VI Grammer school in Birmingham and at the age of fifteen transferred to the Birmingham School of Art. In 1852, aged 19, he attended Exeter College, Oxford where he studied theology and it was here that through his love of poetry he first met William Morris, a similar devotee to the written word. These two poetry-lovers along with some of their friends formed a close and intimate society which they called The Brotherhood. In 1856 Burne-Jones founded the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. It was at that time that Morris and Burne-Jones decided to seek outside contributions to their magazine and approached the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The ensuing meetings between Burne-Jones and Rossetti was to change the former’s life forever, for he had set his heart on becoming a church minister but Rossetti persuaded him, and William Morris, to become artists. Soon afterwards Burne-Jones put university life behind him and began a new life as an artist. It was not just that Rossetti had inspired the two university students, but both Morris and Burne-Jones had made an impact on Rossetti himself, for some time after their first meeting Rossetti told his friend the poet and artist, William Bell Scott, about the encounter, writing:

“…Two young men, projectors of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, have recently come up to town from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned artists instead of taking up any other career to which the university generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones’s designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything unless perhaps Albrecht Dürer’s finest works…”

In his early days as an artist Burne-Jones was heavily influenced by the works of Rossetti and it was not until he travelled to Italy with John Ruskin that his style changed and he became his own man. In 1877 he was persuaded by a group of his friends to submit some of his oil paintings at the opening show of the Grosvenor Gallery, a newly established venue which was a rival to the well-established Royal Accademy. Over the early years the gallery, founded by Sir Coutts Lindsay, was to become vital to the Aesthetic Movement for it gave them an opportunity to showcase their works, the like of which was often scorned and rejected by the conservative Royal Academy. One of those paintings put forward by Burne-Jones is my featured painting of the day, entitled The Mirror of Venus. The exhibition was highly acclaimed and his career as an artist took off.

There followed an honorary degree from Oxford in 1881 and the following year he was made an Honorary Fellow. In 1893 Prime Minister Gladstone was instrumental in him being created a baronet. On his death five years later, the Prince of Wales intervened and insisted that the death of Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones should be honoured with a memorial service at Westminster Abbey. This was an outstanding honour as he was the first artist to be recognised in such a way.

This painting is a mix of the traditions of Pre-Raphaelitism and Italian Renaissance culminating in a new aesthetic style. We see in front of us ten women peering at their own reflections in a small pool of water. The landscape is quite barren almost like that of a lunar landscape. Burne-Jones often used this type of background and of course his reasoning may have been that it does not detract from the scene in the foreground. In fact it is a complete contrast. By the title of the painting we are to believe that the elegant young woman standing is in fact Venus and the other nine females are her handmaidens. The bright colour of their dresses and their dream-like mood is consistent with Pre-Raphaelite paintings but the grace and style of the figures themselves leans towards the Italian Renaissance style and especially that of Sandro Botticelli, whose work had always inspired Burne-Jones.

There is no background story to this painting. This is not part of a tale from Greek or Roman mythology. There is nothing in the painting which needs to be interpreted. There is no hidden symbolism to discover. What you see is what you get, and what you get is a group of beautiful young ladies sumptuously dressed in clothes of varying colours. The women look rather wistful and do not seem particularly happy as they stare down at their own reflections. I wonder what is going through their minds. I wonder what is causing them to be anxious. Maybe my inquisitiveness is just what the artist wants. Maybe he wants me to decide what the painting is all about. The painting, to my mind, has a romantic element to it. There is a definite sense of beauty to the painting , similar to that which we see with most Pre-Raphaelite works.

On painting in general, Burnes-Jones said:

“…. I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be – in light better than any light that ever shone – in a land no-one can define, or remember, only desire….”

It is a painting I would love to hang on my wall.

The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak by Albert Bierstadt

My Daily Art Display today features two Americans and a mountain. The two Americans are the landscape artist Albert Bierstadt and the US Army brigadier general and explorer Frederick West Lander. The mountain in question is Lander’s Peak, named after the explorer.

Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter and his main contribution to American art was his landscapes of the newly discovered American West. He was born in Solingen, Germany in 1830 and three years later he and his family emigrated to America establishing their first American home in New Bedford Massachusetts. As a teenager he acquired a love for art. In his early twenties he returned to his homeland and studied art at the Düsseldorf School in Düsseldorf. On his return to America in 1857 he turned his artistic attention to the landscape of New England and upstate New York and became part of the Hudson River School of painters. This group of 19^th century artists was influenced by the Romanticism movement and their landscape paintings concentrated on the lands around the Hudson River Valley which included the Catskill, Adirondack and White mountains. It was from within this group that another painting genre evolved. It was called luminism, which was an American landscape painting style of the 1850’s – 1870’s which was characterised by effects of light in landscapes. The use of aerial perspective and a hiding of visible brushstrokes were also characters of this style of painting. These luminist landscapes accentuated an aura of tranquillity and often depicted stretches of calm water above which were soft hazy skies.

It was two years later in 1859 that Bierstadt met up with Frederick West Lander who at the time was working for the US government as a land surveyor. Lander, who was ten years older than Bierstadt, was a military man, who after having studied in various military academies became a civil engineer and an army officer. The American government employed him to survey the land out to the west so as to find a suitable route for the Pacific railroad. This was a hazardous occupation for he and his team of surveyors had not only to contend with the often inhospitable climate but they had to deal with the Native Indians, who fought against the incursion into their homeland.

