The Kissed Mouth

Will You Marry Me?

2012-03-01T11:05:00.000-08:00

I was informed yesterday that it was inappropriate for me to greet people with ‘Happy Leap Day, will you marry me?’, not least because I am already married to the long-suffering, media-celebrity, Mr Walker (He’s the one talking about Evelyn de Morgan on Antiques Roadtrip recently). Look, here is proof of said marriage...

Mr Walker says now there is somewhat less of me than he married, he wants a refund...

Poor Mr Walker, but then he only has himself to blame. Anyway, this got me thinking about weddings…

Happy is the Bride (1890) James Hayllar

I think my father would have worn a smock, given half the chance. In my investigations into Victorian weddings I was struck by a couple of things. Number one was how many of the brides weren’t wearing white, like the bride here in rosy pink. Obviously it’s a fairly recent thing for brides to wear white, started by Queen Victoria, who chose a simple white dress for her wedding gown, with no jewels or furs. I think it’s funny that a popular book from a decade after Vic and Bert’s wedding commented "Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one", which is nonsense as people preferred colours, or just to wear their best frock. The choice of white was seen as dull and conservative when Queen Vic got married but then became a fashionable choice for the wealthy (or those wishing to appear wealthy) as a white dress is the least practical thing in the world, and says to everyone ‘I can afford to have a special dress for just one day, and I can afford to get it washed!’

I digress…here we have the main ingredients of a wedding picture: The blushing bride…

…the hesitant groom…

…and all the jolly well-wishers…

God, don’t they all look miserable? Another major ingredient of Victorian weddings is that most people look like they sucked on lemons before the picture was done. I’m guessing the man on the right in the picture above has the ‘happy’ task of marry the ‘happy’ couple. Lordy, I hope they have picked some cheery hymns. I wonder if the unhappiness has anything to do with the girl in grey, just sighted at the back of the church behind the bride and groom? Maybe she is the one the groom should be marrying? Maybe she is a ghost? Oh, sorry, I’m back with Millais and the ghostly groom… moving on.

The Wedding Morning (1892) John Henry Frederick Bacon

Ah, now this is nice and cheery. The village girls all look on as a crone attempts to squash a virgin into an impossibly small dress while she practises the moves to ‘YMCA’. Mr Walker once commented that weddings are very female-focused and he’s not wrong. Many pictures of weddings are particularly directed at the bride, what’s she’s wearing, what she’s feeling. I wonder if it was because society didn’t really expect men to enter that church as virgins (I suspect Society either didn’t care or would think that possibly you were a little odd) but virginity being such a prized state for a Victorian maiden, this was the day when she would move on to her next level, that of ‘imminent motherhood’. Unless you were Effie Ruskin.

The Wedding Dress Frederick Daniel Hardy

To start with I thought this was just a picture of a group of friends sewing the dress for the woman in red, but looking closer I don’t have a clue what’s going on here. Possibly the bride (in red) is feeling for a pulse of her matron of honour, and finding none, says to the woman on the far left ‘Betsy, you’re now Chief Bridesmaid, Jane seems to have dropped dead. Slacker.’ The sewing box on the far right, looks awfully like a coffin and that big white frock is looking awfully like a shroud…maybe I should move on to something more cheery…

The Bride of Lammermore J E Millais

Ah, I do love a nice cheery Victorian novel. The Bride of Lammermoor is an upbeat tale of how the young lady in the picture marries a handsome, wealthy man and stabs him to death on their wedding night, then gets tormented into madness and her own death. See, Effie, you don’t have the premium on bad wedding nights…

The Bride of Lammermoor W P Frith

Even more Lammermoor

Old William Powell Frith loved The Bride of Lammermoor and it is very tragic/romantic. Maybe we should invent a new word for such things, like ‘Tromance’. So, the plot of this ‘tromance’ by Sir Walter Scott is that Lucy Ashton and Edgar Ravenswood (great name) are in love, but the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods don’t get on and the Ravenswoods have no money, so Lucy’s scheming mum gets her married off to the Laird of Bucklaw. Que wedding night slaughter. Both Millais and Frith chose to show Lucy out walking with Edgar Ravenswood (ah, the doomed love). I rather like Edgar’s boots in the Millais, but then I’m a sucker for a man in boots. Look how evil the mum is in the other Frith! Worst Mother-in-Law ever.

Health of the Bride (1889) Stanhope Alexander Forbes

This has to be the image that seems to crop up time and again on wedding cards, and it is packed with Newlyn goodness, however I think the Bride looks utterly miserable. Maybe she just felt a rib go, for such are the dangers of tight corsets. Maybe she’s thinking ‘I’m not going to be able to eat any of that cake…’

Health to the Bride Walter Dendy Sadler

Maybe if anyone proposes a toast, you have a duty to look as miserable as sin. Mind you, I see a symbolic piece of furniture. That knocked over stool is obviously a sign of coming trouble, or possibly that the guests are already drunk. That’s never going to end well…

The Wedding Dress (1911) Frederick Elwell

This is more my kind of thing. Haven’t we learnt by now that we never look in the chest of memories. Slumping and sobbing invariably follow and neither is very dignified. Are we going with ‘young widow’? She is wearing black which possibly signifies that she made it down the aisle before her husband popped off (I bet he forgot his coat and it rained).

The Bride in DeathThomas Barker

There she goes, snuffing out with her marble boobs aloft. Did she just make it back from the church before having a bit of a cough and dying? No wonder her husband is sad, he’s not even made it to the reception yet and it would seem a little tactless to pop down and get some cake before it all goes.

Well, I ought to finish on a pleasant picture before I get accused of being morbid. Here’s something nice and cheery…

Wedding Bells James Hayllar

I come over all 'Thomas Hardy' when I look at this. It might be about a wedding, but our focus is on the community and the church. Our five men ring the bells, which symbolise the main events in a persons life. Bells are rung for baptism, marriage and death. The two children at the front of the picture symbolise the first peal and I suppose the old man beside them symbolises the last (sorry, old man, I’m sure you look very healthy indeed). It looks like the little girl is saying ‘By the way, we’re getting married too. I’m eight now and not getting any younger…’

Actually, I suspect she’s saying ‘I’ll give you a shilling if you manage to stamp mud into her train. That’ll learn her to be all flash and wear white…’

Back at the weekend, when we shall examine our Souls....

Ooooh, Ghosties!

2012-02-27T06:13:00.000-08:00

Mr Walker does not do scary movies. He may well be the cream of manhood, but in the face of a film with spooks and chills he tactfully withdraws. Therefore Miss Holman and I found ourselves at the cinema without a gentlemanly escourt, to see The Woman in Black. Oh deary me, I think I may have lost a few years of life, due in no small part to the enthusiastically screaming teenagers in the audience, but in between the jumps and bumps, the bit with the rocking chair, oh, and this bit...

Oh, for the love of God. Anyway, inbetween the very effective scares I got to thinking about the Victorians and ghosts and how representative The Woman in Black is of Victorian culture.

As I said in the last post, there is nothing I love more than a modern interpretation of Victorian culture. I love it so much I'm having a go at it myself. I remember the first time I read The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, and I couldn't believe how scared it made me. I think it was the first and possibly the last time I have been utterly terrified while reading. Ironically, the passage that scared the pants off me was not in the film (The bit with the dog in the fog), but that small, moving passage was so powerful that I had completely forgotten great big bits of the plot and denied they were in the book. Thinking about it, despite the child murdering, insane, revenge spirit doing her worst against Harry Potter, possibly what happens to the dog in the fog is too much for audiences.

For the Victorians, the ghost was a complicated symbol. They searched for them desperately, but feared them utterly.

The Apparition John Everett Millais

For the most part, the Victorian obsession with ghosts is entirely linked to the obsession with guilt. The Victorians knew the choices they made were complicated and motivated by contradictory aspirations. The ghost in Millais' The Apparition confronts a man who looks terrified. She is dressed as a bride and the vapour trail behind her forms her train. She reveals herself between the bed curtains and he reaches towards her. He does not recoil or flinch, and that is the key to the image. What did this man do to the bride that makes him reach towards her? She seems to confront him, but he seems to already know his guilt and he wants her forgiveness. I wonder at the piece of paper on the floor and the smoking candle, and my wild assmption is that consumed by guilt, our chap is in the midst of committing suicide (hence the note) and as his life ebbs away (the guttering candle) he sees the woman he abandoned on their wedding day (leading to her death, probably in a gutter or the snow, as per normal).

The Ghost John Everett Millais

Just to even the score, Millais does a 'woman regretting her choice' wedding picture, with her ghostly groom looking both sad and disappointed at his feckless bride. Shame on you, Miss! For many people, the choice of marriage partner was crucial for advancement, that marrying for love, if that meant starving, did not mean being a good Victorian. If you go around marrying nice poor men, how are you going to get a new bonnet, or that aspidistra you so desperately need for your what-not? Choke back the guilt and get on with it! Hang on, I feel a bit of Shakespeare coming on...

The Ghost of Banquo Theodore Chasseriau

In the novel The Woman in Black, Arthur Kipps goes off to Eel Marsh House in an attempt to further his career, newly married with a young son. His ambition makes him continue to plow into danger, not respect the doom that has settled on the village. It is his Victorian ambition to better himself and his family that causes him to fall very foul of the mystical forces at work in the tiny village. Although it is a little extreme, Macbeth is just an ambitious chap who lets his pesky conscience derail him. Oh, and all that murdering, that didn't help.

The Party on the Stairs Adelaide Claxton

Every building I have worked in so far has been 'haunted', once by a previous member of staff which is somewhat disconcerted. I have even worked in a portacabin which had the ghosts of dead miners roaming it (or stationery cupboard was never warm), but I do have a healthy scepticism about ghosts, despite seeing a woman who was there one minute and gone the next. The little girl on the stairs sees a party of Georgian ladies and gentlemen, walking through her house, laughing and joking. Unlike Millais' spectres, these ghosts have no interest, or acknowledgement of the 'modern' world. They are echoes of a previous time, happy times in the house, not out for revenge or even notice. Possibly the reason that this aspect of haunting is fairly rare is because it is without purpose. The little girl has done nothing to deserve a visitation from the dead, and they are not exactly visiting her. The dead have no interest in her, they are just passing through, just echoing back.

The Ghost Story Frederick Smallfield

The ghosts that visited Ebenezer Scrooge weren't just passing through, they were there to show him that he was on the brink of losing his humanity. For the most part, the visitation of ghosts seemed to indicate that you had gone astray in someway and the best you could hope for was a pointer in the right direction rather than a horrific reminder of the worst decision of your life. Maybe the reason that ghost stories were (and are) so popular was because the reader could get a vicarious thrill from the punishment of others and at the same time double-check their own sins.

Study for The Haunted House Alfred Munnings

Back to The Woman in Black, and there is definitely a sniff of modern Japanese horror about it. Without giving too much away for those who have not read the book or seen the film, it is quite un-Victorian in that the ghost that Arthur Kipps encounters is not specifically for him, he has nothing to atone for but has just stumbled into a pre-exisiting situation. Blimey, that sounds a bit clinical. Arthur ends up being collatoral damage who has to atone for another person's sins, which is unfair and not very Victorian at all. He wants to do his best, he shows respect and cares about the past events, but still has to pay the price (the dog in the fog!). That's not the way it works, not in Victorian England, that's not how Victorian-karma goes!

Father and Son with the spirit of the departed wife and mother

When Rossetti's interest in her began to wane, Fanny Cornforth became a medium to enable him to contact Lizzie Siddal, and herein lies a giant, unspoken aspect of Victorian ghost culture. If ghosts are portents of doom, vengeful spirits here to bring down your past mistakes upon your head, why did people seek them out at seances? Why do we hunt for them now, entire programmes on satellite telly dedicated to seeking them out? Maybe part of it is that life is short. Life can be brutally short and what becomes of all that love and care we pour into others when they cease to be? It's not only the belief that our sins will find us out, but a hope that our love will find us too. The Father and Son in the picture above obviously felt that the deceased woman was still with them, literally 'in spirit', all that love they had shared had not just vanished, had not just amounted to nothing.

Although we live longer than our ancestors (and definitely longer than most people in The Woman in Black) there is still the fear of how brief our lives can be, and what is the point in investing your everything in someone only to have them leave you. How comforting to think that they remain, unseen but not uncared for.

Go and see The Woman in Black, but go during the day and make sure your screen is packed with screaming teenagers. Really, it releases the tension, and all I have to say is that I will never look at a rocking chair in the same way ever again....

Reading Art

2012-02-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

My love of writing comes directly from my love of reading. There is an indescribable pleasure in becoming immersed in a tale, just you and the story together, excluding the world for a few stolen moments. I recently loved a book so much that I carted it up to London to read on the train as I had to know what would happen. That book was Gillespie and I by Jane Harris, and got me thinking about writing a quick piece regarding the best novels you can read about the Victorian Art Scene. Here are my lucky seven recommendations….

7. Gillespie and I Jane Harris

I bought this about a fortnight ago and couldn’t put it down. It concerns a ‘Glasgow Boy’, Ned Gillespie, and his would-be biographer Harriet Baxter. Like most of the books on this list, the story isn’t about his art, but the interaction of his art with the real life events makes for touching and chilling reading. One of the things I loved about the book is the use of the first person narrative, calling into question what you are being told and how it relates to the ‘facts’. It’s both entertaining and horrifying in equal measures and reduced me to fighting travel sickness just so I could find out what happened in the end.

6. The Vesuvius Club Mark Gatiss

This is a naughty book. Excuse me, this is a naughty, morals-destroying, resolve-loosening, seducer of a novel. If you are easily shocked, this is not the novel for you, however if you fancy being ruined by Lucifer Box, you know he's up for it. Mr Box is a portrait painter, but also a cunning gentleman of action, a bit like if Millais was secretly James Bond. Oh, that just makes my head hurt...

5. Sleep, Pale Sister Joanne Harris

I’ve spoken about this book before and I have to admit a guilty adoration for just how insane this book is. Part murder-mystery, part laudanum-induced nightmare, the plot is Sensational (in all senses of the word) but never less than entertaining. The artist, Henry Chester, is part Lewis Carroll, part Millais and all very wrong indeed. No doubt a nod at Ruskin, he marries a child-bride called Effie who both disgusts and fascinates him, until they are all dragged into a thoroughly unpleasant web of revenge, where the outcome is extremely uncertain for all concerned. I loved this because it evokes the period nicely and gives you, full gusto, the more hysterical side of what we suspect about our beloved Pre-Raphaelite art scene. There are no half-measures and you will not be bored.

4. Ivy Julie Hearn

Yes, I know it’s teen fiction, but when it’s about Pre-Raphaelite art, I’m not a snob. It’s a good read and the artist, Oscar Frosdick is an entertaining mothers-boy with a none too pleasant Mother. Ivy is part Lizzie Siddal and part Oliver Twist, and the result is humorous and gripping with quite a twist in the middle. The drawbacks are part and parcel of the genre – there is only so much that can be said in teen-fiction, that possibly Sarah Waters would deliver in a far more cutting manner, but if you want to get your teen into Pre-Raphaelite art, then this might be a useful route.

3.Mortal Love Elizabeth Hand

Oh dear, I loved this book a little too much and I wanted to own a narrow boat and drive men insane with my mysterious, fatal beauty. Ho hum. Anyway, this is a difficult but rewarding book that skips from one generation/dimension to another. The artist in question is Radborne Comstock, locked in a madhouse, trying to paint his way out and remain sane (which seems a bit of a fruitless task as everyone else seems completely deranged). In modern-day London, a mysterious muse called Larkin is destroying the lives of men as they become involved in a hunt for lost Pre-Raphaelite art. It’s not for everyone, but if you give it a try you may like it (how many times have those words got me into trouble..?)

2. The Crimson Bed Loretta Proctor

Frederic Ashton Thorpe and Henry Winstone love the Pre-Raphaelites and want to be like them. Fred marries the mysterious and troubled Eleanor and Henry finds success and tragedy in equal measure. Centred around the image of a beautiful crimson bed, the lives of these talented but unhappy people embraces art, love and secrets. The story is compelling, and you need to know the outcome of the actions of our characters, desperate to be happy, yet sabotaging their own chances and those of their friends and lovers.

1. The Arrow Chest Robert Parry

No list about Victorian art novels is complete without The Arrow Chest. The artist Amos Roselli loves a troubled muse, but she is slowly being destroyed by her choice of a life of comfort and certainty. A darkness slowly envelops the couple as they attempt to escape a fate so eloquently expressed through Roselli’s art. Possibly the most beautiful realisation of the true landscape of Victorian art, and the most convincing and touching portrait of a Victorian gentleman artist, this has to be one of my favourite novels, regardless of subject. The maid, Beth, made me think of Red Lion Mary, or Watts often-painted maid, and you don’t stop caring and worrying about her or any of the characters from the first page to the end. That, my friends, is how it’s done.

That is my list of art fiction. If you want to read a modern book which mentions Pre-Raphaelite art, try The Dreaming Damozel by Mollie Hardwick or Pale as the DeadSiddal (amongst other things). If you want a dramatisation of the Pre-Raphaelite story, you could do worse than try Victorian Love Story by Nerina Shute, The Golden Veil by Paddy Kitchen or The Wayward Muse by Elizabeth Hickey. If you know of more, post them up in the comments! Happy reading...

From Obsession Comes Results or Alexa Yet Again

2012-02-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

Really, this will probably be the last Alexa Wilding post for a goodly while, I promise. As mentioned by Clara at the end of my previous Alexa post, there is a very illuminating Appendix in the new collected letters of Rossetti (and also available here for free), which I read as part of my endless, endless research into Alexa's life. Now, I must admit the worst thing about writing non-fiction (and a huge reason why I really don't want to write another full length biography) is when you do loads of research and then find someone else has published first. However, this is me and I still have a trick up my sleeve.

