Tag: William Etty

Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm by William Etty

Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm' by William Etty. (1832)

In my last blog I told you about the William Etty art exhibition in York, entitled “William Etty: Art and Controversy and I ended his biography around 1807 at which time he had enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools where he studied under Henry Fuseli and received some private tuition from Sir Thomas Lawrence, a painter who influenced Etty’s early works.  So to continue with his life story…….

 In 1816 he made his first trip abroad and visited both Paris and Florence.  Here he studied the works of the Italian masters and soon he became a great follower and admirer of their art.  The subjects of his paintings are mainly classical and mythological, commonly depicting female nudes.

Six years later he made a longer European journey and spent a lot of time in Venice where he studied the Venetian masters and it was during this time he began to master the use of colour which can be seen throughout his paintings.  The sensual nature of his paintings scandalized the Victorian public of the day and Etty was often accused of being indecent.   Nineteenth century art was expected to elevate the mind of the viewer by offering a pure untainted vision of female beauty.  However Etty’s portrayal of flesh was seen as too life-like and sensuous.  His Diploma Piece Sleeping Nymph and Satyrs which he submitted to the Royal Academy following his election to Royal Academician in 1828 was criticized by the then Professor of Painting who described it as:

“…Objectionable and offensive with just a veneer of respectability…”

Etty however, was not deterred by the criticism as on the death of his uncle and wealthy benefactor in 1809 he had suddenly become financially independent and was able to choose his own subjects for his paintings and not be worried about the tongue lashings he regularly received from the art critics of the day.  He spent most of his later life living in London but would regularly escape the pressures of the city and go back to the tranquillity of his birthplace and the rural areas of Givendale and Pocklington where he was brought up.  It was during these times that he was inspired to paint completely different subjects and although he will probably just be remembered for his grand classical and mythological canvasses, and particularly for his paintings of nudes, he painted many small works of the Yorkshire landscapes and portraits of his friends and relatives.

In 1848, when his health started to deteriorate, he left London and returned to York.  His crowning glory came just before his death, when there was a major exhibition of his work at the Society of Arts in London, when 133 of his paintings were displayed.  Etty died a year later, in 1849 aged 62.  His remains are buried in the grounds of the nearby St. Olaves Church, York.  Unlike many artists, Etty did not die in poverty and left a considerable fortune of £17,000.

My Daily Art Display feature painting today is entitled Youth on the Prow, and Pleasure at the Helm, which he completed in 1832 and which, when not out on tour, is normally hung in the Tate Britain Gallery in London.  The title of the painting comes from a line from the 1757 Pindaric Ode by Thomas Gray entitled The Bard.

Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows,

While proudly riding o’er the azure realm

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;

Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;

Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,

That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey

This poem fascinated many Romantics of the time, like Etty, and he illustrates the line in the poem in this work of his.  Paying no attention to the rocking of the golden-prowed boat caused by the Zephyr’s sweeping whirlwind, the almost naked women, in a pyramidic formation, clamber to reach upwards, snatching at the “bubbles of pleasure as they float away.

Etty himself described the subject of the work in a letter to the art dealer C.W.Wass:

“…The view I took of it as a general allegory of Human Life, its empty vain pleasures – if not founded on the laws of Him who is the Rock of Ages…”

Art historians tend to believe the painting which shows the young women playing at catching bubbles despite the onset of a storm is all about Youth in its careless pursuit of pleasure is heedless of impending doom.

According to Leonard Robinson in his book, William Etty, the life and art, the painting was bought by Robert Vernon in 1832.  Later that year Vernon bought John Constable’s work, Valley Farm.  To house this new acquisition Vernon decided to move Etty’s painting to another position and replace it with Constable’s work.  Constable on hearing this wrote to his friend and fellow painter Charles Leslie:

“…My picture is to go into the place – where Etty’s bumboat is at present – his picture with its precious freight is to be brought down nearer to the nose…”

Vernon bequeathed the painting to the National gallery in 1847 and later in 1949 it was transferred to the Tate gallery in London.

As I walked around the main exhibition gallery the majority of the paintings by Etty all included nudes, mainly women but some men and I can see how nineteenth century people were shocked by the works.  Of course, for us today who are used to seeing semi-clad or naked women in our daily newspapers and television we are not shocked by the works of Etty and look with some amusement on the puritanical values of the Victorians.  Now we tend to concentrate on the beauty of his painted figures.  So does nothing shock us these days?   I would have said nothing shocks me any more with regards nudity and yet when I stepped from the exhibition gallery to the next door gallery there was a live art performance by an almost naked woman who cavorted and shouted at the few people who had been brave enough to sit on a chair at the edge of her “stage”.  Did I take my seat?  No, as there seemed to be an element of audience participation I just didn’t have the courage to place myself face to face with the naked female performer.   So maybe I can understand how the Victorian people were shocked by what they saw and maybe in another hundred years people will marvel at why I didn’t have the courage to go face to face with my almost naked female live art performer!

Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, As She Goes to Bed by William Etty

Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, As She Goes to Bed by William Etty.(1820)

A couple of weeks ago I travelled to York and visited the city’s art gallery which had a long-running exhibition of the works of William Etty.  William Etty was born and died in the city and therefore he is the pride and joy of the city’s artistic community.  However as we will see in this blog, Etty’s work was often very controversial.

William Etty’s father, Matthew, was a miller and his mother, Esther Calverley, was the sister of the Squire of Hayton,   Matthew was aged 28 and Esther just 17 when they fell in love in Hayton and then quickly married at All Saints Church, Pocklington, in July 1771. But Esther’s brother was highly disapproving of his young sister’s marriage, and as lord of the manor, who owned both the mill and the milling rights in Hayton, he promptly ejected Matthew and his new wife from the mill, which was their home, and the newlyweds were ‘run out of town’.

They moved to Pocklington and set up a bakery business, but it did not take off, which may have been due to the wider influence in Pocklington of the squire. The young couple moved briefly to Easington, then made a final switch to York, where their bakery was more successful and Etty’s father again took up flour milling. Alhough they were never particularly well off they produced a large family of ten children, born between 1772 and 1793.

William Etty was born in York in 1787, and grew up in the family bakery. He spent some years at a Pocklington boarding school but in 1798, aged eleven, his father arranged a seven year apprenticeship as a printer at the works of the Hull Packet newspaper.  Etty had shown an interest in art in his teenage years and fortunately, through the encouragement and financial support of his wealthy uncle, a successful London gold-lace merchant, he was later able to pursue a career as a painter.  His uncle invited Etty to London in 1806 and the following year, aged twenty, he enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools where he studied under Henry Fuseli and received some private tuition from Sir Thomas Lawrence, a painter who influenced Etty’s early works.  During this time he would visit the National Gallery in London and study the works of the old masters, especially the Italian masters of the Renaissance.  During his time at the Royal Academy he would take part in the Life classes and continued with those studies well after he had became an Academician and well after he had completed all the courses.  It was obvious that William Etty was fascinated by the male and female body and its portrayal.  I will end Etty’s biography here and conclude it in my next blog.

My Daily Art Display today is entitled Candaules, King of Lydia, Shews his Wife by Stealth to Gyges, One of his Ministers, As She Goes to Bed and was painted by Etty in 1820.  The work is based on a story from The Histories of Herodotus, one of the most influential works of history in Western literature.   The nine-volume work was written between 450BC to 420BC and records ancient traditions, politics, geography, and clashes of various cultures that were known around the Mediterranean and Western Asia at that time.  In the first volume there is the story of King Candaules who according to the tale bragged of his wife’s incredible beauty to his favourite bodyguard Gyges. “It appears you don’t believe me when I tell you how lovely my wife is,” said Candaules. “A man always believes his eyes better than his ears; so do as I tell you – contrive to see her naked.”

Gyges refused; he did not want to dishonour the Queen by seeing her nude body.   He also feared what the King might do to him if he did accept.  However Candaules was insistent and Gyges had no choice but to obey. Candaules detailed a plan by which Gyges would hide behind a door in the royal bedroom to observe the Queen disrobing before bed. Gyges would then leave the room while the Queen’s back was turned.  That night, the plan was executed. However, the Queen saw Gyges as he left the room, and recognized immediately that she had been betrayed and shamed by her own husband. She silently swore to have her revenge, and began to arrange her own plan. The next day, the Queen summoned Gyges to her chamber. Although he thought nothing of the routine request, she confronted him immediately with her knowledge of his misdeed and her husband’s. “One of you must die,” she declared. “Either my husband, the author of this wicked plot; or you, who have outraged propriety by seeing me naked.”  Gyges pleaded with the Queen not to force him to make this choice. She was relentless, and eventually he chose to betray the King so that he should live.

The Queen prepared for Gyges to kill Candaules by the same manner in which she was shamed. Gyges hid behind the door of the bedroom chamber with a knife provided by the Queen, and killed him in his sleep. Gyges married the Queen and became King, and father to the Memnad Dynasty.

Before us we have a scene from the start of the tale in which we see Gyges creeping stealthily into the bedroom to catch a glimpse of the naked queen.

Looking through comments made by art critics of the day I came across one who described the subject of the painting as:

“ an undeniably disagreeable, not to say objectionable subject…”

Other reviewers called it

“…offensive, reprobate and a disgraceful story with debase sensuality…”

So what do you think?  Beautiful or distasteful?