Bierstadt accompanied Lander on one of these transcontinental surveys which was to forge a passage west and which would become known as Lander Road. This became a popular route for future wagon trains crossing Wyoming and Oregon. It was during this journey of discovery that Bierstadt made many sketches of the landscapes he encountered and on his return home he would convert his rough sketches into many majestic landscape paintings. These were very popular with collectors in the American East who were willing to pay high prices for his works of art as there was a great desire to learn more about their newly-discovered lands to the West.

My Daily Art Display today is one Bierstadt completed in 1863 shortly before he returned back to the West on another journey of discovery. The oil on canvas painting is entitled The Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak. It was a very large painting, measuring 187cms x 307cms (approximately 6ft by 10ft). Bierstadt’s works were often of this size and some of his contemporaries believed this was solely due to his egotistical manner. It was probably more to do with their jealousy and the fact that his large works dwarfed their smaller offerings.

The setting for this landscape painting is of the Wind River Range of the Rocky Mountains of west Wyoming. The mountain, seen in the central background of the painting, was given the name Lander’s Peak by Bierstadt in honour of Lander, who had died on the Civil War battlefield the previous year. This major work of Bierstadt received great acclaim. This wonderful painting manages to capture the vastness of the American landscape and the nature of the undeveloped lands that he and Lander’s survey party encountered. Bierstadt in this painting, by the careful use of brushstrokes, manages to convey to us a sense of awe of the untainted landscape as it was at that time. Like many of his fellow Hudson River Valley artists, Bierstadt believed that through art, moral and spiritual change could be achieved.

The beauty of this painting is breath-taking with its high snow-covered peaks soaring upwards into the sky. In the middle-ground we see a waterfall gushing water into the mirror-smooth lake. I love how the sunlight streams through the clouds to light up this cascading torrent. It is the effective use of luminism which gives this painting the “wow factor”. It adds a mood of tranquillity, peace and calmness to the work. The vegetation around the lake is lush and green and the location was an ideal stop-over place. In the foreground we see a Shoshone Indian encampment with its warriors and their horses.

The painting was sold to a private collector James McHenry in 1865 for $25,000, which was an enormous sum of money in those days. The artist later bought back the work of art and gave it to his brother Edward. Bierstadt was a prolific painter completing over five hundred works. Sadly a large number of them were lost when his Irvington studio was destroyed by fire. Bierstadt died in New York in 1902 aged 72.

Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks

Sometimes artists paint a number of versions of a work of art and I often wonder the reason for this. Are they dissatisfied with their original work or are they just fascinated with the subject of the painting and they wish to add some symbolic aspect so as to give a meaning, whether obvious or hidden that they had not considered when painting the original?

The artist featured in My Daily Art Display today painted over sixty versions of a picture. I wonder why he dedicated almost thirty years of his life on this one theme, continually churning out revised versions. The featured artist today is the American Folk painter, Edward Hicks. Hicks was born in Attelboro, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1780. He was brought up in his grandfather’s mansion. His father, Isaac was a Loyalist, an American Colonist, who sided with the British during the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783. Edward Hicks’ mother died when he was only a year and a half old and he was brought up by Elizabeth Twining, a friend of his late mother. She was a Quaker and brought up Edward in that faith and it was to have a great effect on him for the rest of his life.

When he was thirteen years of age Hicks was apprenticed to coach maker William and Henry Tomlinson with whom he learnt the art of coach painting. When he was twenty he set himself up in his own business as a house and coach painter. At that time he had not fully taken on board the Quaker religion or their ways and was just a happy-go-lucky young man. Later in life he was to look back on those days with some self-reproof, writing:

“…in my own estimation a weak, wayward young man … exceedingly fond of singing, dancing, vain amusements, and the company of young people, and too often profanely swearing”…”

Hicks decided to renew his interest in the Quaker faith and in 1803, the twenty-three year old, became a member of the Society of Friends. It was in that same year that he met and married a Quaker woman, Sarah Worstall. In 1812 he became a Quaker minister and the following year travelled around the state preaching the Quaker faith. At the same time as his preaching tours, he had to keep money flowing into his household so he carried on his painting career, concentrating on farm and household items as well as tavern signs. His business was quite profitable but it was that very fact that to some of his fellow Quakers, fell foul of the Quaker principles. For a time he gave up his painting and tried to follow the Quaker traditions of farming but he lacked experience and was soon losing money. His commissions for house and equipment painting was also starting to dry up and financial disaster stared Hicks in the face. He was also now a father of five young children who had to be fed.

A life-line was thrown to him when somebody suggested that he should become a Quaker artist and by his works of art, spread the “word”. It was at this time, in 1820, that Edward Hicks made the first of his paintings entitled The Peaceful Kingdom which he revised many times. Today’s painting for My Daily Art Display’s features the 1833 version of the painting which is hanging in the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts. This painting was not looked upon as a religious painting but in some ways illustrates the Quaker principles. The subject of the painting was taken from the Old Testament, Book of Isaiah 11: 6-8

The wolf will live with the lamb,
   the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
   and a little child will lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
   their young will lie down together,
   and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
   the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

There is a peaceful interaction between the domestic and wild animals, which in real life would be the “predator and prey”. We see the lion happily eating straw with the bull. We see a black bear sharing its food with an ox. We see a lamb and a wolf lying contentedly, side by side. We observe humans and animals interfacing peacefully which in some ways suggests an impression of unity. A child has her arm wrapped round the neck of a tiger, whilst another strokes the nose of a leopard. In the background, to the left, we see a group of people. In this later version of the painting we see a ravine dividing these characters in the middle ground from the animals in the foreground.