Okay, friends, here we go...as I suggested in my earlier post on Alexa, there is the small confused matter of her two children in the 1881 census, but we now all agree that they are Alexa's kids. I managed to turn up the birth certificate for Charles, her eldest, via Ancestry (God, I love Ancestry) and she is down as 'Alexa' rather than 'Alice'. So, naughty Alexa did have her kiddiwinks out of wedlock, while living a rather nice life in South Kensington. Neither child was buried with her, and according to the Appendix, Charles and possibly also Nellie (or Eleanor) emigrated to South Africa. As Fanny's step-son Cecil also went to South Africa, I begin to wonder if it is compulsory for children of Stunners to clear off to South Africa...

Also, and most excitingly for me, the Appendix contains a nice new photo of Alexa! You may remember I have shown the following couple before...

Alexa c.1875

Alexa c.1866

Now, I didn't realise that the picture on the right was from 1866, which would make Alexa about 19 at the time. In the Appendix, there is an expanded version of the 1875 picture, which shows you the rest of Alexa's dress...

It's all quite frilly, but it does show Alexa in her late 20s, and she does look like a very beautiful young woman. The new picture that the book contains is as follows....

Alexa c.1866

Now, this is a sister-image to the other 1866 portrait, but shows her full-on. It's not an overwhelmingly flattering shot, but does show a rather relaxed looking Stunner, waiting for life to happen to her. Her hair is smoothed back, parted down the centre and caught in a net behind. Compare this to the 1875 image with her fluffy hair, all secured in a ball on the top. Alexa in 1875 looks like she's had a bit of life happen to her and she's lost the rather arch expression of her previous portrait. One explanation of this is given in the Appendix, that possibly she was the lover of G E Shelley, gun-loving, bird-watching playboy and Victorian cliche. He is allegedly the father of her children, rather than the 'fictional' Charles Wilding, travelling salesman, who is listed on Charles and Nellie's birth certificates, and as 'householder' of Alexa's house in the records. While it is indisputable that Shelley knew Alexa and was intimate enough with her to be present when she died, I'm not sure if more can be stated for certain, and I do like to be for certain because otherwise it's tempting to hurry down the route of a good story, rather than fact, and that road leads to nut-slinging illiterate tarts.

To add to the facts of Alexa's life I do have a new piece, previously (I hope, and as far as I know) unpublished...

When Rossetti discovered Alexa in the street in 1865, I doubt he quite realised how she would rescue his finances. However, rapidly Alexa became the object of Rossetti's vision, appearing repeatedly in 1866 and early 1867, in Regina Cordium, Monna Vanna, Lady Lilith, Sibylla Palmifera and other works, earning him money and causing him to pay her a regular wage in order to secure her services. He allowed her to sit for two other people: his studio assistant Henry Treffry-Dunn and George Price Boyce, both of whom were somewhat besotted by her. However in February 1868, Rossetti bemoaned Alexa's disappearance in a letter to Boyce: 'I fear you may fail in finishing Miss W's head after all, as that young person has gone out of town for some time as I understand - an inconvenience to me...' (letter to George Boyce, 10 February 1868). Rossetti used other models during 1867 and 1868 until Alexa reappeared in late 1868/69. Jane Morris began to dominate the canvases, along with Ellen Smith and even a couple of portraits of Fanny. It has been suggested that Alexa, only 21 at the time had gone off on some love affair or just been flaky and unreliable. On the contrary, Alexa was not only in town but had a good reason for not appearing in the studio. She was heavily pregnant.

Alexa gave birth to Maria Lee Wilding on 25th February 1868, father unknown.

Unlike her subsequent children, there is no pretence of a husband or a father on the baptism certificate. Alexa's name alone (as 'Alexa Wilding') appears, alongside her daughter's when Maria was baptised at Trinity Church, Marylebone, in September of 1868. She is listed as living in Bywater Street, Chelsea (just round the corner from Fanny Cornforth at Royal Avenue and Rossetti at Cheyne Walk), no longer living in her Newgate Market home with her Grandma and her Uncles. I wonder if Maria was named for her Great-Grandma, Mary, but in any case Maria vanishes from the records and is not heard of after that (not that she was heard of before). What happened to baby Maria? Was she adopted? Did she die? Did anyone know that Alexa had given birth? The tone of Rossetti's letter is peevish and sulky, not like he knew his model was in trouble. The Appendix suggests that Alexa may have made the acquaintance of G E Shelley in 1870, but that the love affair was unlikely to have started until mid 1870s because Alexa had been too busy modelling. That counts double for the period 1866 to early 1867, the only people she spent time with seem to have been the artists, especially Rossetti and Boyce.

Now, isn't that something to consider...?

Happy Valentine's Day, Oh Beloved Readers!

2012-02-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well, here we are, and I hope you're in the mood for romance, because it's Valentine's Day, so you don't get a damn choice. Look, we're here, we might as well make the best of it, I mean how much time do we get alone? I don't care if you're not in the mood, make an effort. It's Valentine's Day, so we're getting romantic whether you want it or not.

Sorry, that wasn't very romantic, but my many, many years of no Valentines makes me a little wary of this holiday of romantic obligation, as for the first 23 years of my life no-one felt obliged to send me a Valentine. Yes, yes, come on, I'm after your pity, but I redefined 'awkward teen' so it was to be expected. The jumper with all the pigs on it probably didn't help either...

Anyway, enough of my nonsense, on with the point of today's post, which is the Victorian Valentine...

May a gentleman bend you over backwards and cop a feel in the name of love...

I was actually surprised that although images of 'love' abound, images of Valentine's Day are relatively few and far between. Odd really, because the Victorians loved Valentine's Day, in the same way as they loved any excuse to send a card and make a fuss.

The Valentine (1894) Edwin Harris

This is a charming image, and Edwin Harris is a Newlyn/Birmingham Boy: that lovely west country light, with slate blue and white prominent in the picture. The young lady reads her card while her friend, who isn't even vaguely jealous, looks on. God, I can't think of anything worse than having an audience while you open a Valentine. It's alright if it's from Hot Bob, but what if it's not? What if it's from the lad who shovels the dung, who has a squint and six toes on one foot and is actually your cousin? Doesn't bear thinking about...

The Valentine (1863) Thomas Brooks

That's better, like many things in life, it's best done alone. I rather like the shawl and the pink bonnet, although it's rather overkill for being indoors. Hopefully her admirer has a home with a fireplace, at least she can take her bonnet off when visiting.

The Valentine's Letter Florent Willems

I found this interesting as I think it's an image of a woman sending a Valentine. On the other hand, no, she's receiving one from a small servant boy. Not actually from the small boy, at least I don't think so. Well, she does look wealthy and he does have his own hat. She could do worse...

The Valentine George Smith

Ahh, this poor lass deserves her Valentine, look at her. She has a broom and a cat and even the cat is looking elsewhere. The best she can hope for is a quiet moment in an alleyway with her Valentine. I wonder if the cat is symbolic of the girl, gazing at the other cat with the bowl of milk, sat in the sunlight. I bet that cat doesn't have to sweep out the alleyway. Stupid cat. I hope her Valentine is from a rich, handsome man who has a clean passage. I do like a gentleman with a clean passage.

The Eve of St Valentine's (1871) George Smith

Hurrah! Here are a group of likely girls, writing their love notes the night before Valentine's Day. Let's hope they are not all writing to the same chap, unless there is a subsequent picture of the three ladies involved in a huge scrap, entitled 'St Valentine's Afternoon'.

Well, on the whole they are a fairly uninspiring group, except this one, which is my absolute favourite...

St Valentine's Morning (1863) John Callcott Horsley

I'm astonished that this young woman can tear her eyes away from the mirror long enough to open a Valentine. Look at her expression, doesn't she love herself? Did she send herself the Valentine's card? How small is her dog? She's so vain that her mirror is dressed to match her. Good luck to any man who attempts to compete with her for her attention...

Anyway, my dear Readers, Happy Valentine's Day, and I hope you all get the adoration you deserve. As you are all marvellous and attractive, I'm sure you did. If not, they most likely delayed in the post. Stupid post, they held up 23 years worth of mine, you know. Shocking...

A Tale of Two Stunners

2012-02-12T11:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was up at the Big Smoke for the 150^th Anniversary of Elizabeth Siddal’s death, and I attended a very good talk by Lucinda Hawksley at Highgate Cemetery. Miss Holman (Resting Ninja and Woman of Intrigue) accompanied me as we took a turn around the cemetery, looking at all the many fancy and amazing graves, for example…

This is the tomb of George and Ann Wombwell. Mr George Wombwell was a Managerist, and atop his giant tomb is a stone lion, a portrait of his own lion which was so tame that children could ride it. There wasn’t any telly in those days, and riding a lion was as good as it gets. Actually, it sounds pretty good. Obviously, not for the lion.

Also, look, it’s Mrs Henry Wood!

It’s easy to get a bit starstruck at Highgate as so many fabulous people are buried there, and even ‘normal’ folk got to be planted in the most outrageous graves. Look at the Egyptian Avenue….

It’s fairly mental as it is, but when it was new, they think it was painted elaborate colours. Now, that isn’t even vaguely garish and in bad taste. As it was, your average Victorian didn’t fancy being planted in anything so overtly heathen, and so preferred the rather more classical tombs that were erected later when the Egyptian ones didn’t sell. Obviously something based on Ancient Greece is far more Christian...

Anyway, the reason we were there was that it was the 150^th anniversary of Elizabeth Siddal’s death and so we wanted to see Elizabeth Siddal’s Highgate grave….

Restored and well-tended, Elizabeth resides with her in-laws in the Rossetti family plot. She’s not on the main footpath, so you are taken there by special request, but as it was the anniversary, we visited her as part of the tour. There had been a ceremony early in the day and the flowers were laid, and the area had been tended so that visitors could easily reach her. Lizzie is featured on the literature of Highgate cemetery, as one of the celebrity inhabitants and it’s obvious that the grave has been restored because of her inclusion in it. Yes, Christina Rossetti is in there with her, but she is currently the most famous and ‘important’ person in that grave. It could be argued that to the majority of people who know her name, her value lies not in her work as a poet or painter, but in her role as muse to the Brotherhood. The majority of the people on our tour did not know that much about her or the Pre-Raphaelites, but they knew she was Ophelia. She remains in her neat, respected grave, visited by adoring fans, all because of her beautiful face…

Off we go to Brompton Cemetery!

Now, I do recommend a visit to Brompton, it’s just off the tube and is filled with more stone angels than you can shake a stick at.

There are angels looking up, angels looking down, angels praying, angels weeping and angels clutching crosses. There is even an Eric Gill angel…

Very nice too. If only he’d concentrated on art, and not fiddled with his dog or his family.

There is a magnificent tomb for Leyland, the art collector and patron, designed by Burne-Jones.

But even the average stone in Brompton is pretty…

Armed with a map (and Lord knows you need a map in Brompton, it’s about two and a half kilometres long), we set off in search of our second stunner. Her face occurred over and over in Rossetti’s work and she died a fairly wealthy woman in South Kensington. By co-incidence, she resided within the same graveyard as Leyland who felt her face and Rossetti’s rendering of it was the pinnacle of his later work, her fine beauty being an aesthetic zenith. We were in search of Alexa Wilding.

Poor Alexa, dead at 37, still managed to die in a rather nice neighbourhood as we have seen in my previous post on a tour of Pre-Raphaelite hotspots. Surely, if we appreciate Lizzie for her beauty, a little of that appreciation should go to Alexa? We walked the long avenue of graves, all in neat rows, to the end of the section and a rather dense patch of brambles and snow.

‘She’s in there…’ I admit, rather guiltily, and we clambered in, apologising as we stepped over graves, attempting to read the names. In this little area, people were stuffed in, closely packed and the brambles were growing with gay abandon as my ankles and feet can testify this morning. Miss Holman and I exclaimed regularly, but it was not so much a discovery as snow in shoes, brambles round ankles or general frustration at the disrepair. We searched through all the graves without luck and we were making our way back out when the words ‘Mary Ann Wil…’ caught my eye on a very battered and flaked stone.

Mary Ann was Alexa’s grandmother, who died in the 1870s. I went back and leaned so the light struck the stone and the faded letters were casting faint shadows of their former impressions…

Alexa Wilding, died April 1884 aged 37.

We’d found her. Buried in brambles and snow, her stone flaking and worn, she remains forgotten at the back of a graveyard, not far from her home in South Kensington. While the great and the good had gathered around Lizzie’s restored and revered stone, Alexa was battling brambles with only me and Miss Holman for company. And I had snow in my shoe. And neither of us was Jan Marsh.

While I personally think it’s right that people can visit Lizzie’s resting place and pay their respects, it would be equally as fitting for the glorious face of Alexa to be remembered in a slightly less crumbly, painful manner. We need a stunner grave tour, although you’ll need a car to get to Kelmscott and God knows where Annie Miller is, let alone Fanny. Back to the records….

My thanks to Miss Holman as always. As the saying goes ‘Friends don’t let Friends disturb graves alone…’

Look-See Cooksey

2012-02-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

You know me, I like a challenge as much as I like a good painting. A combination of these two marvellous things has arisen this week, just by chance.

Picture me, sat on my sofa at home, assisting Mr Walker with the research for a piece he is writing on the lovely TM Rooke. I am idly flicking through the Public Catalogue Foundation catalogue for Dorset and I spy a very lovely picture indeed that is in the Russell-Cotes collection. On enquiring, I discover that it sadly cannot be displayed at present as it urgently needs conservation work and is in a queue for raising funds.

‘What do we know of the artist?’ I asked, and Mr Walker gave a considered look and replied it wasn’t a familiar name. ‘Aha!’ I cried, ‘I shall find out more!’

The artist in question is May Louise Greville Cooksey, and this is what I have found out.

This is the picture I spied in the PCF catalogue for Dorset…

Maria Virgo (1914)

I was struck by it as it reminded me of the very well known image by Marianne Stokes, that graced our Christmas postage stamps a couple of years ago.

Madonna and Child (1907) Marianne Stokes

From searching Bridgeman and the Your Paintings website (PCF catalogue online via the BBC) I think this may be the only Cooksey in a public collection, although there may be others, possibly in Liverpool. I’d love to know if anyone knows of any more of Cooksey pictures in galleries. Anyway, on with the story…

May Louise Greville Cooksey was born in Birmingham on 7th November 1878, the eldest of five children. Her parents were Harry Smith Cooksey and Catherine Ellen Williams Cooksey. Harry had been an agent for Mansell Brewery, but set up his own removals and storage business, first of all in a pub, then in its own premises. Harry came from Southampton originally, but his parents had moved to Tuffley in Gloucestershire when he and his siblings were young and there he met Catherine. They moved up to Leamington Priors, where they remained almost to the end of their lives, before moving to Surrey. May and her siblings all attended school, with May attending the Leamington and the Liverpool Schools of Art. In 1899, at the age of 20, May converted to the Catholic faith, being baptised at St Francis Xaviers in Liverpool. In 1901 she received a Liverpool City Travelling Scholarship which meant she could travel to Italy and paint. She became a member of the Liverpool Academy of Arts, living out the rest of her life at 1 Bold Place, St Luke's Chambers, Liverpool, then moving to Crosby in Lancashire, where she died in 1943.

Her work is very attractive, what you can find of it, which is why I am eager to see more. Take, for example, this rather beautiful portrait…

There is a rather soften-Pre-Raphaelite style to it, reminiscent of Gwen John and Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (there are two names I didn’t expect to say in the same breath). Also, I can recognise the style of Boyce in the patterned background and single, beautiful figure. Her work also covered tempera-styled panels, referencing murals and aestheticism…

Young Woman Holding Honesty

Dolce Far Niente

There are obvious parallels to the work of Sandys or Rossetti, with lush Renaissance ladies displaying their beauty. I’m intrigued by her colour palette, seemingly changing radically from one image to the next. Although the two ladies above are quite similar in subject and mechanics, and may even be the same model, the difference of the powder-pastels of the Honesty picture is striking when compared to the rich colour of Dolce Far Niente. Look at the orange and blue in that dress! Stunning.

I’m not much good with cityscapes and landscapes, I do like my pictures to be about people, but her work done while travelling is attractive and interesting.

A Bruges Street Scene

Venezia

She seems slightly impressionistic and used light well. Venezia makes me long for summer and the glint of sunlight on a canal, although it is not that glamorous down the Kennet and Avon on the whole.

I think where May Cooksey has suffered is that she never produced anything that was a blockbuster, she never had her one killer image that made her famous and got people collecting her art. A possible reason for this was that she specialised in religious art during and after the First World War. A bit like TM Rooke, that is not going to make you fashionable, however lovely your work is. May produced a series of oils on The Stations of the Cross for Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery in Liverpool in 1928, which are on display and mentioned in their listing.

Despite exhibiting at the Royal Academy (possibly where Merton Russell-Cotes saw Maria Virgo) and extensively at The Walker Gallery in Liverpool (great name for a gallery. I will be up there to claim it one day), May Cooksey is one of the forgotten gems of Edwardian art, which is a shame as I want to know more and see more.

Will Tell Fortune for Chocolate…

2012-02-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

As is often the way, I have been researching one post but it has ended up with me writing another one in the meantime. I am currently writing a piece on Victorian art novels and my favourites of this genre, and was flicking back through Sleep, Pale Sister by Joanne Harris.

I love this novel and its dizzying plot of gothic intrigue and repressed perversions. An early scene is when Effie and Mose go to the fair and meet Fanny Miller, disguised as a fortune teller. This led me on to think about the image of a fortune teller, and pictures of people telling fortunes as a fun pastime….

Tea Leaves Alma Broadbent

This is a particularly charming image of two ladies indulging in this innocent pursuit. But what if she sees something terrible in her friends cup, will she tell her? What if they are after the same man, will she warn her off? Sorry, but the tea leaves say that if you go out with Bob, it will end in apocalypse. And your pot plant will die. There is something distrustful in me that suspects that people who tell your fortune may have ulterior motives (as seen in Sleep Pale Sister).

