Wednesday 18th December - The Favourite

Today is going to be a very busy day as I'm out with Lily and it will take all day so I best get on with things...

The most stylish girl in town in that hat

 I have a confession. Originally, I was going to make this Trag-vent, with 24 days of tragedy-laden stories of artists coming to a sticky and sorry end.  That seemed like a good idea until I typed up the first one and felt so terrible that I couldn't face doing 24 days of them.  Seriously, it would have ended me as I was sobbing during the editing.  Hurrah for cats as I am less inclined to weep! Anyway, the person who put me off the whole idea was John William Godward...

The Favourite (1901) J W Godward

In the light and airy world of Godward's classicism, nothing could make you sob so hard stuff comes down your nose, right? Before we come to the tragedy, let's start with this slice of golden glory.  It must be one of the few ginger cats we have this Catvent...

I thought I knew things about ginger cats but it is so much more complex than I imagined.  For starters, I thought all gingers were boys but that is not true, although 80% of them are. Ginger female cats tend to end up as tortoiseshells, although boy tortoiseshells exist but have fertility issues which is something we all have to know now because I know it.  For simplicity's sake, I think it's most likely our cat today is a boy.  He is being teased by a pretty girl (possibly Ethel Warwick again) with a peacock feather.  All is fairly standard stuff for Godward, what with the marble, the draped woman and unspecified ancient Roman/Greek-ish landscape and all that's good, but it makes me wonder about the Ginger Tom. Isn't he a little...well...out of place?  

Now, I felt a bit cat-racists by thinking that ginger cats can't be Classical - oh, God, I've become the sort of person that gets angry that the new Astrid in the live action How to Train Your Dragon is black, rather than concentrate on the fact that THERE ARE DRAGONS, pull yourselves together - but actually, I'm not too far wrong that ginger short-haired cats aren't traditionally Mediterranean, although the Vikings might have brought them up from Turkey to everywhere they stomped all over. Mind you, I'm falling into the How to Train Your Dragon trap because Godward's classicism has absolutely nothing to do with Ancient Greece, it's a fantasy world.

Classical chap, possibly Hermes? 

The thing I love about Godward's world is that all is golden and peaceful.  The reason he chose that Ginger is that the little golden boy suits the colour scheme of golden and russet, reflected in the girl's drapes and the rusty edges of the marble. The green feather is a welcome pop of contrasting colour, picked up in the lush landscape. I wonder if there is also a comment on the girl favouring the small Ginger-y boy and the elevation of boys in Victorian society?  Probably not, but it might hint at how even the smallest could be the favourite of someone.  That is a small kitten, but the girl adores him because he is adorable.

Believed to be a self portrait, detail from Waiting for an Answer (1889)

Okay, don't say I didn't warn you, here is the tragedy.  Godward was a popular artist in the nineteenth century, but as modernism crept onwards, he felt he was falling from favour.  For context, Godward's family weren't overly keen on him being an artist, preferring him to become something more secure like his father, who was an investment clerk.  Godward went off to Italy around 1912, but returned to England around 1920 to live with his youngest sibling Charles, who had just been married to Gertrude and lived in Fulham in a house with a studio living space behind.  Godward continued to paint and hired model Marietta Avico (1906-1983) for his work. However, he was not a happy man, and on their last appointment, Godward said to Marietta "sixty is old enough for a man to live."

Contemplation (1922)

Yes, I know, that's not good and coupled with the many health complaints that Godward was suffering, things came to a head.  He wasn't sleeping, wandering the garden throughout the night. and had refused to see their mother.  In contrast, his previous painting, Contemplation, had just sold for £125 and he was doing well commercially. None of that matters if you can't feel it and so on the 13th December 1922, the grocery delivery chap couldn't make anyone hear when he knocked.  This was reported to Charles when he came home from the office and so, in the dark, Charles knocked on his brother's door.  Lighting a candle, he let himself into the back rooms, only to find an envelope stuck to the door, on which was written 'Gas'.  John William Godward was found next to the gas fire with his coat wrapped around his head and the fire, having died from coal-gas poisoning, aged 61.

You can appreciate why 24 days of such tragedies might not be good for any of us, but it is so easy at this time of year to feel that everything is too much and the world is a dark place.  In four days' time we reach the shortest day of the year, then the days start getting longer and lighter.  Hang in there, the sun will come again.

See you tomorrow.