In the middle ground these are settlers symbolizing the founders of American Quaker movement, led by William Penn, and native Indians who are signing a treaty, which would allow both groups to live in peace and harmony. Theirs would be a Peaceable Kingdom. Harmonious living was tantamount in the teaching of the Quakers. They believed that barriers should be removed that prevented people working and living together in peace. It is all about living peacefully together and by doing so having a happy and fruitful life.

There is warmth to this picture in the way Hicks uses his colours. The scene is lit up by the sunlight streaming down the valley. There is a great depth to the painting with the animals in the foreground the people in the middle ground and the sunlit river running through the deep-sided valley in the background.

Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch by Edward Hicks (c.1826)

In the1826 version (above) entitled Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch the words of Isaiah were lettered on the false frame of the picture which surrounds the painting.

In later versions Hicks’ technique became more adept. The figures depicted were spread more and lessened in number. The animals seemed to become more restless and showed a greater ferocity and there were signs of a split between the predators and their prey. They looked older with greying whiskers and sunken eyes. It could well have come about as a result of Hicks’ uneasiness with Quakerism.

Marriage à la Mode: The Lady’s Death by William Hogarth

We have finally arrived at the final chapter of this set of six satirical paintings by the English artist, William Hogarth, entitled Marriage à la Mode. This final canvas in this moral drama is entitled The Lady’s Death and this of course gives away the final twist in the pictorial story. When I gave you the first of the six paintings on May 4^th I had intended it has a “one-off” in case you got bored if I had gone through all six of the paintings. However, I became so fascinated by them I thought that my fascination would be transferred to you and so for the last six days we have followed the life of the Earl and Countess of Squander through the eyes of Hogarth. Sit back and enjoy the dénouement. For those of you who have not seen the earlier paintings in my blogs I suggest you head back to My Daily Art Display of May 4^th where the story starts.

Yesterday in My Daily Art Display we witnessed the scene at the bagnio, the death of the Earl at the hands of his wife’s lover, Silvertongue, the family lawyer. Now we are transported to the home of the Countess’ father the rich merchant who had arranged his daughter’s marriage to the Earl, paid a sizeable sum of money to the groom’s father and in return, achieved entry in to the world of nobility. The decor of the room is not like anything we saw earlier in the house of the young noble couple. This has a bareness and frugality to it. There is no sign of aristocratic profligacy we had seen in the earlier paintings. The floors are bare. This is not because of the owner’s lack of wealth but more to do with his business-like bourgeois miserliness. Unlike his daughter and his son-in-law, he was careful with his money.

So let us look carefully at this final scene. In a chair we see the tragic figure of the dying countess. She has been informed that her lover, Silvertongue, the family lawyer, has been hanged at Tyburn for killing her husband. She is wracked with guilt and inconsolable and has taken an overdose of poison. Hogarth has piled on more tragedy by showing the nursemaid bringing the Countess’ child to the dying woman for one last cuddle. The nursemaid is wracked with grief, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sadly, it should be noted that this maid’s expression of grief is the only one we can see on the faces of the people in the room. The small child puts her lips to her mother’s face to give her one final kiss. Once again Hogarth has signified, by painting a black spot on the child’s cheek that the child is suffering from syphilis, almost certainly passed on by the father who we knew was suffering from that sexually-transmitted disease. It probably also means that the future health of the child looks extremely bleak. If that was not bad enough, we can see the poor young thing has legs strapped in callipers, possibly caused by rickets…

We see the father of the countess standing next to the chair his daughter in which she is lying slumped. He has hold of her right hand. Is this a touch of tenderness from the heart-broken father? I fancy not as we can see his sole intention seems to be to remove the gold wedding ring from his daughter’s finger before rigor mortis sets in. He is aware that this sordid episode will prove financially disastrous to him as in cases of suicide the property and possessions of his daughter will revert to the State, which of course means he will lose the considerable dowry he put up as part of the marriage contract. His best-laid plans have fallen asunder. Do I hear a cheer of delight from my readers?

To the right of the dying woman we see the apothecary reproaching the foolish servant for allowing this all to happen, for it was the servant, who had been persuaded by his mistress to go out and procure some laudanum from the apothecary. Now the apothecary will be blamed and his rage at the servant is probably to deflect such onus of blame from himself for allowing the poison to enter the household. The empty bottle lies on the floor by the feet of the countess with the label “Laudanum” still attached. Next to the empty vial we see a handbill reporting the notice of execution at Tyburn of Silvertongue and recording the dying words of the convicted murderer. It is probably these tragic last words of her lover that tipped the countess into a suicidal depression.

Let us now look at some of the minor details of the painting that Hogarth has tantalised us with. Through the open door from which the doctor is leaving we see a row of leathern buckets hanging on the wall. These were the normal accoutrements of a merchant’s house and were, before a fire engines came into being, in case of fire. Once again we see an overturned chair, this time by the table. Hogarth used this to symbolise disagreement and conflict. On the table, we see a pig’s head, which presumably was to be part of a meal, being dragged off by an emaciated-looking dog. This sort of unappetising meal woulds probably cost little and is a direct reference to the frugality of life in the miserly merchant’s abode.

The paintings on the wall are Dutch genre showing satirically the life of the common people. In one, we can just make out a woman lighting her pipe using the heat from a drunken man’s nose. In another, a still-life, we see a pile of dirty dishes lying untouched in a sink and in another we are presented with a drunken man urinating against a wall.