Love’s Oracle Albert Ritzberger

So consumed are these girls with telling the young lady’s fortune that they haven’t noticed their lamp is about to set fire to one of their hair. King of Hearts, eh? Bob is definitely the man for you and your perilously tiny waist. The cards say you should marry him immediately (as none of us want him). Ah, see how much power you are giving to a third party who is telling your ‘future’ for you. Maybe that’s why so many people liked to go to an impartial third party, someone who had no vested interest in you and Hot Bob.

Fortune Telling Abraham Solomon

How revoltingly simper-y and what on earth have the cards foretold that makes the blonde one go all gooey? The brunette looks less than impressed, maybe it’s because she’s worked out that she’s in the least talented Solomon’s painting. Damn it, I could have been a Simeon pastel, but instead I get to have this dozy bint leaning on me for all eternity…

The Pre-Raphaelites and their followers like a woman holding a crystal ball very much. I won’t bore you with all the images I found of them because there are loads, and that isn’t really what this post is about. Oh, go on, here’s one that’s rather pretty…

Crystal Ball Robert Anning Bell

The lone woman and her crystal ball seems to be an image of solitary power for the disenfranchised. Prophesying women don’t seem to fare too well in stories, and so there seems to be a lot of pictures of women, in intimate settings, gazing into the shiny sphere as if they need to know, they need control over their future and surroundings when all other power is denied them. The theme of power is important though, when considering the seemingly frivolous images of fortune tellers…

Telling Her Fortune Hans Von Hayek

The lady with the shawl inspects the baby’s palm as her parents look on nervously but with optimism. I can’t quite work out who the man belongs to, or whether he has just wandered in for an adjoining picture. Will the baby’s fortune be good? What happens if it isn’t? Surely everyone’s life-line is very short when they are a year old because their hands are so tiny...

The Fortune Teller Joseph Clark

Sometimes when viewing these images I wonder what exactly the painter wants me to take away. Take these two women: one is a traveller, one is a fine lady. One has the position and money, one has neither, but where does the power lie in this image? The Fortune Teller has all the power as she has the fine lady’s belief. Again, look at the expression on the lady’s face, she looks terrified but hopeful. Blimey, that’s not good. If there is a chance that you will learn that fate has something awful in line for you, why find out? It’s just because you want to find out something fabulous, isn’t it? Hasn’t life been good enough already, you greedy so-and-so?! Go on, Fortune Teller, tell her something alarming…

The Fortune Teller Frank Cadogan Cowper

God, I love how hideous this picture is. This weird, mannerist freakshow is a mine-field of symbolism. Firstly, why are they hiding behind the magnificent wall of ivy. That is good ivy, but oddly big-leafed, or is it that the people are small? Look at the tiny blue shoe! Look at how doll-like they are, and not in a cute way, in a wooden-stick doll sort of way. I love that the Fortune Teller has a magnifying glass (to see the doom more clearly), and look at how large it is. Think of it as a companion piece to the Solomon above, as it shares the same subject matter and figures. Two women, one dark, one fair, see a Fortune Teller. The blonde one seems fairly pleased, the dark haired one less so. Look at her bonnet; maybe that is making her moody. Possibly it serves the dual function of stopping her scratching her stitches. Either way, unlike the saccharine sweet Solomon, this is unsettling, vaguely surreal and a little bit threatening.

His Fortune (1902) English School

Anyway, Fortune Telling seems a bit of a strange occupation for good Victorian girls, but it is a telling example of the contradictions in Victorian society, which for me makes Victorians so endlessly fascinating. Take this picture: can we deduce that Hot Bob (seen in the mirror) will say ‘oh, I see that the cards foretell we will fall madly in love…will you marry me?’ Did people really hold store by things prophesied by a turn of a card or the leaves in the bottom of a cup? How many lives did it affect, how many decisions were made just because someone said a piece of paper said it was so. And think of the little baby, how were children affected if their fortune was not so good? Well, to be honest if the girl above thinks she can snag Hot Bob with her cards then good luck to her. Mind you, if she leans forward any more it’ll be more than his fortune he’ll see….

Part Three: Towards a New Girl Aesthetic

2012-02-01T13:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome back, and well done for sticking with what has been a bit grim, I'm grateful for the company. It was all a little bit odd and tawdry yesterday, so where does that leave us? Can we ever look at a picture of a Victorian child without feeling suspicion? What was going on with all those Victorian chaps?

I know I often give the appearance of falling against my keyboard and accidentally posting nonsense, but this series of blogs has been in the pipeline for a while. At Christmas I read a fabulous book entitled Men in Wonderland which informed a lot of my thinking about the defence of the otherwise indefensible, and managed to change my thinking on what was going on behind those all too familiar images. It reinforced for me the idea that in many ways we have to learn how to see Victorian pictures through their eyes, and it is possible that just because it's a recognisable image (i.e. that of a child) it doesn't mean that we completely understand what we are viewing or should judge using our morals and prejudices.

I wanted to show some images of girls that I am quite relaxed with, that I would gladly have on my wall. I'll start with Ford Madox Brown and The Irish Girl (1860).

It's tonally gorgeous and beautiful, her dark hair contrasting with her pale skin and the vivid red. There seems to be nothing exploitative or suggestive about the image, it's both powerful and innocent. This is in contrast to Mauvais Sujet (1863).

Oh dear, where to start. Is it the apple, or the ribbon? Maybe its the red earring, but this is a bad girl. Her name may be 'Mary' (as graffitied on the desk) but I get a terrible suspicion that we won't be prefixing that with'Virgin'. You can say that it is an honest portrayal of precocious teenage sexuality, a precursor to Lolita, or you can say 'Ford! Really!' I still like The Irish Girl, it's far more dignified.

Okay, while I'm in the realm of the wrong, let me just share this with you....

The New Whip Charles Barber

Dear God. But I digress...

We do actually own a print involving children, it's very special to us indeed at Chez Walker...

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6) John Singer Sargent

We liked this picture so much our daughter is named for it. The use of the light source, the dark and white, it's an exquisite picture, just this side of well-known. We saw it at the Tate's Sargent exhibition in the late 90s and I have loved it ever since. May I just clarify that my daughter's name is 'Lily-Rose' not 'Carnation-Lily-Lily-Rose'. That would border on child abuse...

See it is possible to not stray into weirdness (or dog whips) when picturing little girls. I turn to my good friend Rossetti for further inspiration...

Jenny Morris (1871) D G Rossetti

Without context or comment, this is a beautiful chalk portrait of Jane Alice (Jenny) Morris. It is beautiful without being anything else, it's not whimsical, cute or inappropriately sexy, just an image of quiet gentleness. This is quite a triumph if you think about it, as unlike family groups, it is when the girls are pictured alone then we tend to stray into the realms of wrong or weird. I'm not going to repost Cherry Ripe here as I don't want to encourage Millais, but the use of ripe fruit to symbolise the child's 'ripeness' (yuck) is wide-spread and makes me want to bathe in disinfectant. Cherry Ripe is the least of our problems, there are far more worrying variations. And don't get me started on apples. Yes, Ford Madox Brown, I'm looking at you. Shame on you.

Possibly a little bit wrong and a little bit right is this extremely famous image by G F Watts...

Choosing (1864) G F Watts

It is a marvellous image of a teenage girl sniffing a big showy flower, unaware that the perfume is coming from the little violets in her hand. Okay, so it's a comment on Watt's marriage, that he felt his child-bride was more interested in glamour rather than substance, but we all could have told him how that would end. Plus, he married Ellen Terry, known for her drama. Maybe before marrying her, Watts should have asked his bride what she wanted to be when she grew up. Never mind, they were both happy in the end, and it is a rather touching image of childish fickleness (which is why we shouldn't marry them, Watts, my dear chap).

So, imagine me at Christmas, thinking about these posts, and I thought about Julia Margaret Cameron. I love her pictures of children, they are beautiful and imaginative, but also as straightforward as a photograph can be. Take Annie, My First Success of 1864...

It's marvellously modern, like many of Cameron's works it would be hard to date it because this could easily be a child from the 1930s or even 1960s. This got me thinking, and I am one to put my money where my mouth is, so together with Miss Lily-Rose Walker, I began to plan our own interpretation of the Victorian child aesthetic. I think my favourite Cameron image is Call, I follow, I follow, let me die! from 1867...

With this in mind, Miss Walker and I put on our very best Pre-Raphaelite expressions and I took some photographs. The result is this...

Lily-Rose, December 2011

I think what I've gained from researching these posts is that sometimes it's all too easy to apply our prejudice to the past. It is undeniable that knowledge/hysteria about the threat of paedophiles has never been as rampant as it is now, and in our legitimate quest to protect our children from any threat we tend to perceive it where possibly it isn't. Arguably, this is one of those subjects where we cannot allow grey areas to exist, it's just too risky, but in this rush to protect, we might be throwing out the 'art' with the 'porn'. Mind you, Victorian child art is under no threat of extinction. Check out the marvellous 'I am a Child' blog for more pictures than you can shake a dog whip at. It seems a shame that the phrase 'Victorian Child Art' has only two connotations, granny jigsaw or porn (blimey, who'd put those together? I guess it depends on your granny...) and so it's time to celebrate the finer aesthetic. For ever In Disgrace (and God knows there are lots of them...) there is The Irish Girl or Choosing, for every The New Whip there is Jenny Morris. It's time that girls in Victorian art were given the respect that they deserve.

Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon

2012-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we talked about how the art of female pre-pubescence in Victorian Britain might be explained by a desire for the alleviation of responsibility on the part of the artist. If little girls live in Wonderland, who better to have as your guide into the realm of the imagination? The infantilising of women can be seen as the natural progression of this same concern and fascination, to keep the ones you love in this ‘desirable’ state. Today, we will look at some of the other images which are not quite so glorious…

I finished yesterday with the statue The Bud and The Bloom by Andrea Lucchesi which illustrates how the girl-child grows into the girl-adult, as the little girl bends over backwards to see how she should develop. For some artists there is no development: she becomes a ‘woman’ when he perceives in her the qualities necessary.

A Venetian Bather Paul Peel

It took me a moment to realise that this was not a woman I was looking at, and it was only her height in proportion to the mirror that made me look twice. Of course, her reflection gives away her age, and there is a level of androgyny (Is her hair up? Is it short? Is she a boy?). As this is Paul Peel, I think we are fairly safe in assuming it’s a girl because of the following…

Before the Bath Paul Peel

Waiting for the Bath (1890s) Paul Peel

After the Bath Paul Peel

Okay, enough bathing, Mr Peel! Almost bordering on obsession, Paul Peel liked little pink girls having baths: the reluctance, the anticipation, the firelight playing on rosy skin afterwards. All very commercial I’m sure, but the sheer quantity of images does rather make you stop and think. Was there not a vase of flowers in your house, Mr Peel? I’m just saying…

The two little scamps above, hiding from their nurse led me to think about the statue. There are many ways of reading the notion of ‘the bud and the bloom’, the most obvious is that the little girl will obviously ‘bloom’ into a woman. However, it can also be read that in each little girl is a woman waiting to happen, and those seeds are not buried very deep. Think of the ‘vanity’ images I used in a previous blog about mirrors…

Vanity (1936) Frank Cadogan Cowper

A lot of the models looked like teenage girls (and possibly were), taking Cowper’s young lady as a prime example. Within her child-brain are the seeds of vanity, the affliction of womanhood. These are ‘Little Women’ and should be treated with suspicion as they will be up to no good, mark my words. There is an entire swathe of images of little girls ‘up to no good’, like so….


In Disgrace Charles Barber

In Disgrace William Gore

In Detention (1888) Auguste Trupheme

Who’s been a naughty girl then? In Detention is slightly unusual in many ways because most of the images involve the girls in paroxysms of guilt, about to be found out. Very few images show the child actually being caught, very few adults are in evidence making them pay for their misdeeds, for example this rather awful image…

'In Rueful Anticipation of Forthcoming Events' (1868) Philipp Hoyoll

In pictures of naughty boys, they are often being caught by the ear, or being reprimanded for the naughtiness. For little girls, it seems to be different. Without being too sensational about it, I think that we, the middle-class male consumer of this art, are expected to decide her punishment. It could be that no-one wants to see these charming little cherubs punished for their little accidents, so we the audience can decide to be lenient with them. Or not. When you buy the canvas, she becomes your child to do with as you wish. Yes, that is what I mean.

Now, there was of course a place in the market for women, who were apparently huge consumers of this sort of art. Women’s role in the market of girl images is a very interesting and problematic one, especially when we come to a certain Charles Dodgson. There is no way I could write a piece of images of girls and not include Lewis Carroll, and he is the poster-boy for sexualizing little girls. I wonder how we would feel about him had he not had burnt a load of his pictures. I can’t imagine they would have been worse than 'Evelyn Hatch' and we’ve all seen that. Her mother was in the room when the image was taken. Crikey. Alright, moving to another one of his images, I’ve seen this used to illustrate Carroll’s obvious girl-lovin’...

But then it reminds me of this…

Naughty Child Edwin Landseer

…and as far as I know, no-one has ever accused Landseer of kiddie molesting. Is it because Carroll repeated did pictures of little girls? But then that’s like accusing George Stubbs of bestiality, and no-one’s done that either (unless I’ve missed a book…)

Look at the fetlocks on that….

It’s so easy to look at images like the ones I’ve used today and point fingers. It makes us uneasy to see Evelyn Hatch sprawling naked in a mock-adult manner. It is unthinkable that such an image could be taken today, and working backwards, images like Landseer’s, Hoyoll’s and ones from yesterday would be treated as suspicious, as why do these men want to focus such attention on little girls, if not for nefarious purpose?

Geddes, we are no different today. While we are on the subject of how allegedly perfect we are today, I give you exhibit ‘A’…

For those not blessed with daughters, Lelli Kelly are a shoe company that specialise in highly decorated trainers and party shoes, covered in glitter and sparkles and their main gimmick is that you get free make-up. The ‘Make Up Mobile’ above was particularly squealed at by my daughter when she saw the adverts as it came with a picture of a puppy. I can buy my six year old daughter crop tops, heels, mini-skirts and most excitingly, thongs. She can have all manner of merchandise with the Playboy Bunny on it. My view on the Victorian child-art debate is that we should pay attention to the fact that we are in glass house before we start lobbing stones. If the Victorians are guilty of applying a womanly aesthetic to little girls, then we have learnt nothing as we still do it. Many would argue there is no issue in parents allowing their little girls pretend to be women, applying glittery make-up and wearing adult styled clothes. How many would argue the same for Evelyn Hatch? All she is doing is aping her elders at the behest of her parents.

My advice, for what it is worth, is that if something gets your ‘wrong-radar’ up then don’t consume it, and express your feelings to someone. It’s awfully safe to accuse a long-dead artist of paedophilia, doesn’t mean that his obsession was sexual. Then again, it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t. All we have left are the images, and we seem to have a huge problem in how to address them.

Can we ever have a comfortable Victorian child aesthetic? Join me tomorrow for some suggestions and a little home experimentation…

Thank Heavens for Little Girls

2012-01-30T07:50:00.000-08:00

It is a Truth universally acknowledged that all Victorian men were secretly paedophiles. John Ruskin, Lewis Carroll, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, the list is endless and I have heard all of their names, linked at one point or another, with an inappropriate love of little girls. Oh yes, it is another universal truth that all these paedophilic gentlemen were solely interested in little girls. This is one of those subjects that I didn’t realise was a subject until I started to consider what we all believe to be ‘true’. What the hell was going on with middle-class men and little girls in Victorian Britain?

Let’s start with an area I like to think of as Child Worship. It was a bit of a Georgian preoccupation to have an investment and an attachment to your young children. I’m sure parents before 1750 loved their kids, but the rate and horror of child mortality before this period was astonishing so possibly the attitude was a little altered by the uncertainty of your progeny. The Georgians bravely seemed to embrace the potential of their youth and dedicated time and effort into enjoying, moulding, influencing and celebrating their children. For some, this was a risky investment, as the chances of escaping infancy were somewhat shaky, but for the first time you can see glimmers of what we now revel in, the enjoyment of being a parent. Take this painting for example:

It’s Regency Britain, and your gorgeous little girl is skipping around this green and pleasant land with her spaniel, her blonde curls fluttering in the breeze. Bless her. This cherubic little Miss is typical of child portraits of this time, all dimples and satin sashes. Her name is John Ruskin.

Princess Ruskin is a prime example of the feminization of childhood. At least as far as the early Victorian period, all children wore gowns, until the boys reached a certain age when they were ‘breeched’ (which sounds far dodgier than it is), which is when they had their first pair of breeches. Now this is nice middle-class children we are talking about, and that is for a reason. This is the generation of men that nowadays we suspect of being child molesters. At around 6 years old, these boys were put into trousers and sent off to school and that was it, their childhood was over. When Ruskin referred to his childhood, he described his pre-school days in the most flowery terms, and himself in terms of feminine qualities. It is almost as if he regarded himself as a girl before those trousers went on, and the girl-years were the best. The ideal of childhood is female, the only idea of childhood is female, so little wonder that male, middle-class artists were drawn to paint the little girls who were Queens.

The Child Miranda Frederick Burton

The zen-like calm and Christ-pose of Miranda is almost eerie. She is looking straight at us, emitting an iridescent glow from her hair, clothes and shell-pink skin. This is a not a cute little girl, this is a powerful creature who is better than us. Blimey, he may as well have put her on a throne…

The Child Enthroned Thomas Cooper Gotch

Yes, like that one, thank you Gotch. And she’s got a halo. That’s a bit much…

Lily Noble (1863) John Everett Millais

Lily Noble is a sort of half-way house. She is obviously not a goddess, but she does sit upon a throne, her name almost Dickensian in its literalness. These three girls are perfect, silent souls who sit in all-knowing judgement over us. To paint them is to paint a golden idol, a precious almost holy thing, and in no way are they doing anything remotely ‘childish’. Yes, she's holding a doll, but it might as well be a sceptre.