The window to the right of the painting bears the St George’s Cross, the City of London coat of arms. In the upper right quadrant we see an upturned sword which is indicates that this house is situated north of the Thames. Looking out of the open window we can see the old London Bridge with all its old dilapidated houses built along its entire length. Art historians tell us that this view was one Hogarth would have witnessed from a window in his uncle’s house.

So that is finally the end of Hogarth’s satirical story depicted in his six paintings. I hope you liked them. When they were first shown to the public around 1743 they received poor reviews, much to the artist’s disappointment considering the amount of time he had put into them. His peers denigrated his efforts saying that they were merely caricatures. Hogarth had started preliminary work on what was to be another set of paintings entitled The Happy Marriage but probably, after the poor reception he received for Marriage à la Mode, he decided to shelve the project and now only a few unfinished sketches exist. In my opinion they were much more than just caricatures. The paintings give us a very human story and although we may take pleasure in the downfall of the Earl, his wife and the lawyer, I believe Hogarth wanted to draw from us a condemnation of the two fathers who, for financial gain, forced the two young people into an arranged marriage.

Hogarth sold his paintings for a mere twenty guineas and after changing hands a few more times became the property of the British Government and are part of the collection of the National Gallery in London and where they reside today in Room 35. I will certainly be heading there the next time I visit this great gallery.

Marriage à la Mode: The Bagnio by William Hogarth

My Daily Art Display for today will look at the fifth painting in a set of six by William Hogarth, entitled Marriage à la Mode. Today’s painting is subtitled, The Bagnio. For anybody who has just come to this page, I suggest you flick to My Daily Art Display of May 4^th as that looks at the first painting of the set and as the six paintings are telling a story in chronological order that is where you should start this pictorial soap opera about the Earl of Squander and his young bride. The title of the Hogarth painting today is The Bagnio. In England, bagnios were originally used to name coffee houses which offered Turkish baths, but by 1740, which was around the time Hogarth painted these pictures, they signified places where rooms could be hired “with no questions asked”, later they became houses of prostitution.

Yesterday we looked at the fourth painting in the series, subtitled The Toilette and we learnt for the first time that the relationship between the Countess of Squander and her lawyer, Silvertongue was not as pure and business-like as we first believed. They were arranging to go to a masquerade together and we learnt that the anonymity that these soirées provided guests, allowed them to behave as flirtatiously as they liked without fear of their identity being known.

The scene of the painting today is set in a dimly lit room in the Turks’ Head Bagnio, which actually existed in London at the time of Hogarth, in Bow Street, Covent Gardens. Hogarth identifies the establishment by showing a bill on the floor next to the upturned table in the far left foreground of the painting. Silvertongue and the Countess did go to the masquerade but instead of her returning home she has decided to accompany her lawyer to the bagnio to consummate their sexual desires. We know they attended the masquerade as their masks lie discarded on the floor. The floor is also strewn with discarded clothes, the two masques and their bags and it is obvious the two lovers were in great haste to make love. However for the lovers the night of passion turned out to be an unmitigated disaster as somehow the Earl of Squander, her husband, had found out about their secret assignation and had burst in on them whilst they were carrying out their dastardly deed. It makes you wonder whether the Earl himself had been using the bagnio for his own forbidden pleasures and the landlord had said something like “I see your wife and her lawyer are here tonight”. Ok, that is stretching the imagination too far, but somehow he found out about this tryst.

An ensuing sword-fight broke out between Silvertongue and the Earl. Unfortunately for the Earl, whose life had been spent gambling, drinking and fornicating, fencing had not been his forte and the result of the short-lived duel ended with him receiving a fatal wound to the heart. Silvertongue now fearing the consequences of his action drops his bloodied sword, which we see on the floor, and decides to vacate the room through the window without stopping to get dressed. The Countess racked with guilt, falls to her knees at the feet of her dying husband begging forgiveness. The sound of the commotion has alerted the landlord of the establishment who bursts through the door with the Night Watch to investigate. This is the scene we now see before us.

As ever, I get great pleasure in looking at the detail in paintings rather than just standing back and having a cursory glance at a work. I think we owe that to the artist, who has spent so much time on the details and shouldn’t we try and get into the head of the painter and try and rationalise the details he has meticulously added to his masterpiece?

We are given a rear-view of Silvertongue in the left background, disappearing out of the window in his night shirt. There is something quite comical and ludicrous about his pose and maybe it was Hogarth’s intention to cast him as a fool.

On the rear wall hangs a tapestry. It is a woven depiction of the Judgement of Solomon, which if you remember tells the story from the bible which was about his judgement on the parenthood of a baby between two women claiming the infant as theirs. His judgement was that the baby should be split asunder, giving half to each mother. Hogarth probably added this as a backdrop to this painting as a reference to the destructive split of the marriage between the Earl and the Countess due to their self-centred life choices they had made which resulted in the ruin of both their lives.

Hogarth must have had a sense of humour for look on the back wall at the framed three-quarter length picture of a prostitute, which has been placed on the tapestry in such a way that the legs from part of the tapestry scene look to be those of the prostitute! The bedclothes lie ruffled on the bed which leads us to believe that the Earl had entered the room and caught the lovers in flagrante delicto.

From what Hogarth depicted in this painting, we can have no doubt that the final painting, which we will look at tomorrow, is not going to have a happy ending.