May Morris (1872) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

When Jane Morris ended her relationship with Rossetti in the early 1870s it was in response to his growing sexual interest in May. I read that recently and found it utterly breath-taking and without basis in anything in Rossetti’s character. How many children are in Rossetti’s art? You could probably count them on one hand, he seems to have had an aversion to them, possibly due to his own sad experiences, but when you see the above picture, it does stop you for a second. Pictured in the same ‘Stunner’ way as her mother, May is only 10 years old in the above portrait. She has the same facial expression as her mother, that some people interpret in Jane as sexual longing. Well, I’ll believe Rossetti’s a child molester when hell freezes over, but it’s a strange choice to pose a tweenager in the same way as you pose her mother, your lover. There is very little difference between the image of May and this one by Albert Moore…

A Girl Albert Moore

This ‘girl’ is obviously older, but still the word ‘girl’ prevails. When did a girl become a woman? To hazard a guess, I would think her wedding day, which is ironic if you look at images of some of the wives of our beloved Pre-Raphaelite circle…

Mrs Burne-Jones (1860) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Now although she looks about twelve, Georgiana Burne

We know all that Victorian women were all ‘the angel of the house’ and at the mercy of their father-husbands. That doesn’t explain the images of little girls that abound. These images aren’t like Georgie, a child-like woman, these are images of little girls on thrones, with halos. These are little goddesses.

Autumn Leaves (1855-6) John Everett Millais

Sophie Gray (1857) John Everett Millais

Look at the direct, silent gazes of the Millais girls. Sophie Gray is a good example of the all-knowing child, challenging us to approach. She is only fourteen in her portrait, and only twelve in Autumn Leaves. The attraction possibly lies in the promise of matched 'intellect', without the bother of adult preoccupations. For artists such as the Pre-Raphaelites, the realm of the imagination was perfection, and the child ruled such a world. Fairy tales, heroes and dragons, mock-medieval a-sexual simplicity is made for the child aesthetic, with no threat of sex. No worldly concerns to hinder them, the child lives in an unworldly state of imagination until the day she says ‘I do’. For men who attempted to insert themselves into this world regularly and professionally, the child must have seemed their guide. If you look at it this way, it becomes completely understandable why men of fantasy, both literature and art-based, sought out the companionship of young girls. In fact, it explains John Ruskin’s sham of a marriage, how he couldn’t bring himself to ‘womanise’ the girl, and by his terminal hesitation, he managed to ruin his marriage. It explains Rossetti’s love of the Morris children in their isolation at Kelmscott, offering him a complete release from the real world back into childhood. It is a relief from all the responsibility, the physical and emotional demands and the constant pressure of being a Victorian man. When Emile Zola wrote ‘I want never to be anything but a child walking in the shadow of your dress,’ he might as well have added ‘but as that isn’t possible, I’ll vicariously live through a child instead.’ To be a child meant never having to leave the Wonderland of the imagination, and as a boy that experience was cut short at the age of six before they got to truly appreciate the freedom from modern care that girls enjoyed. No wonder these men craved the company of little girls, they were their ticket to Wonderland.

That’s all very well and good if you believe that side of the story, if you believe that Victorian gentlemen all had the very best of intentions. Join me tomorrow for Part Two: ‘Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon’…

The Bud and The Bloom (1906) Andrea Lucchesi

Harry Potter and The Stones of Venice

2012-01-27T12:56:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in art history, the strangest connections can be made and one such oddity was made this week and ended up with me finding the link between Lord Voldemort and Burne-Jones. That link? A marvellous, lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite by the name of Thomas Matthews Rooke. My friends, it’s time to have a look at Rooke…

If you can find T M Rooke mentioned in a book, it’s usually in relation to his work with Burne-Jones. Rooke joined his studio in 1869. His job was to transfer the designs for monumental pictures from the sketches to canvas. Rooke assumed the role of chief assistant and worked closely with Burne-Jones for many years, resulting in his recording their conversations, later published as Burne-Jones Talking: His conversations 1895-98 Preserved by his Studio Assistant Thomas Rooke (edited by Mary Lago) (Does what it says on the tin).

Interior of St Paul's Cathedral (1918)

Rooke studied at the Royal College of Art and Royal Academy Schools before applying for work at Morris and Company in 1869. Through this channel he ended up in Burne-Jones studios and there he remained until the painter’s death in 1898. Although best known for his work for Burne-Jones, Rooke also worked for Ruskin, spending his summers on the continent and producing architectural drawings of cathedrals for Ruskin’s publications.

That’s your lot. I will now bring up a slide show of images and you can talk amongst yourself….

(For those old enough to remember, I will also be humming the tune from ‘Vision On’ when they showed the drawings by viewers…)

Hang on, though. That sound you can hear is the murmurings of discontent in the Walker household. Thomas Matthews Rooke’s work is fairly amazing, is it right that he exists as a footnote in another artist’s history? So why don’t people look at Rooke?

The Story of Ruth (1877)

Jezebel Being Thrown to the Dogs (1879)

His work was largely in two areas: Biblical and architectural. One of these is unfashionable and the other just isn’t sexy enough. While it is just about feasible that you’d think ‘Do you know what I’d like on my wall? A lovely interior of a cathedral in watercolour!’, probably there would be less takers for Jezebel Being Thrown to the Dogs. If anyone thought ‘Do you know what I fancy? Jezebel being thrown to the dogs!’ I am now worried about you. However, I will indulge you. It is one of the nicest pictures of a woman about to be mauled by dogs I have ever seen. Nice drapery.

I have no problem with Biblical art, being a certain age and having been brought up a good CofE girl at Sunday School, but it’s not as instantly cool as say ‘The Lady of Shalott’ or ‘Ophelia’, plus also people get thrown to dogs. However, if you look at the whole Ahab cycle in its amazing frame, it is possibly the fanciest graphic novel I have ever seen. It’s clever and beautiful and who doesn’t love that?

King Ahab's Coveting (1879)

He wasn't all God and dogs though. So much of his other work exists in private collections, it's hard to get a clear scope on non-biblical and non-architectural pictures, which isn't fair. Take An Idyll for example...

An Idyll (1881)

Autumn's Pipe (1887)

His work has a gem-like loveliness that is reminiscent of early Rossetti or Arthur Hughes. Although he is often compared to Burne-Jones, and not favourably, his work is possibly closer to J M Strudwick or Spencer Stanhope, even Marie Spartali Stillman. The reason Rooke is knocked is possibly his closeness to Burne-Jones, even after 'the Master' died. Rooke became part of the Burne-Jones 'Reputation Machine', led by Lady Burne-Jones, who wanted to edit Rookes personal notes about her husband on the pretext of using them for her Memorials. Georgie seemed to share her husband's concerns about how he would be remembered, and whether he would be treasured. Rooke seemed to have a zen-like assurance that his mentor and friend would always capture hearts and minds, and through him we can see Burne-Jones as a funny, sharp man who had an opinion on everything.

I actually found a mention of Rooke in English Pre-Raphaelite Painters by Percy Bate (c.1900, and my knackered copy has a Radio Times clipping about The Love School squirrelled between its shiny pages). He gets one long paragraph in the chapter entitled 'The Rossetti Tradition' and there is a copy of Ahab's Coveting as illustration. Bate's words on Rooke are interesting: 'Hardly a great artist, Rooke is at any rate a sincere one...a very genuine artist, who is obviously possessed of the first artistic requisite, a keen sense of the beautiful.'

The Marriage of Editha (1909) Ford Maddox Brown and T M Rooke

I have to admit that a part of me wants to know more about Rooke because of the way Burne-Jones regarded him. He called his assistant 'Little Rookie' and said of him 'Also there is a very high place in Heaven waiting for him and He Doesn't Know It.' What a lovely sentiment. Mr Rooke, I'd like to know you better. Well, Mr Walker is hard at work on an article about Rooke for The Pre-Raphaelite Review and we have declared 2012 to be the year of the Rooke. We shall get to know him better and I shall report back.

Oh, and the Harry Potter reference? Thomas Matthews Rooke had a son called Noel, also an artist who had the dubious pleasure of teaching Eric Gill wood-engraving (wash your hands afterwards). Noel married the fabulously named Celia Mary Twistleton Wykeham Fiennes (do you see where I am going with this?). Celia's brother Maurice was the grandfather of Ralph Fiennes (last seen by me being Lord Voldemort). It's like six degrees of Kevin Bacon in the Pre-Raphaelite World...

Beloved Kathleen

2012-01-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

While I was researching a post about the use of Victorian pictures in book cover illustrations, I came across the following wonderful image…

Abnadoned (1881-2) James (Jacques) Tissot

Lovely and dramatic, I often have a whim to hurl myself across a hearth rug. You will be unsurprised to learn that the above image is by James Jacques Tissot and of course the model is…umm…

Now, in many ways the reason I love my art history work is I love finding out about the relationships behind the pictures, but I’d be the first to admit that possibly the Pre-Raphaelite women are in danger of over-exposure to the point that we don’t take seriously the events of their lives as we are just so familiar with them. I’ve recently heard an art historian quite casually refer to Lizzie Siddal’s suicide as a matter of fact without referring to the issues, the evidence and the reasons. I guess Desperate Romantics has probably not helped the rather glib way that their lives are addressed without thought to how the people involved were affected, however I’m on my high-horse again, and that isn’t the point of this post. Back to the image, I wondered who the young lady was. The answer is the amazing and heartbreaking Kathleen Irene Ashburnham Newton.

Study of Kathleen Newton James Tissot

The lovely Kathleen, an Irish girl raised in Colonial India, certainly packed a lot into her early life. Her father was employed by the East India Company in Lahore. The Sepoy Rising of 1858 saw the family move to Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), and at 17 Kathleen was engaged to a surgeon with the Indian Civil Service, by the rather interesting name of Isaac Newton. She sailed to be married, but was wooed by another passenger, Captain Palliser of the Bengal Rifles, who did not succeed in seducing her. Being a good Catholic girl, Kathleen confessed all in Church and was advised to tell her husband of the attempt on her chastity on their wedding night.

Mr Newton immediately began divorce proceeding.

The Orphan (1879)

Captain Palliser struck a deal with the outcast Kathleen and agreed to pay her passage to England if she became his mistress. She agreed, but when she became pregnant she refused to marry him. When her divorce became final, she moved herself and her daughter to London to live with her sister in St John’s Wood. She was still only 17 years old.

Another recent arrival to St John’s Wood was the French artist Jacques (or James) Tissot. Having fought in the Franco-Prussian War and the defence of the Paris Commune, Tissot packed his bags for the opportunities available across the channel. He met Kathleen around 1875, and in 1876 she gave birth to her son Cecil, rumoured to be Tissot’s child. The couple set up home together at No.17 Grove End Road, and Kathleen and their home became the repeated subjects of his art over the next six years.

These six years were domestic bliss, the only years that the artist spent in a family home, and I was amazed by the volume of work he produced, Kathleen's face appearing over and over, strikingly beautiful and beloved by the artist, capturing his muse compulsively.

Mrs Newton with a Parasol (1879)

When Kathleen became ill with tuberculosis, Tissot was devastated. Unable to cope with his sadness at her failing health, Kathleen took an overdose of laudanum. She died aged 28.

Astonishing. I have nothing clever to say about how utterly bleak and moving that it. Tissot was destroyed by her death and left London, turning to religion and a whole separate career as a religious painter that I didn’t even know about. Who can imagine anything so completely at odds to his paintings of idle, beautiful city dwellers?

The Annunciation (1886-960

Now, I’m probably a bit jaded with my Pre-Raphaelite social history by now. Lizzie had her still born baby and took an overdose, one Waugh sister died after giving birth so Holman Hunt married the other one, don’t get me started on Alexa Wilding (more of that to come), but the life of Kathleen Newton stunned me. Divorced for being honest and blameless, the unmarried mother of two children and the muse for some of the most beautiful works in the later Victorian period, only to kill herself at 28 because she couldn’t stand the grief of her lover.

Holyday (1876)

I feel the need to read A Type of Beauty: The Story of Kathleen Newton (1854-1882) by Patricia O’Reilly, a dramatized account of her life, because I would like to think that someone can find words sufficient to tell this woman’s story. She was Tissot’s ‘Mavourneen’ (my beloved) and ‘Ravissante Irlandaise’ (Delightful Irish) and he had to bury her in unconsecrated ground in Kensal Green Cemetery. That, my friends, is a Victorian tragedy and I hope with all my heart that the writers of Desperate Romantics never get their hands on it.

Type of Beauty (1880)

Who's Been a Naughty Boy?

2012-01-21T14:22:00.000-08:00

In between taking large quantities of cold medication (I've gone a bit chesty, if you know what I mean) I have been thinking about what to write for today's blog. Kind of counter-inspired by the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum's latest exhibition 'In the Footsteps of Gods and Heroes', I've been thinking about villains of the Victorian art world, and especially Charles Augustus Howell.

Oh, Mr Howell, how very spendid to see you. Charles Augustus Howell is one of those people who is fascinating, intriguing and rather seductive, and the undoing of many a person, both ladies and gentlemen. Born in 1840, he lied his way through the next 50 years before being found in a gutter with his throat slit and a shilling shoved between his teeth. Or was he? Now that's the problem with Howell...

Charles Augustus Howell (1882) Frederick Sandys

We can be vaguely confident that he was born around 1840. He claimed to be the son of an English drawing master who was living in Lisbon, and a Portugese mother, but he was a bit vague about detail. By the time of Charles' marriage to his cousin Frances Catherine Howell, or 'Kitty', his father has obviously had a career change and is listed as a 'merchant'. But we'll gloss over that... The stories he told of his youth in Portugal are pretty fabulous: card-sharping in Oporto and diving to loot Spanish Galleons of booty. Sigh, he sounds dreamy. No wonder Whistler called him 'the creature of top-boots and plumes, splendidly flamboyant.' My own youth in 1970s Wiltshire contained very little in the way of card-sharping and Galleoning looting, so I'm easily impressed. As were many others, as we shall see...

Howell entered Pre-Raphaelite circles in the 1860s when he began to work as Ruskin's secretary, and also modelled for Rossetti, being a rather handsome fellow...


Study for Found D G Rossetti (Yeah, but who hasn't modelled for bloody Found?)

I think it is probably no coincidence that Rossetti welcomed Howell into his life after Lizzie's death when possibly his judgement may have been a little wobbly. Howell was able, charming and persuasive, and if you needed something Howell was your man. Need some more blue and white china? Howell would oblige. Need some paintings selling? Howell was your man. Need your dead wife exhuming? Charlie's your boy. Pre-Raph's Mr Fix-it was the one who secured the return of the little book of poems, inconveniently left in the embrace of Lizzie. What a man!

Study for Dante's Dream D G Rossetti

Ford Madox Brown described him as being 'second to no one in England in his intimate knowledge of ancient and oriental furniture, china, tapestries', William Michael Rossetti commented on his 'quick and accurate discernment of the merits of works of art and decoration of many various kinds, along with extensive practical knowledge of their market value', testament to Howell's sharp sense of business and knowledge of their world.

Mrs Charles Augustus Howell (1873) Frederick Sandys

Am I the only person who thinks 'Blimey, I bet her frock made her popular at parties...' Kitty Howell was as beautiful and beguiling as her cousin-husband. Their wedding in 1867 was attended by William and Jane Morris, Ned and Georgie Burne-Jones, William and Christina Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown. The Howells moved in affluent and cultured circles and were trusted friends to all. Rossetti commented in 1872 that 'I can express complete confidence in his judgement on questions of art'. And everyone lived happily ever after...hang on....

According to Georgie Burne-Jones, Howell was 'one who came among us in friend's clothing...but inwardly was a stranger to all our life meant.' Now, that doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement. While Charles and Kitty Howell were a golden couple, much beloved by all, there was another side to Howell which was not so beguiling. Sacked by Ruskin in 1870, Howell failed to keep the exhumation of Lizzie Siddal a secret, thus causing scandal and unhappiness from an already terrible event. He also took a lover in 1873, the artist Rosa Corder, another beautiful woman. Some chaps get all the luck...

Arrangement in Brown and Black: Portrait of Rosa Corder (1876-1878) J A M Whistler

It was with Miss Corder that Howell started another little business venture, well two if you count their daughter, Beatrice Ellen, born in 1883. Rosa was a talented artist who trained under Frederick Sandys. Sandys' style was very similar to Rossetti's....can you see where this might be going...?

Mr. ___ and Miss ___ nervously perpetuating the touch of a vanished hand (1922) Max Beerbohm

Allegedly, Howell convinced Rosa to produce 'Rossetti' drawings that he then sold on as originals. Naughty Howell. This soured relationships between Howell and his Pre-Raphaelite chums, causing Rossetti to write the slightly less friendly limerick 'There's a Portuguese person named Howell, Who lays on his lies with a trowel, When I goggle my eyes, And start with surprise, It's at monstrous big lies told by Howell.'

Apparently, it was Fanny Cornforth who gave Howell his nickname 'Owl', albeit inadvertently. When asked if she had seen Howell while she was out of town, Fanny replied that she had 'see'd no 'Owl', and it stuck. It's ironic that for all his big stories of heroic daring-do and involvement in a political assassination (the attempt by Felice Orsini to assassinate Napoleon III), he was undone by some rather silly forgeries. However, neither his wealth nor his amazing reputation (or rather infamy) seem to have suffered too much. Conan Doyle apparently based Charles Augustus Milverton

Charles Augustus Howell Mortimer Menpes

Howell died, aged 50, of tuberculosis, or at least that was the official line. The rather more delicious unofficial story was that he was found outside a pub in Chelsea with his throat slit. The cover-up commenced and the slitting was all explained by a 'post-mortum'. Now, far be it from me to dismiss a juicy tale, but if Howell was a big a liability as it seems, why bother covering it up? He had faked his death before, in order to make a fortune from the sale of his stuff, so people were rather surprised when he actually died, properly and for real. Ellen Terry wrote to a friend 'Howell is really dead this time - do go to Christie's and see what turns up'.

So, what can be made of this figure? Was he a rotter, an opportunist, a liar and blackmailer? Possibly. Should he be played by Kiefer Sutherland in a film? Almost certainly. Would I wear Kitty Howell's dress? Given half a chance. In the end, he does rather enliven events and in many ways we fulfil his wishes in still talking about him. What ever else Charles Augustus Howell may have wished to be, he obviously wanted to be immortalised by his reputation.

Congratulation Charlie, you may well have got your wish.

Through the Doors (The Finale)

2012-01-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

Here we are for the last part of the virtual 1883 exhibition of The Rossetti Gallery, the gallery run by Fanny Cornforth and her husband, John Bernard Schott, and comprising of a number of the pictures that Fanny ‘acquired’ during her time with Rossetti. The exhibition served a couple of purposes; firstly, it was Fanny’s tribute to her great love, the man to whom she had dedicated her life. Secondly, it was arguably Fanny’s gesture of defiance, held just down the road from the ‘official’ exhibition at The Royal Academy. We know that William Michael Rossetti tried to cut Fanny from his brother’s life and subsequent legacy by not informing her of the funeral until after it had taken place and then attempting to reclaim pictures and silence her. Lastly, it was no doubt a money-making scheme, charging an admittance and a cost for the catalogues. The Schotts were able to live quite comfortably for many years in Kensington, so it can be argued that the scheme worked. So, on with the show…

41. Pandora

As we saw yesterday, the latter part of the exhibition was made up of photographs of various pictures. Unlike the ‘actual’ pictures she owned, it could be argued that Fanny only needed to take what she liked when acquiring photographs because the majority of Rossetti’s work would have been available to her in this medium. What did she chose? Jane Morris.

42. Mrs William Morris

Jane Bloody Morris. Again. I have questions, I don’t know about you lot. What was she playing at? Although we don’t have it on record precisely how Fanny felt about Jane, we know that Rossetti feared Fanny’s jealousy and her accusations, which Rossetti strenuously denied. Her collection of ‘Jane’ images raise questions about the nature of their relationship. Although Jane never spoke of Fanny, and you could almost believe that Jane didn’t know of Fanny’s existence, there is evidence that Jane feared Fanny had acquired letters between Jane and Rossetti, and would make them public. As it turned out, Fanny either didn’t have them or didn’t act on them. If Fanny was as vindictive as everyone seemed to have believed, you have to ask why she displayed, without judgement, so many images of her rival.

43. The Question (or The Sphinx)

I’ve always thought this is an odd picture, but well-chosen for display as it’s a nude and Rossetti did few nudes, even fewer of them being male nudes. It shows Youth, Manhood and Old Age, all approaching the Sphinx to find the secrets of life and death. Again, it is a sketch for a picture that was never executed, a potential never realised.

44. Mrs William Morris

Looky here again. Hmmm, interesting how Jane is ‘Mrs William Morris’ but Lizzie is ‘Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall’. Neither of them are linked to Rossetti by name and Jane is titled very formally, emphasising her link to another man. You do wonder how many people knew about Rossetti and Jane by 1883, how many people talked about it? It might be interpreted as a kindness by Fanny to emphasise Jane’s position as William’s wife, but I doubt there was any such thought in her head. I wonder if it was a move on Fanny’s part to establish herself as Rossetti’s mistress, alone.

45. Hamlet and Ophelia

The catalogue reads ‘Ophelia is drawn from Miss Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, Hamlet from Charles A. Howell Esq. Both faithful portraits.’ Although Howell was known to Fanny (who allegedly nicknamed him The Owl, by the dropping of her ‘aitches), it is not clear how well Fanny knew Lizzie. Thinking about it, Fanny resumed her modelling for Rossetti after his marriage, while Lizzie was still alive, so it can be assumed that Lizzie and Fanny must have met. I wonder if this picture and the catalogue text were included to draw attention to Lizzie as Ophelia, again. It was her most famous role and here she is again, this time for her husband, being Ophelia.

46. Mnemosyne or The Lamp of Memory

Like No.22, this is another version of the famous oil of Jane being the lady with a lamp. This is the original picture, before the canvas was enlarged and the lower part of Jane was added. One of the pleasures of looking at these pictures is that Fanny managed to acquire copies of working studies, unfinished works, that give you an idea of Rossetti’s thoughts and inspirations. To start with, this was a far more intimate picture, close and intense, before Rossetti added to the canvas. Another image of Jane? Of course…

47. Cassandra

This is a busy one. Right, the description reads ‘The subject shows Cassandra prophesying among her kindred, as Hector leaves them for his last battle. They are on the platform of a fortress, from which the Trojan troops are marching out. Helen is arming Paris; Priam soothes Hecuba; and Andromache holds the child to her bosom’. Crikey, there’s a lot going on there. It's all noise and tragedy, with Cassandra foretelling doom to a man who doesn't have time to listen. I wonder if Fanny felt like it sometimes was her job to tell people what they didn't want to hear?

48. Washing Hands

49. Portrait of the Painter’s Mother

I think this is the right one, so I’m brazening it out. Of course this is the right one, ahem. The catalogue lists it as a sketch from April 28^th 1853, and is a pen and ink sketch. I think this is a marvellous drawing, the strength of his mother clear to see. This is one of the earliest pictures in Fanny’s collection, and it’s a photograph, so she had chosen to acquire this image. Possibly she was trying to feel closer to Rossetti, whose mother was an important part of his life. Looking at this image, I can’t help but think that Rossetti looked ever so much like his Mum, the same large, dark eyes. Maybe Fanny saw her lover in his mother and liked the image because of it.

50. Borgia

The catalogue says that this is an image of ‘Lucrezia, Alexander VI and Caesar Borgia watching the children dancing’. This is the third Lucrezia Borgia image in this exhibition, and this one comes from 1851, although the central figure could be said to resemble Fanny. I’m not sure why Fanny collected these images, as the only person I know that had been called ‘Lucrezia Borgia’ was Jane, by (I think) Bell Scott, who believed her relationship with Rossetti was harming the artist. This reminds me of the books Willowwood and Victorian Love Story where it is hinted that Fanny like Rossetti’s early works because there was always an interesting story going on in the picture. Well, here you go Fanny, the Borgias should be an interesting enough story for you…

51. The Beloved

This comes with the line ‘My beloved is mine, and I am his’, and this is a photograph of the oil before completion. I had lots of fun comparing the finished image and playing ‘spot the difference’. I don’t get out much. Keomi the Gypsy Lover of Frederick Sandys, on the right, needs a lot of work, and the little chap in the front is missing some flowers. I saw this picture mentioned in an article as being proof that Rossetti was a big ol’ racist. Oh Lordy, I don’t even know where to start with that…other than ‘no, dear, he wasn’t.’

52. Perlascura

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in! Damn, almost at the end and she springs a final Jane Morris on me! Admittedly, this is possibly the most stunning image of Jane, utterly breath-taking in its simplicity and beauty. This is one of my favourite of Rossetti’s chalks and he was a man who was good with his chalk. Look at the light on her hair! The line of her jaw! Heavens above. This is the last picture, and it’s of Jane. All that remained in the display were some poems and a couple of pictures of Tudor House, but this is the last of Rossetti’s pictures.

Do you know what I thought when I realised that? Isn’t it odd that she didn’t finish with a picture of herself, or even of Rossetti. What’s even odder is that she finished with a picture of her rival, the woman who took away her lover and arguably his sanity. In the exhibition, around 10 of the image could be said to be pictures of Fanny, but around 14 are of Jane. That’s over a quarter, and an impressive amount to be on show. Was it Jane’s fame (or infamy) that made Fanny display them, knowing people would come and see what she had? Did she show them to imply that all fights were off, that she acknowledged Jane’s presence in her lover’s life? I wish she had left some sort of hint as to why she chose the pictures she had, what they meant to her, even if it was only money. Was Fanny so calculating that she could exploit her rival’s image in order to make money from her dead lover’s art? That’s a bleak conclusion. Maybe she wanted all the Stunner’s to be together in remembering Rossetti? No, that’s far too saccharine. No answer is totally satisfying, so maybe we’ll never know, but isn’t it interesting when you get surprised by someone you thought you understood completely?

Consider this parting thought: Fanny Cornforth, blacksmith’s daughter from rural Sussex whose siblings nearly all died in infancy and whose mother and father had died young and nastily, had amassed an art collection of national significance that would enrich museums an art galleries in at least two countries. Now that is a surprising thought, and is one of the major reasons that I love Fanny. And I do love Fanny.

Anyone who sniggered can see me after class…

Through the Doors (Part 2)

2012-01-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

Here we are again, back at 1a Old Bond Street in 1883 and onwards with our tour of the gallery…

20. Joli Coeur (1866)

This is the original drawing for the oil of the same title. I’m not sure of the model, she’s a random brunette, possibly Ellen Smith, although there is a portrait of Frances Graham from 1869 which is similar. I actually prefer the sketch to the finished oil, as the lightness of touch gives the playful subject life. Don’t get used to playful, though. Here we go…

21. Study for the Head of Lady Macbeth (1876)

Hello Jane, fancy seeing you here.Now, the above image isn't what was hung at Fanny's, because I can't find a copy of that. It is described as 'Life size, three-quarter looking to the right, nude shoulders.' It was a study for the central figure, Jane Morris, and it's in chalk. So, it's a life-size chalk portrait of Jane. I really want to see that...

22. Mnemosyne, or The Lamp of Memory

Again, this is not the one on display, however, from what I can gather this is just a chalk version of the pencil sketch in Fanny's collection. This was a small pencil study for the head of the woman in Mnemosyne, another picture of Jane. This is an astonishingly beautiful portrait, look at her eyes. I find the portraits of Jane quite intense, the look on her face is uncompromisingly aching which is why I don't often put them up either at home or work. I know Jane's face is gorgeous but there is a certain LOOK AT ME quality that I can't live comfortably with. Interestingly, it seems Fanny could...

23. A Venetian Lady

A small pen and ink sketch of a Fanny-like woman, ‘One of Palma’s Daughters’. It’s a curious addition, but not unusual of Rossetti’s ink sketches, reminding me a lot of the first picture of Bocca Baciata, drawn in the letter to Boyce.

24. Mrs William Morris (1873)

Curiously, this is described in the catalogue as being a picture of Jane ‘crouching on end of large sofa and reading’, yet this is the picture that has the provenance of being No.24 in The Rossetti Gallery exhibition. I did try and look for a picture answering that description, but nothing seems to show Jane ‘crouching on end of large sofa’. What an odd description…

25. Heart’s-Ease (1866)

Sorry, no illustration, although it wasn’t for want of trying. We even had a call-out on Facebook where the massed forces of Pre-Raphaelite knowledge had a look too. If anyone can send me a copy of this image, I’ll send you a signed copy of the new edition of Stunner. We’re looking for a picture described as ‘Half-length figure of a girl sitting on a cushioned cane chair, her cheek leaning on her right hand, the left resting on her knee, and holding a pansy.’ Good luck my friends!

26. Study of Female Head (1875)

Oh, for heaven's sake, not this one either. The description is 'Full face inclining to the left' and it has the date October 11th 1875. It's in the 'Jane' time period, so it may well be Mrs Morris, but why wouldn't she list it as such? Maybe Fanny knew it was a study for a painting. Anyway, again, if anyone knows where this picture is, let me know...

27. Study

Okay, I'll try and make this the last one I can't bloody find. I can't even find an entry for this on the Rossetti Archive. It's described as 'Figure of a girl sitting and clasping her knee with both hands. The head inclining towards the left. Sketch for a watercolour drawing never executed.' I feel like I'm setting homework with today's blog...

28. Mrs William Morris (1875)

This is a sketch for an intended companion piece to La Ghirlandata and would have been gorgeous. From 1875, it shows Jane in a patterned dress, holding a bowl of flowers, leaning on a table. Of all the beautiful images of Jane we have, I would love to have seen this as La Ghirlandata is a gorgeous picture. I wonder if this one would have had a ‘colour’ in the same way? We shall never know…My money would have been on blue.

29. Salutatio Beatricis

The meeting of Dante and Beatrice in a street in Florence, shown here as a sketch for the 1863 watercolour. A copy of this ended up in the Red House and may well be the reason why Beatrice looks like Jane Morris rather than Lizzie Siddal. Fanny’s likeness is in the resultant watercolour as one of Beatrice’s ladies, which may explain the presence of this partial sketch in her collection.

30. Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee (1870)

Not the Ruth Herbert version of 1858, but Jane Morris, clambering the steps, her hair all flowing. It's described as an original cartoon for a life-size picture, never executed. Compared with the original, which is shown later, it's much simpler, concentrating on the figure of Mary, or Jane, again looking anguished. I also find it fascinating that Rossetti liked to make pictures of Jane life-sized. Was it just a move he made later in life, towards a larger scale, or was it something that was particularly to do with Jane, as if she was there with him, literally large as life in his work? I think that is possibly why I find the pictures of her so emotive, you are face to face with her and she does not look happy.

31. Fazio’s Mistress (1864)

Now, we know this picture as Woman Combing her HairLady Lilith rather than Fazio’s Mistress but if you think about it, this beautiful image works equally well as the lovely, sensual mistress. Actually, I think Fanny’s rather hearty, jolly face is a bit strange as a devil-woman, but who knows, possibly the devil should be a rather saucy looking young woman, you wouldn’t suspect her, or rather you’d have your clothes off before you did…

We now move on to a section entitled ‘Photographs’, which is odd as some of the drawings in the section before are photos of the originals. It might be that the following are smaller than the originals or in some way are different from ones like No.4.

32. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1863)

The catalogue dates the photograph as 1863, but there was no photo that I can find from 1863, and this picture has the Rossetti Gallery provenance. This is a fairly iconic image of him, dark-eyed, wearing that huge cloak coat, his rotund form pushing the edges apart. Fanny loved this image, she mentioned it, had it on her mantelpiece, and held it dear, more dear than images of either of her husbands.

33. Dante’s Dream (Study for the Head of Dante)

34. Dante’s Dream (Study for the head of Attendant Lady)

35. Dante’s Dream (Head of the dead Beatrice)

Studies for the marvellous, huge oil, second version, with Jane as Beatrice, or as the catalogue rather gleefully points out, ‘the dead Beatrice’. The Attendant Lady is Marie Stillman, who Fanny claimed to have known when she wrote to Samuel Bancroft, and it is suggested that the figure of Dante is taken from William Stillman. The figure of Love is a rather lovely gentleman called Johnston Forbes Robertson, who I feel the need to know more about, for strictly professional purposes, obviously. Where’s that time machine when I need it?!

36. Monna Vanna

I have this theory that Monna Vanna was originally a painting of Fanny before over-painting her with Alexa. Look at Fanny’s face in No.5 from yesterday, hang on, it’s too tricky to flick between entries….

I see similarities between the images, and as far as I can see there are no preparatory sketches for Monna Vanna, so where did it come from? Although this pastel is much later, it doesn’t mean that any sketch it was based on wasn’t done earlier and lost. Fanny knew Alexa and didn’t seem to mind her too much, but she didn’t hold many images of her, as opposed to Jane.

37. Lady Lilith

Ah, now, this is an Alexa image, but originally an image of Fanny, seen here. In the catalogue entry there is no mention of the business of scrapping this version that even William Michael believes to be the better version. I actually prefer the image of Alexa, who does look like she wants to eat your children, rather than Fanny who is more likely to fall out of her frock before she manages any dastardly deeds.

38. Hesterna Rosa

A photo of a drawing owned by Fred Stephens, showing a scene of a woman having an ‘Awakening Conscience’ moment in a brothel. Unlike Found, the picture more often compared with The Awakening Conscience, this image focuses on the woman not having shame dumped on her, but realising that a front of jollity cannot truly mask a heart full of, well, tiredness. The woman in the image feels ‘like flowers that fade’, worn by strife. Like the fallen woman in Found, she has a moment of clarity that her life is terrible, but it is an inward misery rather than a dramatic moment of admission.

39. Lucrezia Borgia

Not only did Fanny have the version where she was the model (no.18 from yesterday), she also had a photograph of the original, with its dark haired model. According to the catalogue, Charles Howell owned the watercolour and destroyed it with Rossetti in 1867. What on earth could have inspired Rossetti to destroy it? It looks okay to me...T'uh, artists....

40. Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee (1858)

Oh, here's the other one. Just in case you were wondering where the earlier version of No.30 was, Fanny managed to get a photograph of that one. Ruth Herbert is the repentant Magdalen in this one. I always think of that picture of Boyce and Fanny when I think of Ruth Herbert, because her portrait is hanging on the wall behind the couple. I’m not sure if Fanny knew Ruth, but it’s possible they met. Maybe Fanny felt that she ought to have both Mary Magdalene pictures for the sake of getting the set.

Join me for the final day for a load more Jane Morris. Jane gives the impression of her later life spent at Kelmscott, surrounded by images of her sad face, but why on earth would Fanny want to be surrounded by them too? A question for tomorrow, I feel….

Through the doors of the Rossetti Gallery (Part 1)

2012-01-15T09:55:00.000-08:00

Today, by my best guess is Fanny Cornforth's birthday and wouldn't it be nice to spend it with her? I have often said that I should compile a list of things I need to do when I finally get my time machine. Other than bestow the gift of a punch up the chops to various well-known historic figures, I really should have some noble intentions with such an opportunity. So here it is, the start of that list. The first thing I would do would be to travel to 1883 and visit 1a Old Bond Street, home to the Rossetti Gallery, and meet Fanny Cornforth.

As I haven’t quite secured the financing on the time machine as yet, I shall do the next best thing and present to you over the next day or so a virtual version of Fanny’s exhibition. Oh, it’s like I’ve bought a Time-Charabanc and we’re off on a jolly!