Marriage à la Mode: The Toilette by William Hogarth

Marriage a la Mode The Toilette by William Hogarth (c.1743)

This is the fourth day of My Daily Art Display which looks at the set of six Hogarth paintings entitled collectively as Marriage à la Mode. To follow the story in chronological order you should start at my blog of May 4^th. Today we are at Episode Four of this pictorial soap opera, a veritable tragic-comedy about a doomed marriage. Today’s painting is the fourth in William Hogarth’s series and is entitled The Toilette.

There has been a passage of time between the happenings in the first painting in the series when the two young people became husband and wife and the setting for this fourth painting. We are in the house of the Viscount and his wife. We are in the ante-chamber of her boudoir as she prepares herself for the trials and tribulations of the coming day. What is happening is a morning ritual that the nobility copied from the life of the monarch and which was developed in the French Court. It was known as the lever du roi. The royal morning toilette unfolded in two phases. The king was joined for the petit lever by his most senior officials, who gave him the day’s news. While they talked to him, the king was given his dressing gown, was shaved and powdered, and relieved himself on his commode. This was followed by the grand lever, a more public morning reception, during which the king took his chocolate, was given his wig and dressed.

If we look above the pink-curtained alcove we see a coronet which signifies the Viscount has become an Earl and means he has inherited the title from his late father. The Viscount is now the new Earl of Squander and his wife is now Countess of Squander. This painting is bursting with all the characters Hogarth has added. Let me introduce them to you. The now Countess of Squander is the lady on the right, wearing the yellow and silver morning gown sitting at her dressing table. On the back of her chair, tied to a red ribbon is a child’s teething coral so we know that she has become a mother. She has her back to her guests with the exception of Silvertongue, the lawyer, who she is in animated conversation with. Silvertongue is the lawyer whom we saw in the first painting as he carried out the duties of an adviser to the late Earl and consoled the unhappy viscountess. Behind her stands her hairdresser who is testing the heat of his curling tongs.

The lawyer seems to have become very “close” to the Countess and seems to have made himself quite at home as he lies full length on a sofa. In his right hand are some tickets – but for what and why? If we look at his left hand, it is pointing towards a folding-screen which is illustrating a masked company and we can assume that his conversation with the Countess involves inviting her to come with him to some sort of masquerade. As people wore masks at these events they could not be identified and any dubious behaviour carried out by the revellers was done so without the fear of identification. Such masquerades in those days often went on right through the night and often the men and their partners would slip away to a bagnio, which was a place where rooms could be hired with no questions asked, and where lovers could “consummate their relationship”. We now begin to realise that the lawyer, Silvertongue, is not just the Countess’ legal adviser. Another hint at the sexual nature of their relationship is the book which lies against the back of the sofa on which he lies sprawled. It is La Sopha a 1742 libertine novel by French author Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. It is a story concerning a young courtier, Amanzéï, whose soul in a previous life was condemned by Brahma to inhabit a series of sofas, and not to be reincarnated in a human body until two virgin lovers had consummated their passion on him. It became the favourite reading of all, male and female alike, who enjoyed indulging in erotic fantasies.

To the left, on the sofa we have a singer, probably a castrato, a type of male singer which was very popular at the time. He is sumptuously dressed with his silken waistcoat which is somewhat spoiled by his corpulence. He wears rings on his ear and all of his fingers. His profession has brought him great wealth. Look at his diamond-encrusted tie pin and the buckles on his shoes and on his knees. The Countess will have paid dearly for this “morning serenade. Her female companion is mesmerised by the singing and seems about to fall to her knees in homage to the singer. At the opposite end of the sofa to the fat singer we see a strange looking man with curl papers in his hair. We know it is not the husband as we have seen him in the three previous paintings and from what we know of his character we know he was unlikely to give up his time to be with his wife at her petit leve. Behind the sofa we see a very thin flautist who accompanies the singer. In the background we see two other gentlemen, part of her ladyship’s entourage. One holds a cup with what looks like a chocolate biscuit dunked in it. He has the cursed black patch on his lower lip which could mean he is yet another person carrying a sexually-transmitted disease. Looking at his facial expression, he too seems much enamoured by the singer’s rendition. His companion, seated behind him, on the other hand, seems less taken by the music as he is sound asleep albeit still clutching hold of his riding crop.

In the background of this painting we see a black servant handing out a cup of possibly tea or hot chocolate to the Countess’ companion. On the floor, in front of the countess and Silvertongue we see a small black boy wearing an Indian turban. It was very fashionable in those days to have at least one coloured servant or pageboy and by the way this small child is allowed to be present at the petit leve he must have been one of the household.

It is interesting to note that he is smiling as he holds a figure of a naked man who is wearing antlers on his head. This symbolises a cuckold – a deceived husband. The figure is almost certainly Actaeon, the mythical hunter who surprised the goddess Diana while she was bathing naked and who was turned into a stag in punishment and torn to pieces by his own dogs. This must have been bought at auction by the countess as it still has the lot number affixed to it. More erotic items can be seen in the basket the boy is rummaging through – the picture on the tray also recalls forbidden erotic pleasures: the married Zeus, in the shape of a swan, approaches the similarly married Queen Leda.