Front cover of the exhibition catalogue

Now, ladies and gentlemen, perusing the actual catalogue of Fanny’s exhibition is an enlightening and surprising activity as she not only held a lot of paintings, but also a great number of the pictures were of Jane and Lizzie. These were images she had gathered over a great many years, carefully selected either as the things she thought would sell the best or else things she found attractive. I considered various ways of showing you the images but I think the best way to do this is to show them to you in the order they are in the catalogue, which presumably reflects the hang.

1. Self Portrait (1861)

Unsurprisingly, the exhibition starts with a picture of Rossetti, after all this is a collection of his work, but it is a portrait from the year of his marriage to Elizabeth, which can’t be described as a golden year for Fanny. The description in the catalogue reads ‘Drawn from a mirror, full face. Inscribed below left-hand shoulder “D.G.R.” (in monogram) and “Oct. 1861.”’ Was there something about this pencil sketch that made it special to Fanny? We can assume it is a good likeness, and I’ve always wondered at how big Rossetti’s eyes are. He still looks a young, fairly content man. Maybe that’s how Fanny liked to remember him.

2. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall (sic) (1861)

The catalogue entry describes her as ‘The Artist’s Wife’ and this dates from June of the same year. Fanny didn’t own the original pencil sketch but a photograph of it, and this is the only portrait of Elizabeth in the exhibition, unlike another one of Rossetti’s women, as we shall see. Of all the images of Elizabeth that there are, and Lord knows there are many, this is rather a curious picture, not very flattering, and rather sad. It might be as simple as this was the only one that Fanny could get hold of, but maybe this is how she remembered Elizabeth, as an unhappy woman, turning away.

3. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1865) G F Watts

Fanny’s ownership of this image was long contested by William Michael Rossetti. Among the things that he objected to after his brother’s death, it was Fanny’s attempts to get every penny she saw was owing to her that drove him to become somewhat of a monster. Let’s say we don’t see William at his best, but I can completely believe that Fanny was provoking, to say the least. It was this important painting that William was most angry about as it was most likely destined to become the ‘official’ portrait of the Painter Poet, by one of the most important painters of their era, and it was owned by an ex-prostitute from Sussex. William hoped to be able to ‘terrorize’ it from Fanny, boasting of such a course of action to a friend, until Fanny undid his plans by producing a slip of paper from Gabriel signing the work over to her. I think the saddest thing is the marked difference between Rossetti’s picture in 1861 and this portrait just four years later, at the age of just 37. The stress of those four years seemed to have taken quite a toll.

4. Miss Christina Rossetti (1866)

Again, this is a photograph of the original work. Why on earth would Fanny want a picture of Christina? My guess is that Christina was becoming a known poet and therefore her image would become valuable, but possibly also Fanny knew her work and liked it. I still maintain that Rossetti used Fanny as a model for his illustrations of Goblin Market. Maybe Fanny liked the idea of outwitting the goblin men…

5. Portrait of a Lady (1874)

Now here’s where all the problems with this picture start. It’s a picture of Fanny, looking a bit like Alexa, but even Fanny labels it impersonally. The explanation could be thus: it was intended as a sketch for a picture, not a portrait. For his pictures, Rossetti was far more likely to be a ‘look-to-the-side’ kind of chap, rather than a full face, which he reserved mostly for portraits. It might be just Fanny being strange, of course, as it is a sister picture to No.6…

6. Portrait of Mrs Schott (1874)

7. Frederick R Leyland (1879)

Frederick Leyland, Pre-Raphaelite patron extraordinaire, had sat for a portrait just a few years before Rossetti’s death. On completion, Rossetti had presented the picture to Leyland’s daughter, listed as ‘Mrs Stevenson Hamilton’ in the catalogue. Fanny somehow had managed to get hold of a chalk study. It is an interesting choice for her interest, unless she had met Leyland in her Cheyne Walk days.

8. Dante Gabriel Rossetti Miss Sykes

Here we have the first of the few entries I cannot find an illustration for. Described as ‘Miniature on Ivory, by Miss Sykes, encased in an old English pearl locket’, this small circular locket made its way from Rossetti to Fanny. Mind you, of all the things she ‘acquired’, as it is only 1” in diameter, it must have been easy to carry out of Tudor House…

9. Found (1853)

Now this is a bit of a strange one. The date given is too early for the image, but it makes sense that this is the image from Found that Fanny would display, after all it is her entry into the world of Pre-Raphaelite art. I can only imagine it is a mistake by someone in the preparation of the catalogue, because why would Fanny date a picture of herself as before her meeting with Rossetti?

10. The Return of Tibullus to Delia (1851)

This is the watercolour drawing, the first drawing, of the work produced a decade later. A page of the catalogue is dedicated to a description and passages of text that relate to the image and the resultant work is described as ‘important’. To start with I was a little puzzled as to why this is among the pictures, but if the work was considered ‘important’ then maybe it was a matter of reputation. However, what concerns me is the shadow of Beata Beatrix in this picture, a painting which Fanny reputedly disliked for its effect on her lover. I feel like Fanny is keeping Lizzie at a distance in this exhibition, again unlike Jane, as we shall see.

11. The Loving Cup

This is a drawing for the oil owned by Frederick Leyland, and this study features Fanny. So many versions of this image seem to exist that it’s hard to keep track of them all, but this one is Fanny in her ‘Blue Bower’ mode and the image, although undated, I’m guessing dates from the earlier phase of the drawings when Fanny was still in vogue and Alexa had yet to be discovered.

12. Robert Browning (1855)

Now here’s a puzzler. Not a great fan of poetry as far as I know, why on earth would Fanny have a picture of Browning? Money, of course. Browning was famous and his image would be obviously valuable. There is a random link between Fanny and Browning and that is the poem ‘Fifine at the Fair’ where Rossetti thought the wild gypsy was meant to be Fanny.

13. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1861)

A great companion piece to No.12, very similar in style, despite being 6 years later. Again, why would Fanny want this portrait? Swinburne hated Fanny, being more than definitely Team Lizzie. Again, I think she acquired the work for Swinburne’s reputation and fame. Maybe she just got it so she could hang it next to the superior Titian-haired stunner, No.14.

14. Portrait of Mrs Schott (1874)

I would never have dreamt of putting these two images together had the exhibition not hung them together, but they do show a continuity of style and imagery. The red and green of No.13 becomes the peach and russet of No.14 but both are recognisably flame-haired personalities, whose strength of character is emblazoned across the canvas.

15. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1870)

Just in case you needed reminding the point of the exhibition, here he is again. Possibly the last of his self-portraits, this was drawn from a mirror and compared with the Watts portrait, I think Rossetti looks well and dapper. Look how big his eyes are, he is like the Disney-PRB.

16. Rosa Palmifera (1865)

For a moment I thought it was going to be an image of Alexa Wilding, but no, I think it’s another one of Fanny, despite the final painting, known as Sibylla Palmifera is taken from Alexa. Mind you, looking at the date, Fanny was still in vogue in 1865 and Alexa had only just been discovered. The result is this beautiful, simple pencil sketch.

17. Giotto Painting the Portrait of Dante (1853)

This unfinished watercolour shows Giotto outlining the portrait on the wall of the chapel of the Bargello, in Florence. Dante is sat in the middle holding a pomegranate. Behind him stands Guido Cavalcanti, holding the poems of Guido Guinicelli. This is an early watercolour, which despite its unfinished state would be worth quite a lot of money. It is interesting to see what few works that pre-date her Fanny acquired.

18. Lucrezia Borgia

This is a bit of a ‘gateway drug’ for people who prefer his early watercolours but want to know more about Fanny. It’s unusual for an audience to see Fanny in full-length rather than up close and personal. Fanny modelled for the role of Lucrezia, the poisoning Borgia wife, her beauty and serenity masking her evil intent. Many would have argued that the same was true of Fanny herself.

19. The Water Willow (1871)

Well, well, well, look who we have here…We only had to wait nineteen paintings and here we have Jane Morris, but not just any picture of Jane, one that has connection to Kelmscott. It is a matter of record how unhappy the Kelmscott years were for Fanny, and yet Fanny chose to acquire this sketch of Jane.

But is it the only one?

Join me again tomorrow for Part 2 of this tour, and for some very interesting pictures…

Valentine’s Day

2012-01-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

Mr Walker and I were talking recently about writing a directory of people connected to Pre-Raphaelite art, you know, the sort of people who aren’t on the ‘A’ List but still have a part to play, possibly an important part. I was reminded of this at the weekend when I was reading about ‘minor’ Pre-Raphaelites and I came across the name Valentine Prinsep. Oh yes, I thought, he did…umm...and was friends with…umm…

I need that book.

Valentine Prinsep Julia Margaret Cameron

As it turns out, good old Val Prinsep was friends with everyone. Valentine Cameron Prinsep was born on 14^th February 1838 (hence the name, I suppose) to a very well connected family. His mother Sarah was the sister of Julia Margaret Cameron, and all manner of people are ancestors and descendents of the family, including Virginia Woolf. The house leased by the Prinsep family, Little Holland House in Kensington, was a centre for artistic society throughout the middle years of Victoria’s reign.

Sir Pelleas Leaving the Lady Ettarde (Oxford Union)

Valentine was friends with all the PRBs, close friends with George Watts and was part of the happy campaign to paint the Oxford Union, being friends with Morris and Burne-Jones. He married well, to the daughter of the PRB patron Frederick Leyland and had a long, now partially forgotten, career as a PRB-fringe painter.

His work owes much to both first and second generation Pre-Raphaelitism and it is a shame that he isn’t better represented in exhibitions. Take for example, The Queen was in the Parlour…

The Queen was in the Parlour (1860)

This reminds me of Elizabeth Siddal’s work of the 1850s, and to a lesser extent, Rossetti’s. It also reminds me of La Belle Iseult by Morris, the awkward pensive sadness, pausing in a task to consider how miserable her life is, despite having honey and rather nice hair.

The influence of Rossetti is more apparent in Il Barbagianni…

Il Barbagianni (The Owl)

Oh, I do like a barn owl, they are so soft. Chickens just aren’t the same, I’m afraid. I love the muted tones of amber that chase across the canvas, from her hair, her necklace, her sleeve and the fruit behind her, up to the owl. The white of her skin and collar reflect the owl’s face and neck. It’s a beautiful image. I always thought that Rossetti should have done more owls. Or any owls. Owls are definitely the way forward.

A Girl Carrying Grapes

Now this might as well have been by Rossetti, definitely from the Fanny Cornforth years. There are a series of drawings called ‘The Parable of the Vineyard’ which are very reminiscent of this…

Parable of the Vineyard D G Rossetti

Many of Prinsep's choices of subject fit nicely within the PRB remit, subjects from literature like this one of Mariana…

Mariana (1888)

However, I can’t help but admire his work that veered off towards the more aesthetic, ‘clean-light’ images he produced, which resemble Leighton more than Rossetti, or possibly Millais, in his mid-period when he produced pictures such as Esther.

Bathing in the Ganges

I must admit that, like Rossetti, my favourite works by Prinsep are his single female figures, all glorious of hair and rich coloured clothes. My Lady Betty is a good example of this, but my absolute favourite is Reclining Woman with a Parrot. Go on, guess what the picture contains…

Reclining Woman with a Parrot

Wowser, look at that fabulous hair, and get a load of her parrot. No, that isn’t a euphemism. Everywhere you look in this picture there are gorgeous details, like the hookah pipe and tiny tea glasses, the blue and white tiles and her little curly shoe. The sweep of glossy black fabric offsets all those rich colours and almost distracts you from her rather perky boob. Nice little pouffe too.

If we write our book of ‘Who’s Pre-Raphaelite Who’, Valentine Prinsep will have to have a fold-out chart in order to explain exactly why he is worth our notice. His work is as good as Rosetti’s (don’t tell him I said so) or Millais, but to my mind he lacks the spark of utter originality that would possibly have saved him from the ‘Also Ran’ list. Mind you, he was there at the time of the Oxford Union mural, he knew all the players in the movement and was related to some very important folks indeed.

He will appear in the chapter entitled ‘Handy People to Know when Time-Travelling’. Just imagine if we got an invitation to a party…I have nothing to wear...damn it...

Away with the Fairies

2012-01-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

It is to my lasting regret that I never got to perform in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe. I have done a great many of their operetta’s and I love their stuff very much, but we never got round to doing the mad fairy one when I belonged to a small light opera group in my teenage years. I quite liked the idea of stomping about the stage in wisps of netting attempting to be a ‘dainty little fairy’, it would have been hilarious. As I have grown older, I now appreciate how on the pulse G&S were when they wrote their shows. Victorian fashions are apparent in many of their works, for example Japan in The Mikado (If you haven’t seen the film Topsy Turvy, please watch it immediately, it is magnificent and hilarious, one of my favourite films of all times), and aestheticism in Patience (which I hope to write a post on in the future, once I get my head round exactly how rude they were being to Rossetti), and in Iolanthe, it’s fairies, lots and lots of fairies.

Before I started looking for pictures for this post, I didn’t realise how long the obsession with fairies went on in Victorian times. I thought it was a bit of a fashion, but the Georgians were already at it even before Vicky got to the throne. It’s all Shakespeare’s fault; if he isn’t casually mentioning fairies in his works (for example Queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet), then he’s writing whole damn plays about them, and calling them ‘Titania’ and ‘Bottom’. Oh really! I bet that got a laugh in the cheap seats.

The Reconciliation of Titania and Oberon (1847) Joseph Noel Paton

Far be it from me to suggest that maybe some artists used Shakespeare as an excuse for nudie work. It might be a naked lady posing around, but it’s okay because it literature. Actually, strap a pair of wings on a lass and she can be as naughty as you like…

A Fairy under Starry Skies Luis Falero

This has to be one of my favourite fairy pictures, not least because of the colour of her hair, and she seems to have some fairly sturdy wings. I’d like those wings, I’d feel some confidence that they’d get me off the ground, unlike one of Falero’s other fairies…

A Butterfly (1893) Luis Falero

This is one of the most popular images at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth and you can see why, as she’s awfully pretty and so light she can stand on that little leaf and not bend it. Well, I don’t see that happening for me and those wings look awfully fragile.

Iris (detail) (1886) John Atkinson Grimshaw

A vast array of fairy art seems to be ‘nudie fun with wings’, an excuse for Poses Plastiques where looking at nudes was acceptable as long as they weren’t moving. However, some seems to travel down far darker roads. Take for example this image…

The Captive Robin (1865) John Fitzgerald

John Fitzgerald spent so much time painting fairies, he became known as Fairy Fitzgerald, but his works aren’t saccharine confections despite their pretty colours. The Captive Robin is just one of his images about a feud between fairies and robins (who knew? I thought everyone loved robins), which I don’t think is going to end well for the robin. I must admit that having now seen a bit of Fitzgerald’s work, it is very unsettling due to his juxtaposing of the beautiful and the grotesque. Take, for example, the couple on the left, she in her blue dress, him in his fairy armour. All very pretty, despite the foliage growing out of their heads. Now look at the Hieronymus Bosch-esque creatures that are restraining the robin. God Almighty, I might not sleep tonight. I don’t fancy Mr Robin’s chances against that lot, they are hideous. They couldn’t be further from pretty nudie ladies balancing on leaves.

The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (1855-64) Richard Dadd

Of course I couldn’t talk about fairies without mentioning Dadd, whose work looks positively sane when compared with some of Fitzgerald’s. Mind you, he does nicely illustrate the point that sometimes there is just so much detail in fairy paintings that you need to either visit the original or have an excellent, large reproduction in front of you. For example, in the middle row of The Fairy Feller is a fairy in blue with oddly pointy boobs, and the tiniest feet imaginable. At first I thought she was looking at the fairy next to her, but looking at the reproduction in a nice book, I wonder if she is admiring one of the fairy gentlemen on the right-hand side, with their big feathers in their hats. I know I would be.

Come unto these Yellow Sands (1847) Robert Huskisson

Dadd also did a version of this scene, described in Ariel’s song in The Tempest, but I prefer Huskisson’s purity of light and depth of darkness. The whiteness of the fairy’s flesh (all nudie nude nude, obviously), twinkling in the moonlight which puddles on the sand where the dancing takes place. Dadd’s has a slightly more bacchanalian feel, slightly less arranged with a pink tinge that makes it feel naughtier…

Come unto these Yellow Sands (1841) Richard Dadd

What Dadd’s picture also offers us is a chance to see a fairy picture by him before his ill-fated trip to Egypt. This one has a sense of freedom, of space and air, unlike The Fairy Feller, where there is barely room to swing an axe.

‘And the Fairies ran away with their Clothes’ Charles Sim

The real fun for some artists is when fairies and humans meet and all hell seems to break loose. The next time I'm caught naked in public (and who hasn't?) I'll be sure to blame it on those pesky fairies. It doesn't seem to be all Cottingley fun in the nineteenth century, in fact some of it is down-right sinister…

A Fairy Tale Mark Symons

Fairies want to get in your head, to feed on your dreams and devour your imagination. The fairies that interact with humans ‘exist’ in a tangible way, they are a little part of the unknowable 'other' that has wandered into view and it seems humans are a little foolish to feel certain as to what their motives are. Look at all the tumbling fairy babies in Symons picture. What do they want? What are they going to do? Just because they are sweet and child-like, I think it would be a mistake to assume they are as harmless as children. I think you get off lightly is all they want to do is run away with your clothes.