Scattered on the floor are various invitations received by the Countess along with a number of ugly ornaments, similar to those we saw on the mantelpiece in the second painting of the series. On the walls there are a number of paintings which we can recognise. Such as Lot and his Daughters, which was a Biblical reference to incest and Jupiter and Io, a Greek mythological tale of seduction concerning Io who was a river goddess. Jupiter fell in love with the beautiful maiden, and one day, as she rested on the banks of the River, he changed his shape into that of a cloud, and embraced her. He whispered words of love to her, and then planted an immortal kiss upon her upturned cheek. However the strangest painting on the wall of the Countess’ room is a portrait of Silvertongue himself! I wonder how she explained that away to her husband!

There are so many things in this painting which leads us to believe that the Countess has or is about to be unfaithful to her husband. Prior to this painting, we have just looked at the first three paintings in Hogarth’s six piece cycle and we have surely felt sympathy for the young wife. Let us examine her lot in life. Forced into a marriage by her father, who was willing to do anything to join the nobility. Married to a wastrel who we learn was suffering from a sexually transmitted disease and who spends his evening in the company of whores. However after examining today’s painting, the fourth episode of the story, maybe we are having doubts about our unconditional love for the young woman. Can we justify her actions by saying it is purely an act of revenge on her wayward husband?

Marriage à la Mode: The Inspection by William Hogarth

Marriage a la Mode The Inspection by William Hogarth (c.1743)

For anybody who has just clicked on to this page, be warned, we are now almost half way through William Hogarth’s pictorial saga entitled Marriage à la Mode and I suggest you click on to the May 4^th blog which is the starting point to this cycle of paintings. This is painting number three in the cycle and is entitled The Inspection. In My Daily Art Display on the two previous days we looked at the coming together of the young couple and then the onset of the deterioration of the relationship. Today things take a turn for the worse in the marriage saga.

Today, the setting for the painting is not the Viscount and Viscountess’s house but the consulting rooms of the French doctor, M. De LaPillule. In the surgery we see the doctor to the left, the Viscount, with his young mistress, who stands on his left hand side and in the centre a rather large woman in a voluminous maroon hooped dress. There is no sign of the Viscountess and as the story unfolds you will know the reason for her absence.

In the two previous paintings in the cycle we have noted that the Viscount has a black patch on his neck, a way Hogarth signified that the Viscount has contracted the sexually transmitted disease, syphilis. It is for that very reason that he now appears at the doctor’s surgery. The Viscounts voracious sexual appetite has been the undoing of him and now he is paying the penalty for his many indiscretions and sexual liaisons. He, however, seems unabashed by his predicament. In fact he seems quite good humoured, which is in stark contrast to the worried look on the face of his very young mistress. She is but a mere child. They have come to the doctor for a cure for his ailment. He had originally been prescribed mercury tablets, which at the time were the only known cure for the disease, but they have had not achieved the desired effect so we can see the Viscount handing back the pill to the doctor and asking for an alternative medication. I say “asking” but we see that in his left hand he is brandishing a cane. Is this a threatening move on his part towards the doctor? Is it his belief that his confrontational action will get him a more potent and successful remedy?

I am not sure how much faith I would have in a doctor who looks like the one in the painting. He looks unclean and unshaven and is dressed in shabby brown clothes. Maybe he is what was termed a “back-street” doctor. Maybe the Viscount dare not go to his regular physician in case his plight became known to his social circle. The surgery, like the doctor, is dirty and full of masks and bones and on the table next to Doctor La Pillule is a skull. In the cupboard at the rear of the painting we see a skeleton which almost appears to be groping the genitals of a musculature model or is it an embalmed body !!!! If we look to the side of the cabinet we can see a narwal tusk which is a classic phallic symbol. On the cabinet we observe a plethora of pill boxes, a scalloped-sided bleeding basin, a glass urinal, a giant plaster head with a huge femur behind, an alchemist’s tripod for holding flasks over burners, a broken mediaeval comb, a tall red Jacobean hat, two mismatched mediaeval shoes, a spur buckler and a sword and shield, all of which are covered in dust. So what does this tell us about the doctor and his practice? Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the German scientist and artist wrote in his book entitled Hogarth on High Life. The Marriage à la Mode Series,

“…The Doctor’s collection, commenting as it does both historically and prophetically on his career, might be interpreted as follows: he began as a beard trimmer; graduated to piss-analyst; barely skirting the gallows (by virtue of his curative powers) he grabbed for himself a doctor’s hat; and is now counting on a knighthood, if he has not one already…”

Hardly a resounding recommendation on the good doctor’s ability to cure the Viscount and his mistresses.

The large irate lady at the centre of the painting, which we are presuming is the young mistress’s mother, has similar black patches on her face and we can only surmise that she too is suffering from syphilis. It is thus a matter of conjecture as to whether the lady is purely the mother of the Viscount’s young mistress or is she the mistress as well, as the Viscount seems to be very relaxed in her company and not fearful of the consequences of having given her young daughter a sexually transmitted disease. Also, if she was the child’s mother would she and the child be standing together? Maybe they are not related and they are just two females of vastly different ages plying the same trade. I am not sure whether, if I was the Earl, I would be feeling relaxed as him, especially as in her hand we see her opening up a clasp knife as she stares down malevolently at him.

We look at the young girl. She is but a child. She looks worried and sad knowing what has befallen her. It is a pathetic sight. For a supposed mistress she seems so young, too demure, too prim and proper but we see her dabbing a sore on her mouth with a handkerchief and this is probably the early signs of the onset of syphilis. In her other hand is a pill box. Maybe she too is seeking an alternative remedy to her illness.

That’s the end of Episode Three of Marriage à la Mode. Tomorrow we will take a look at the next part of the Hogarth’s saga, entitled The Toilette.

Marriage à la Mode: The Tête à Tête by William Hogarth

Marriage a la mode Tete a Tete by William Hogarth — Marriage à la Mode: The Tête à Tête by William Hogarth

For those of you who have just alighted on this page, I would suggest you start by looking at yesterday’s offering, which is the first in a series of six paintings by William Hogarth, which together were entitled Marriage à-la-mode. My Daily Art Display today is the second painting in the series entitled The Tête à Tête. The six paintings tell a story, in chronological order, (hence my suggestion to start at yesterday’s blog) of the consequences of an ill-conceived marriage.

In the painting we see four characters. The newly married Viscount and his bride, the Viscountess, and two servants, one who is just taking his leave of the couple and the other we can spot in the ante-room. The setting is the drawing room of their palatial home. If we look above the Viscount’s head we can see a clock showing a time of 1:20 and this has generated two lines of thought as to whether we are viewing this scene in the early afternoon or in the early hours of the morning. I will leave you to decide.

The Viscount sits slumped in his chair with his hands stuffed in his pocket. He is disheveled and completely lost in thought. It is as if he has just returned from a night out with the lads and is now feeling ill from the onset of a hangover and a night of debauchery. He looks exhausted and maybe his night out was not just a tour of the inns with his male friends but maybe his fatigue has been brought on by their visiting a brothel. So maybe 1:20 in the morning is a better bet!

He pays no attention to his wife who sits across from him in a separate chair. A dog can be seen at his side. It is quite animated as it sniffs at something sticking out of his pocket, possibly a woman’s lace cap which he obtained as a “trophy” during his sojourn in the brothel. Once again, we see in this picture a large black patch on the Viscount’s neck, which Hogarth used to signify that the Viscount has contracted syphilis. It should be remembered that this patch was there in the first picture and therefore he had this affliction prior to his marriage. However Hogarth has cast doubt on the Viscount’s sexual prowess as lying by his feet is his sword still in its scabbard but the tip has broken off which alludes to the fact that he may be impotent.

The Viscountess - Contented look of pleasure

So let us take a look at the Viscountess. To her right we see some playing cards scattered on the floor. In front of her, on the ground, is the book entitled Hoyle on Whist suggesting that her evening entertainment has been simply playing cards, but maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is, with whom? Am I adding intrigue when there is none to be savoured? Observe the young woman more closely. Her pose lacks dignity. She sits with her legs apart, a not very lady-like pose. Her arms are outstretched and she is lost in thought. In contrast to her husband’s thoughts, her thoughts seem to be very pleasurable. Look at her dress. Look at the stain or damp patch on it. Why has Hogarth painted it like this? What is the artist trying to convey to the viewer? Her facial expression is one of contentment and joy and we know that this is not the result of a happy marriage or the fact of being left at home alone, whilst her husband is off gadding about. She is probably aware of his womanizing, so what has brought about this expression of happiness? There is something sly and devious about her expression as she furtively peeks under eyelashes at her husband. Take a look at what she is holding above her head in her right hand. It is a mirror. Maybe she is using it just before she stretched out her hands or maybe she is signaling to somebody just out of picture – maybe her lover with whom she has spent an evening of pleasure? Maybe that is what has put the contented expression on her face. Hogarth has given us one other clue to a possible meeting of lovers. Look on the floor in the foreground. We see an upturned chair and an abandoned musical instrument and sheets of music. Was the lover of the Viscountess seranading her and on hearing the arrival home of her husband, dashed out of the room, knocking over the chair in his haste?

We see the steward just about to take his leave of the couple. He does not seem best pleased. He is portrayed by Hogarth as a pious Methodist and in the pocket of his coat we can just see a book sticking out with the title “Regeneration” a book on Christian theology. A quill pen is behind his ear. In his left hand he is grasping a stack of unpaid bills and a ledger is tucked under his arm. Hanging from the little finger of his left hand is a spike upon which are the paid bills. Alas, there would appear to be only one, which fades into insignificance if we contrast that to the sheaf of unpaid bills. It is quite obvious that the young Viscount likes to spend and is treading the same perilous path his father took – the road to financial ruin. The steward is leaving them with his right hand thrown upwards in a sign of despair that neither of the couple will take their financial situation seriously.

Over the fireplace we see a painting of Cupid amongst ruins playing what looks like a set of bagpipes. This symbolizes the inharmonious and flawed state of the young couple’s marriage. Below the painting of cupid we see a bust which has, at one time, had its nose broken off and this once again this symbolizes impotence – maybe alluding once again to the impotency of the Viscount. On the mantlepiece there is a terrible mishmash of ornaments, jars, statuettes and figurines. This probably alludes to the chaotic existence of the couple’s lifestyle.

Do you know what amuses me the most? It is is in the other room. Look at the paintings on the wall. We can see three paintings, portraits of the apostles, but look at the fourth painting, the one to the right. A green cover almost hides the subject from view but we can see a naked foot. I will leave you to decide what the rest of the painting was about. It had to be something too risqué for us to see!

We are left in no doubt by this second painting that the marriage of the Viscount and the Viscountess is heading for the rocks and you will have to wait until tomorrow to see the third “episode” of this pictorial soap opera to find out what happens next!