The Stuff that Dreams are made of (1858) John Fitzgerald

This lot aren’t so cute, although the fairy prince and princess at the back are rather lovely. Hang on though, there does seem to be a difference between the fairies in the background and those in the foreground. Behind her bed, wisps of dream show fairies and creatures as thin as cobweb. In front of the bed are a bunch of rather solid creatures, playing instruments. Are they real? Are they the makers of her dreams, the actual goblins that she subconsciously knows are real? Holy Moly, look at the one playing the drum, he is terrifying. Yes, I’m definitely not sleeping tonight…

It can’t be all bad, surely? There must be some nice pictures of humans and fairies…

Midsummer Eve Edward Robert Hughes

Ahhhh, thank you Mr Hughes for saving me from a lifetime of checking under the bed. This is more like it, all gentle and playful, and the fairies are reassuringly squashable, should they get out of hand. Look, I’m not saying I would use it as a first response, but it’s good to know you can defeat an evil opponent with a rolled up copy of Bunty should you need to. Edward Hughes does the gleam and glimmer of light at night so beautifully, see how the glow uplights the Midsummer girl as she stands in a literal ‘fairy ring’, each of the little people holding tiny lanterns. I’m feeling much better about the little people now…

Take the Fair Face of Woman Sophie Anderson

Ahhhh, now you know how I love a snappy title - This one is called Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, with Butterflies, Flowers and Jewels Attending, Thus your Fairy is made of most Beautiful Things. Snappy. It’s a bit like a recipe for fairies, add a bit of this and a pinch of that and hey presto, you have a fairy. What Anderson also implies is that fairies don’t naturally look like humans, they just assume their appearance for their evil purpose. Okay, I may have made up the last bit, but it’s a possibility. Nice handbag.

I was wondering finally about the Pre-Raphaelites and fairies. They didn’t exactly go in for that sort of thing, beyond obvious Ariel in The Tempest, but then Burne-Jones came up trumps for me…

Hill Fairies Edward Burne-Jones

They have no wings, nor do they exhibit any of the usual ‘fairy’ attributes, and in fact look an awful lot like BJ’s usual lads and lasses in classical poses, but fairies they are, hanging around in odd rock formations that remind me of Iceland. Each figure seems both an extension of nature and a magical addition to it. The white gleam of the fairies on the left is beautiful. I still wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

Anyway, Fairies: who knows their purpose or their place? Creatures of spite and fate or tiny naked beauties? I love the idea of Falero’s winged perfections flitting in and out of view, and I don’t feel too scared about the prospect of them hovering over me as I sleep.

Mind you, I’m keeping a rolled up magazine by my bed, just in case.

The Love of a Silent Woman

2012-01-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

Here I am again, talking about Jane Morris. As we have discussed before, my feelings for Jane Morris are somewhat coloured by Fanny Cornforth and how Jane and Rossetti’s relationship affected her, not to mention poor William Morris. I try not to judge Jane too harshly as I am told time and time again that she loved Rossetti first and only, and had it not been for Elizabeth, then Rossetti would have married her and all would have been well. Things did not turn out that way and she married a man of independent means and, for a stablehand’s daughter from the rough end of Oxford, she did extremely well for herself. Still, the reappearance of her First and Only Love^TM shook her world and she could not help but fall into his arms. William stepped aside and the love affair that launched a heart-full of glorious images ran its course to Rossetti’s death. In 1882, her love died and the rest of her life was a shadow veiled with tears. So far, this is what I understood. I didn’t much like it as it spoke of missed opportunities for Jane and William to make a go of their marriage, and in comparison with Fanny’s later years, which were hard and uncertain, the comfort in which Jane sat in stately sadness bothered me. However, this is another woman’s life, I don’t have to make her choices or live with her husband. I tried not to judge.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Step forward Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. Mr Blunt is an interesting addition to the history of the Morris family for a number of reasons. It is through him that we know a great deal of Jane’s later life, it is through him we have her letters, and the letters between Rossetti and Jane as she left them to his safe-keeping. He provides diary entries that record a love affair of depth and intensity and he tells us things about the Pre-Raphaelite ménage a trios that both surprise and puzzle.

Jane met Blunt a year after Rossetti died. Both were in their mid 40s, both married with children, and both had formerly been unfaithful to their spouses. Blunt is best known for his affair with a society beauty called ‘Skittles’, Catherine Walters. Yes, that really is her waist…

Catherine Walters AKA Skittles

As you can tell by her letters to Blunt, Jane loved a bit of gossip so it’s hard to believe that she didn’t know him by reputation beforehand. Either way, Jane and Blunt became friends and she began to correspond with him and visited his home, Crabbets, and he visited Kelmscott. Beginning in 1884, notes of intimacy begin to creep in. In August Jane wrote ‘Farewell, send me a bit of heather is you write from Scotland – and think of me sometimes.’

In his visits to Kelmscott, Blunt draws a picture of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage, tortured by the pressure of her sick child and surrounded by portraits by her former lover. He writes in 1885 ‘There are moments when she is still a beautiful woman and I wish I had known her in old days.’

Jane Morris (1890s?)

Jane’s unhappiness hangs heavily over every word she writes to him: when she is away she longs to be ‘seeing real friends once more’ and she writes ‘it will be a most consoling thought I may write to you when sorrow weighs on me more heavily than usual…’. When at home, without Blunt, she writes ‘I think of you often and wish I could see you and talk with you…of course I know all this is impossible and utterly foolish, but the thought recurs again and again to my anger and dismay much as I strive to drive it away…’ (February 1885). At the prospect of Blunt’s visits, Jane’s eagerness is obvious and darkly humorous. She insists he should let her know when he is to come, ‘or I may be out when you call, then I should tear my hair and you know one can’t afford to lose a whole handful at this age…’

Jane in the garden of Kelmscott (1880s)

Arguably, a major part of Blunt’s interest in Jane comes from his obsession with Rossetti. How far Jane knew this, or minded, is uncertain, but she certainly fed his obsession and a good many of Blunt’s diary entries concerning Jane mention Rossetti. In 1888, when Jane reveals that most of House of Life was written about her, Blunt records ‘This makes both her and Rossetti still more interesting to me’. It is possibly unsurprising that when Blunt stays at Kelmscott in 1889, their relationship became more intense. Blunt’s diary records how he ‘came to identify myself with [Rossetti] as his admirer and successor’ and definitely seems to live out a fantasy where he is Rossetti, seducing Jane under her husband’s nose. In the same breath, Blunt has obvious affection for Morris, who he describes as ‘a loveable man’, whom he acknowledges loves Jane very much. I find the following passage to be possibly one of the saddest things I have ever read:

‘What had taken place between her and Rossetti he knew and had forgiven. But he had not forgotten it. I used to think that he suspected me at times (for her intimacy with me was not very explicable) even to the extent of jealousy. More than once, after having left us alone together, I noticed that he had returned suddenly on some pretence to the room where we were, blundering with loud footsteps, and as if ashamed of a suspicion which he had not been able to control. Finding nothing, he was far too generous not to put the thought aside either with her or me – And yet there was reason.’

I don’t know what depresses me more – Morris’ compulsive need to check on his wife’s fidelity or Blunt’s clinical recording of the shameful suspicions of a man he admits to cuckolding. I found the statement that Jane’s intimacy with Blunt ‘was not very explicable’ rather puzzling. If Blunt and Jane were friends why would they not be ‘intimate’ in a non-sexual sense? Jane’s letters give a sense that she is close to Blunt, that she craves his company, so why would Morris find it strange that Jane needed to be with her ‘friend’ at Kelmscott? The answer appears in Blunt’s diary of 1891. In 1890 Jane wrote in a letter to Blunt that ‘there is nobody now living…who knows me as you do…’, so Blunt’s diary entry in 1891 comes as a shock when he records that ‘she is so silent a woman that except through the physical senses we never could have become intimate’ and that they had never called each other by their first names. Still, he concludes, it is ‘a very excellent and worthy friendship’ as they never exchange cross words. Or any words.

Taking a step back, I think I sat on the sofa for a good long while considering Jane and Blunt, who never spoke, except by letter, and never called each other by their first names, yet had a passionate affair. Jane refers to herself as ‘shy’ once in her letters, but there is no sense in them that she doesn’t speak to him, but why should he lie? Hold that thought…

Through Blunt’s diary, we learn more about Rossetti’s affair with Jane, or in fact, lack of affair. In 1892, Blunt records ‘We slept together, Mrs Morris and I, and she told me things about the past which explain much in regard to Rossetti. “I never quite gave myself,” she said, “as I do now”. Perhaps, if she had, he might not have perished in the way he did.’ Isn’t the final opinion both interesting and vicious? Apparently sex with Jane Morris can cure you of drug dependency and mental illness. The woman is a miracle. Further on, in 1896, Blunt records the death of William Morris and his visit to Jane: ‘”I am not unhappy” she said “though it is a terrible thing, for I have been with him since I first knew anything. I was 18 when I married – but I never loved him”’.

After Morris’ death the letters continue, until 1913, but the intensity dissipates. The letters are mostly concerned with mutual friends, various publications, May’s failed marriage and Jenny’s see-saw health. After her death, Blunt recorded his dealings with the Morris family both in published diaries and also in his private papers which were published in the 1980s. The book of letters and diaries comes with a disclaimer: ‘The reliability of Blunt’s notebooks is open to question; it seems likely that the facts recorded are accurate, but the reader must use his own judgement in deciding whether to accept every word attributed to his various interlocutors.’ So, we can put a certain amount of faith that Blunt did indeed share Jane Morris’ bed, but as to whether she did indeed say ‘You are better than Rossetti!’ is another matter.

Why the caution? Because Wilfrid Scawen Blunt is possible the most unpleasant git-weasel excuse for a human being I have ever had the misfortune to read about. I read the book through and was left with the impression of a man who was definitely carving himself a place in Pre-Raphaelite history, which I found irritating but possibly understandable. I felt the same way after reading Thomas Henry Hall Caine’s reminiscences of Rossetti’s final years, as if it is unseemly to be shoehorning yourself into immortality because you knew a celebrity after they were famous. However, you get hints that Blunt was doing more than that, he felt he was ‘out-performing’ his heroes by sleeping with their prized woman. His dealings with Jane are usually framed in some reference to Rossetti or Morris and their work. Although Blunt’s political work seems to have been challenging and dangerous, when it came to women, Blunt only seems to have had one setting, summed up by his dealings with Jane and May after William’s death, on holiday with him ‘I am at my wits end how to amuse them for I cannot make love to either of them and what else is there to be done.’ I know Wikipedia is not to be wholly trusted, but even if a quarter of what is written on it about him is true, regarding his treatment of his wife and daughter, then I despair of Jane’s choice in men.

Many people love Jane Morris and feel sympathy for her sorrow at her mis-stepped life. I freely admit I’m not one of them, but by reading this book of letters, I do appreciate just how difficult she felt her life to be. She seems to have no purpose, nothing to do but to think about her marriage and children. Jenny’s illness especially seems to weigh on her almost to the destruction of her own health. What Blunt seems to offer is distraction from all of it. He is the opposite of William, being charming company to women and an easy lover, but still intellectual and political, sharing many things in common with Morris. It’s almost as if she finally managed to fall in love with Morris, but a palatable version of him, all sugared up and easy to swallow. What I’m left with again, however is that the Morris’ marriage was an unholy mess and a toxic environment, that caused harm to the children and misery to the parents.

What a damn shame.

No Country for Old Women

2012-01-01T03:59:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, Lovelies.

A little while back, I had an interesting discussion over on that there Facebook about the appearence, or lack of, older women in Pre-Raphaelite art. I was already thinking about a similar post, about how we can compare the photographic image and the painted image of Stunners, especially as they grew older, thinking especially of Jane Morris. As I thought about this post, I thought 'well, I could use...ummmm....oh dear...'

Are there any older women in Pre-Raphaelite paintings?

Ironically at the start, you can find them...


Isabella (1849) J E Millais

Christ in the House of this Parents (1849-50) J E Millais

Good old Millais, he had no fear of chucking in his Mum to bring up the average age. Actually, neither did Rossetti...

The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-9) D G Rossetti

1849 was obviously a good year to be an artist's Mum. It seems that when they were young men, the subjects they chose were quite inclusive. Much in the same vein as traditional 'history' genre painting, the moments captured in the above pictures are naturalistic, despite their unnatural narratives. The models were members of their own families, to add to the tension between fantastic story and domestic veneer. However, look at the imagery and characters that the Pre-Raphaelites were drawn to: Ophelia, The Lady of Shalott, Arthurian Legend, Medieval Maidens. Many of the women are caught in a moment of their youth, some of them die young, which imbues them with their heroine status. There are precious few old women in the majority of their works because the subjects do not call for them.

Now, here is where I struck a thorn. What was I looking for exactly? The above pictures are of, excuse me, 'older' women, in fact the lady in Isabella, sat next to Lorenzo is quite elderly, but what I was interested to find was pictures of glamorous, 'stunner' pictures of women over 40. Before I start, can I just point out that I find it very difficult to judge people's age these days and find actresses who I assume to be about my age (because they play parts that seem contemporary with me in film) are actually about 20. So with Google search open I went in search of that glamorous women, middle aged and above.

Portraiture seems a safe place to start. If you consider that by the time you have earned enough money and status to be able to commission a portrait of yourself or your wife, you have to be knocking on a bit, I felt sure I would be able to find the women I was after (if you know what I mean).

Mrs Coventry Patmore (1851) J E Millais

Oh, Mrs Coventry Patmore, with your glossy spaniel hair and pink bow, you must be what I seek! I know your husband is a gentleman of age, shall we say, he has an enormous moustache...oh wait a moment, that's his official photo from later in his life. Mrs Coventry was born in 1824 and therefore is 27. Blimey, she was only 36 when she died, so inadvertently she is 'middle aged' in this picture. Sorry, Mrs Coventry, and also I'm sorry that no-one knows your name is Emily and that you didn't look like a spaniel. Hang on...

Emily Honoria Patmore

That's better. Love the shawl.

Fair enough, how about Holman Hunt? Surely he can provide me with an older woman (sorry, again, that sounded wrong, but you know what I mean)...

Fanny Holman Hunt (1866-68) William Holman Hunt

Now, she looks very regal and stately in this image, but hang on, she died at 33. Damn it, she was dead before he finished this. Fine, how about Edith, the other sister. He married her later, and so she must have been older...

Edith Holman Hunt, you know, the other one (1880)

Ha! Now, this is over a decade later and so Edith would have been....Fanny's much younger sister, therefore 34 in this picture. Really? What is wrong with you all?

I'll have to move outside the PRB (shallow bunch) to find a proper 'older woman looking glam' picture. Enter Evelyn de Morgan...

Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund (1905) Evelyn de Morgan

Granted, she's evil, but Queen Eleanor does seem to be somewhat older than the youthful and doomed Fair Rosamund. Nice, if disturbing. I think de Morgan shows us the most convincing image of an older stunner, by using an existing stunner and waiting until she got older...

Jane Morris (1904) Evelyn de Morgan

.I think Jane must be about 65 here, and it is a preparatory sketch for a picture about the cruelty of time...

The Hourglass (1905) Evelyn de Morgan

Looking as regal and imperious as ever, Jane doesn't seem to have altered since her heyday. Despite the grey hairs, her sad beauty is still intact and the audience's response is the same to The Hourglass as it would be to La Belle Iseult from almost 50 years previously. I have a problem though, and that is that Jane looks so sad, all the damn time, and she looks so miserable about being old. Did no-one portray a middle aged woman as a stunner?

Excuse me, Rossetti wishes to have a word, although I can't imagine what that word would be...after all, his models were young, and when they got older he replaced them with Alexa Wilding who was a teenager when he discovered her in the 1860s...Oh, I see. He wanted me to show you this...

Astarte Syriaca (1877-8)

Jane Morris was the same age as me when she became this glorious goddess. Now that is impressive, as I feel about 104 this morning after falling down a muddy hill yesterday (don't ask). So, Rossetti gives us a woman on the verge of 40 as a statuesque Deity, resplendent in her robes. He also gave us Regina Cordium...

Regina Cordium (1861)

No, not that one, Elizabeth was barely 30 here...

Regina Cordium (1866)

No, not that one either, Alexa was in her late teens, for heaven sake...

Regina Cordium (1861)

This is the one: Ellen Heaton, patron of the PRB, posed for it at the age of 45. Granted, it's not the most convincing stunner I've ever seen, but as portraits go, Rossetti went for glamour rather than dignity, for which I have to smile. When Millais did a portrait of Isabelle Elder, he chose a more traditional image...

High necked dress? Book? Basket of flowers? Check!

So I rather like that Rossetti went with 'sexpot' rather than 'stately' as it is unexpected and completely uncalled for, if you know what I mean. Instead of wearing a high-necked dress, she's going for a 'naked but for beads' look, and why not?

To sum up, for the most part Pre-Raphaelitism is not a natural pasture for women over 30, the subjects did not call for them and the subsequent artists joining the cause carried on the medieval maidens and Shakespeare heroines, rather than find anything different. Rossetti, due to his obsessions and shamelessness, brings us an older stunner, a middle-aged woman still this side of 'matron', but the lack of other images is not wholly the fault of the PRB. I find it difficult to guess ages because looking 'mature' was often to be aspired to, and in many cases a by-product of life. Christina Rossetti seems to have looked the same for most of her adult life, making it hard to gauge her age in any of her brother's portraits...

Christina Rossetti (1877) D G Rossetti

This is Christina at 47, but equally she looked like this in most of his images, a dark, deep poetess of incredible feeling and intellect. Maybe the lack of older stunners is to do with the fact that after a certain age, women wished to have a more dignified persona, that playing the 'beauty' was not enough and possibly not dignified or desirable. Herein we find another argument point: should we judge the artists or the models for aspiring to beauty or choosing to 'reject' it in favour of dignity? How old is too old to be donning the coral beads and little else? Should Ellen Heaton have chosen the more dignified route or was she right to be the oldest stunner? I have no answers because, God knows, this argument is as relevant today as it was then. We are utterly obsessed with youth now, maintaining it, regaining it. I'm as guilty as anyone, I apply face cream, I won't wear certain things that I now deem too young for me. In the school playground, I am surrounded by mothers in their twenties, some in their teens. I was relieved to see a woman of my age dropping off her little boy to Lily's class, and so I chatted to her. Turns out, she was his grandma. Sod and Bugger.