Marriage à la Mode: The Marriage Settlement by William Hogarth

A couple of days ago I featured a portrait of a couple by Thomas Gainsborough. The type of portrait was known as an “outdoor conversation piece” with it being a group portrait of real people in a landscape setting. Today I am going to introduce you to another form of art known as “the modern moral subject”. This form of art was developed by the English artist William Hogarth. Hogarth had a great desire to be an English painter of grand manner history subjects. He wanted to break the foreigner’s monopoly in high art. However, unlike the up and coming portrait painter, Joshua Reynolds, he rejected the idea of travelling to Rome where that manner was to be acquired.

Hogarth believed there was enough evidence of the “foreigners’ work” in England without him having to make them pilgrimage to Italy. The Raphael cartoons, which were considered to be among the greatest treasures of the High Renaissance, were in England. They had been painted by Raphael as designs for the tapestries that were made to cover the lower walls of the Vatican Sistine Chapel had been brought to England in 1623. There were also many engravings of great art at hand in England and Hogarth considered travelling through Europe to study High Renaissance art was unnecessary. Hogarth had created a different role for himself, painting narrative series of “modern moral subjects”. The novelist and dramatist Henry Fielding called them “comic history paintings”.

My Daily Art Display for today is The Marriage Settlement, the first painting of a set of six entitled Marriage à-la-mode which Hogarth painted between 1743 and 1745. It is a moralistic warning, which gives us a clear vision of what happens as a result of an ill-conceived marriage, which only took place for financial reasons and not for love. Art historians believe that this project of Hogarth was his finest. It is a finely crafted story divided into six parts and I like to consider it as a six-episode pictorial soap opera.

So now let me introduce you to the characters that are all assembled in this, the first painting of the series. Seated at the far right of the foreground we have the Earl of Squander. The index finger of his left hand points to an unfurled parchment depicting his family tree, which shows his family being direct descendents of William, Duke of Normandy (William the Conqueror). Hogarth has cynically incorporated a broken branch in to the family tree, which was indicative of a prior marriage, but one outside the nobility and was thus disowned, hence the break from the main tree. Obviously one would not have shown such a thing on a real family tree but it is reminding the viewers that this great noble’s set of descendents were not quite as noble as the earl would have us believe! Although titled, the man is almost penniless and heavily in debt due to his foolish ways and needs urgently to replenish his wealth. Despite his poverty look at the luxurious and costly clothes he is wearing. There is an arrogance about the man. He has surrounded himself with symbols of his nobility. There are coronets everywhere. If you look carefully you can see how Hogarth has painted them on his foot stool, on the canopy above his head, and even on the head of his crutches. Observe how Hogarth has painted him with his right foot resting on a stool which is a tell-tale symptom of gout, and which is often associated with overindulgence in alcohol and rich foods.

Sitting across from the Earl, in his red frock coat is The Alderman. He, unlike the Earl, is extremely rich. He is what we would now term, the nouveau riche. However, he is not of the “noble class” and all he wants is to become the grandfather to a noble son. He has what the Earl needs – money. The Alderman has what the Alderman needs – nobility and so they have hatched up the plan of a marriage between the Alderman’s daughter and the Earl’s son.

Bride and groom with Silvertongue the lawyer

We can see the bride and groom sitting in the background. Note how they are not looking at each other, which is Hogarth’s way of illustrating that there is no “love” in this union. The young girl looks despondent but resigned. Her clothes are quite plain in comparison to those of her new husband. She is fiddling nervously with her handkerchief through which she has threaded her wedding ring. We feel a little sorry for her. Next to her stands Silveretongue, the lawyer. He has a somewhat fawning appearance as he is outlines the terms of the marriage to her.

On the other hand, there is nothing about the groom’s appearance and demeanour that we can possibly like. The young man, the Viscount, has a foppish air about him. He sits with his back to his new wife. He is dressed expensively in a French-style wearing a powdered wig with a black bow in the back of it. His high heeled shoes and open spindly-legged posture give him a distinctly effeminate look. There is a black spot on his neck which some believe indicates that he may have syphilis or scrofula. He vainly stares at his reflection in the mirror in a narcissistic manner.

On the floor at the feet of the Viscount we can see two unhappily-looking animals tethered together, a bitch and a dog. Despite being tied together, they seem to be ignoring each other. This is how Hogarth cleverly insinuates and compares pictorially the entrapment that the marriage has brought to the newly-married couple. It is a tethering together of the man and the woman in a loveless arrangement. The arrangement is purely something the Earl and the Alderman wanted. For the Earl it would be a future heir and for the Alderman it would mean and entry to the noble class.

The sixth character in this composition is the man standing looking out of the window, between the Earl and the Alderman. He is the architect. He holds in his hands a set of architectural plans and as we look through the window we can make out an un-finished building the cost of which has probably bled the Earl dry of his money. The architect in a way is part of this ill thought out marriage as he needs the Earl to have his coffers refilled so that he can get back to work on this grand building project.

The final player in this scene is the man leaning over the table handing back to the Earl his mortgage papers which have been signed in return for the bill of exchange provided by the Alderman, which was his daughter’s dowry. On the table we see a pile of gold coins which the Earl has just received from the Alderman.

Hogarth has amusingly given us one more clue that this marriage is doomed to failure. Around the room he has added a number of paintings all of which depict scenes of devastation, tragedy or martyrdom. We see David killing Goliath, St Lawrence being burnt at the stake, The Massacre of the Innocent, Cain slaying Abel and Judith decapitating Holofernes.

Obviously the artist has no doubt as to how this story will unfold!

Tomorrow we will look at the second painting in the series and see how the tale unfolds