Anyway, I don't think it's fair to judge the PRB for their lack of older stunners, after all Janey was around 40 towards the end of Rossetti's life and still appeared as his perfection, but for the most part they are responding to a market that valued youth as it's heroine. Come on, it's no different now. There is no reason why The Lady of Shalott cannot be an old woman, in fact I would feel sadder for her if she was. Can you imagine waiting all that time for a shiny thigh, and then it kills you? Damn....

Time, Death and Many, Many Judgements

2011-12-29T04:38:00.000-08:00

Hello again, and I hope you all had a very happy Christmas. We are resting in the strange week between Christmas and New Year and I never know quite what to do with myself during this period as I find it a little disturbing. I'm not sure why, but I've always found New Year a bit depressing, a bit panicking, so it's often an early night on 31st December before I become maudlin. It's odd because I'm the sort of person who makes some fairly rational resolutions and sticks to them, but for some reason New Year makes me feel the passing of time very strongly and I don't like it one little bit. It makes me feel a bit like this...

Time, Death and Judgement

Oh, dear me, I've come over all allegorical, it must be the gin. This a good George Frederick Watts image, all monumental and drape-y. Time, a handsome young man, strides ever forward with his scythe, but his constant companion is Death, who has gathered flowers in her dress. Behind them, Judgement in a flame orange gown holds up a golden scale. It's an interesting twist that 'Father Time' is for once a very well-placed young gentleman, not old and bearded as we are more used to seeing in 'New Year' images, and he is striding forward, unstoppable. It's a more dizzying prospect for us mortals to think that Time isn't stopping, he is young, fit and healthy and pays us no heed at all in his never-ending motion. Death looks more care-filled, with her lap of posies, but she has gathered buds, blossoms and fading flowers to her, cut at random. She does have the decency to look a bit sorry about the fact that she will harvest us, no matter our age, bud or bloom.

The figure of Judgement is interesting. I'm used to seeing Judgement blindfolded, but this time her face is hidden by her arm, so she does not see us and we do not see her, just her scales, the ever-present judgement that will apply to each of us. There is a definite feeling of forward motion as we stand before the image, as if at any point they will reach us and we will be harvested and then judged, Watts obviously feeling that our most important judgement happening after we are dead.

This point has a special resonance with me. The beautiful Watts painting I show you above is not by Watts. It's a copy by Cecil Edwin Schott. Cecil Schott worked as a studio assistant for Watts in the 1870s, due to the recommendation of Rossetti who thought the young man showed promise as an artist. Cecil was the eldest son of John Bernard Schott, Fanny Cornforth's second husband, and it was Fanny who introduced the aspiring young artist to Rossetti. Cecil worked for Watts for many years, his skill developed in the studio until he emigrated to South Africa and dropped from the records, sadly. The reason I chose this picture this morning is that the notion that judgement is waiting for you after death has been on my mind as I work on Stunner. Imagine for a moment that in a hundred years time people you have never met will confidently say of you 'Oh, yes, I know for a fact that [insert your name here] was an illiterate, sluttish monster...'. In a way it strikes me that Judgement sometimes isn't blind due to impartiality, but also out of ignorance. People cast judgement upon others blindly because they do not care to look for the truth.

As we approach the new year, I hope we will spend 2012 searching for truth, beauty and a fair share of sniggery giggles together. Happy New Year and as my Grandmother used to say 'May the moon vomit gold into your goblin sack!'

That has to be a metaphor, but I'm not sure where to start...See you in 2012!

24th December - The Last Door of Blogvent!

2011-12-24T01:48:00.000-08:00

Hello, my dearest friends. Well, here we are, last day of Blogvent and I have iced my cake...

Nom nom nom...

...collected my turkey...

Okay, so this one isn't ours. Ours is called Trevorley as we didn't know if it was a girl or a boy.

...and have wrapped everything that wasn't quick enough to escape. I think we're ready for tomorrow, but I have a bit of a quandary as I can't decide between two pictures for my final Blogvent door. It might be the brandy fumes from the cake (even the marzipan contains brandy) but sod it, I'll do both...

One of my favourite bits of Christmas is going to the Christingle or Carol Service at my Dad's church. I will be shoving small children into badly fitting costumes this afternoon, including my own small child, while singing loudly. For the Victorians, as for us, Christmas was a balancing act between the baby Jesus and rampant consumerism, their scales tipping slightly more towards the baby Jesus. It's hardly surprising that they should produce such incredible, devotional works as this...

Star of Bethlehem (1885-90) Edward Burne-Jones

In 1886, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were approached to produce a tapestry for their old college in Oxford, and the Three Kings visiting Jesus was suggested as a subject. Ned produced the design and Morris had it woven, presenting it to Exeter College in 1890. It became their most successful work, and another ten were sold, displayed around the world. Birmingham commissioned a watercolour of the same scene to hang in their new Art Gallery and Museum in 1887, and so Ned revisited the scene, changing the colours and altering details to produce this huge, beautiful tableau of the Adoration of the Magi. At over two and a half metres high and almost four metres long, it is the largest watercolour of the nineteenth century and is astonishing to view, dominating the Burne-Jones room in the Museum.

In many ways it is typical of Ned's work, being tonally peaceful, in sea blues and greens, but look at how the light catches the robes of the first king, shimmering orange. As I have admitted before, I have a weakness for depictions of the three Kings as they give artists the chance to go mad and dress them up to their heart's content. Ned has done us proud and it is definitely worth looking at a good quality image of it, like the one on Wikipedia to see the detail up close. Look at the circles sewn on the robe of the second King, echoed on the sleeves of the angel, and the figures dancing around the bottom of the the last King's robe. Each carries a crown, the first King's crown having being placed on the ground, and each crown is as individual as the men they belong to. I have always thought it's a very picturesque, but ineffectual stable, not much protection there. I love the detail of the tiny axe in the bottom left corner. Get chopping, Joseph, a fire is definitely needed...

A final joy of the picture is that we have a picture of Ned painting it. How small he seems in comparison to the enormous canvas, and so serious. This is how I picture Ned, hard at work and a little haunted by the beauty he created.

This is a double-bill, so what is my final picture? I must admit this is my favourite Christmas image because it is so unusual...

The Nativity (1857-58) Arthur Hughes

Good old Birmingham, they do own some amazing pictures. This has the most mad perspective, all squashed and narrow, the figure of Mary at once both really young and really big. Look how tiny the figure of Jesus is, he is like a little doll. Mary binds up the swaddling bands, assisted and watched by five angels, their wings barely fitting into the tight fit of the frame. The colours are amazing, gold and lilac, with the wings in a reddish pink. I love how the gold chases up the canvas, from the straw, to the halo on Jesus and up to the angels. I think Hughes may well have been influenced by Rossetti's depiction of Mary in Ecce Ancilla Domini! from 1849-50 (right), and the rather unusual use of a young girl as Mary rather than a grown woman.

In many ways, despite being both Pre-Raphaelite, Burne-Jones and Hughes see the birth of Jesus in entirely different ways, and these two demonstrate how diverse the movement was. Burne-Jones brings us a huge tableau in gentle tones, his figures are individuals and richly detailed. The blades of straw on the floor of Hughes' stable are so realistic that I feel prickly just looking at them, but he brings the focus intensely tight to show Mary and the child, boxed in by angels. Unlike Burne-Jones receding landscape from which the Wise Men have appeared, Hughes' Mary has no escape from her task and her child. She doesn't look peaceful or accepting, she looks terrified but holding it together, and that is what makes this picture special. While most teenagers want a DS game for Christmas, this one got the Son of God and her expression says 'Okay, I'll wrap him up because I have to have something to do to stop me freaking out.' I remember being a new mother and feeling like that, and that is what connects me emotionally to this image. The gift of painting should be to find a piece of you in a picture that speaks to you directly no matter how old the work or the subject.

The edge that Arthur Hughes has over Burne-Jones with this subject is that he doesn't view the holy event from a respectful distance but brings you up to Mary's side, next to the angels that flank her. That slightly claustrophobic feeling draws your attention not to the beauty of the birth of Christ, but on the pressure on Mary, and on all of us, to live up to God's expectation of us. For the Victorians, that pressure weighed heavy in many complex ways and I think that Hughes was bold to show that tension through such a traditional subject.

Well, my darlings, may you all have a gorgeous Christmas, eat, drink and be merry, and I will catch up with you all in about a week, when I sober up and get the mistletoe out of my hair...

23rd December - Hanging the Mistletoe

2011-12-23T00:04:00.000-08:00

Ahh, penultimate blogvent entry...well, I always knew what today and tomorrow's pictures were going to be (not that the rest of the month hasn't been perfectly orchestrated well in advance, obviously *cough*) and so, without anymore faffing, here is today's picture...

Hanging the Mistletoe (Christmas 1860) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Also known as The Farmer's Daughter or Tying the Mistletoe, this is the picture that made me think of doing Blogvent. I make no secret of how much I love the work of Rossetti and this picture, painted just a year after his radical style alteration with Bocca Baciata is a prime example of why he gets my love. Tonally, it's a riot of reds and greens, holly berries, hair, ribbons contrasting beautifully with leaves and dress. This is a picture of an archetypal Rossetti girl in a sage green dress, red of hair and big of pout, looking winsome with her arms raised. I'm sure that sounds familiar...

Marigolds (1873) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Fair enough, her dress is sea-blue, but her apron is sage-y. Woman and plants were an obsession for Rossetti. I know that in the near future I will definitely have to do a Rossetti and his plant-obsession blog, but our lass with the mistletoe is fairly obvious. She is hoping for love and luck, backed up by the holly that surrounds her too. My favourite story to do with holly is that it used to be tied to young girls' bedposts on Christmas Eve to keep away goblins. Genius! That's where I've been going wrong...

Elizabeth Siddal (1860)

Regina Cordium (1860)

This painting comes from the first Christmas of Rossetti's married life and it took me a moment to recognise the fact that it might possibly be Elizabeth Siddal as the model. When you look at the sketches he made of her that year, she appears striking and perversely strong, despite her illness. In fact I wonder if she is wearing the same necklace in the oil as she is in the sketch? Not only that, but the more familiar oil, Regina Cordium, shows her large, pale-lashed eyes and flame red hair to perfection. Anyway, Rossetti is declaring his love for his wife in Hanging the Mistletoe and a wish that she be protected from evil spirits.

He made a chalk copy of Hanging the Mistletoe for his old friend, George Boyce in 1868, again for Christmas...

I would like to think that, if only for a moment, the Rossettis, at Christmas 1860, were happy as young married couples are meant to be, and that Rossetti's public and artistic declaration of his love and protection of Elizabeth was fact rather than aspiration.

May you all be as happy and content as you aspire to be, and I will see you tomorrow for the last door in the blogvent calendar. Oh, before I go, here is my last mistletoe picture of the season, I promise....

Lucky Christmas indeed....

22nd December - A Carol

2011-12-21T23:57:00.000-08:00

Good morning, my Christmas Chums! Ever closer we shuffle to the big day, which is handy as I'm running out of images that I want to use, and I have my top two saved for tomorrow and Saturday. Mind you, I'm rather partial to this little gem...

A Carol Edward Frampton

Oh, Edward Frampton, you genius. This is so utterly delightful and the aspect is so intimate. You feel like you are stood next to these little angels as they hold open their inordinately large carol book. Really, it's a bit big, it seems to take three of them to hold it. I'm guessing photocopied sheets wouldn't have looked so effective. I wonder if you can get entire carol books on your Kindle, then all you'd need to do is carry round the little machine, rather than the gianty book of Christmas. Less effective again, I admit. Gianty book it is.

I love the way their halos block each of the faces, so we don't get a clear view of anyone, just a general sense of pale, serious expressions and golden glints. Their clothes are so pretty, I particularly fancy wearing the green dress in the centre. Now, I'm off to a Christingle Service on Saturday, in the middle of Wiltshire, so I may well wear my halo and green dress to that, the only snag being I don't have either, plus I will be gleefully inserting children into costumes (there will be a fair bit of 'shepherds in teatowels' action, trust me) and I don't think the dresses, pretty as they are, allow for the amount of crawling, bending and dashing about that is often needed when controlling kids, even my own.

There is something essentially calming about Medievalism and Christmas, an austerity that says 'You can have Christmas, but you're going to have to bloody well calm down and be serious', and I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing at times. The Victorian Christmas of raucous family eating until you explode, drinking to excess, and singing loudly is marvellous, but looking at these three lovely girls you have a sense that you can also enjoy yourself quietly, introspectively, without a turkey leg in one hand and a pint of sherry in the other. May each of your Christmases be a little bit of both: a bit orgy and a bit Frampton.

Think of me as I am out today doing the food shopping, I may not survive, which is a shame because my last two pictures are gorgeous...

See you tomorrow (hopefully)...

21st December - Friends in Adversity

2011-12-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

My advice to you is never try and explain 'the shortest day' to a six year old, no good comes from it and it takes a very long time, achieving very little. Today is the aforementioned 'shortest day' and so I hope you are doing as we are, and are keeping warm and cosy near some twinkling Christmas lights that seem to defy the gloom somehow. This is aided by the fact that we can't go out today as we have to wait for the parcel delivery chaps who will deliver between 8am and 5.30pm. I see a lot of cleaning and tidying in my future to while away the hours...

Anyway, my lovely readers, here we are, almost at the end of Blogvent, and today's picture is a marvellous, heartwarming picture of brotherly love, very suitable for this time of year...

Friends in Adversity (1880) John Charles Dollman

The full title for this is Friends in Adversity: Christmas Day at the Dreadnaught Hospital, Greenwich (Coming Down to Dinner), and you know how I love a snappy title. Next year, I think I will do a blog on my favourite insanely long picture titles. Anyway, here we have a lot of gentlemen of the sea, of all different nations, joining together to eat a meal as they are all in the same boat (if you excuse the pun). Actually, the Dreadnaught Hospital was original called after the ship it was based in, so they literally would have been all in the same boat. You could have said they were all in the same boat, all in the same boat, but I digress.

Mr Dollman has obviously gone to town in painting fellows of all nations and ages: old, young, black, white, all shades in between and a blind chap with a big ginger beard, everyone is accounted for. Now, far be it from me to say I wouldn't mind being led down stairs by the rather handsome gentleman in Turkish or Arabian get-up, he has a fine pair of harem pants. The clothes of the sailors are gorgeously realised, and there is a repeated tone of green-blue, sea-blue, from the Turkish gentleman's hose and top, via the man with his arm in a sling and up the stairs, picked out in the plaque showing a cross and anchor above a heart. The united themes of 'Faith, Hope and Charity', as symbolised by the plaque, bind the sailors to each other, and they all are together under the banner which reads 'After so many ship wrecks we find a port!' So many of the men are injured, blind, lame and uncommonly handsome, that the only place they can find the certainty of help and comfort is with their own kind. For a Victorian message, it's a paradox to explain. The nineteenth century was hardly the well-spring of brotherhood for all nations, and to me it seems a sizable chunk of time was spent in pinching bits of land and being somewhat bossy in other people's country. This painting, which isn't altogether overtly metaphoric, seems to show that it is possible to forget the concerns of nation for a moment and find a common cause among people who have served a similar life to you. Most of these people would not have spoken the same language but they understand that their situation is the same, so there is no conflict. It would be interesting to know how many sailors of different countries did use the Dreadnaught Hospital, how realistic this depiction is, because although it is an inspiring symbol of brotherhood, it also may have had a grain of truth behind it.

Far be it from me to be suggestive, but am I the only one who noticed that the boy with the fiddle is holding mistletoe? I'm sure it's a symbol of the love between nations, the aspiration that one day we all may realise the truth that we are all 'in the same boat', so we should put our petty differences behind us and join arms to go down to metaphoric Christmas dinner. I certainly would never be so tacky as to suggest that my first thought was 'Father Christmas obviously go the old chap with the stick's letter, then...'

Shame on me, I'll make the Baby Jesus cry with my sauciness.

See you tomorrow.

20th December - The Snowball

2011-12-20T00:12:00.000-08:00

When I was little, I spent a goodly part of winter ingesting snow. This wasn't by choice, it was because I grew up amongst a gang of boys and when it came to snowballing season I was somewhat of a soft target. I did try and give as good as I got, but somehow I always ended up with a facefull of snow, followed in rapid succession by more snow until I couldn't feel my nose or lips. Even to this day I have a nervousness when it comes to snow, probably backed up by the snowball fights I've had where the boys put rocks in the middle of the frosty missiles. I'm not looking for pity, but it does bring me, bitterly, to this little offering...

The Snowball: Guilty or Not Guilty? Harold Hume Piffard

Now, in my opinion I think this should be called The Snowball: You Little B*****d! but looking at it, I don't think it is so clear cut. Yes, the urchin does look mightily shifty, but that's because he is poor and the poor aren't to be trusted, as we all know. However, the trees that line the street are resplendent with snow and so a more likely culprit is that evil duo of Mother Nature and Gravity. I'm not sure the gentleman with snow trickling down his neck is going to pause in his assessment of the situation and an umbrella-related incident will no doubt ensue.

I rather like the artist who painted this picture. Harold Hume Piffard, or 'Piff' to his chums, was a bit of an adventurer and got up to all kinds of high-jinks and scrapes including flying his boxkite biplane (which he named Hummingbird) to a local pub in 1910 to win a bet and a crate of champagne. He was an acrobat, worked on a tea plantation and produced many fine pictures, including this one, which was featured in the Pears Annual. Piff strikes me as a fine fellow, whom one could have a cigar with and talk about India. Smashing.

Back to snowballing: The Victorians loved it. I suppose anything that taught future pioneers of Empire to defeat an enemy that was armed with what amounts to semi-solid water was a fine idea. It seems to be a predominantly male, mostly working-class affair, but you do get the occasional girl and the odd 'public school scrap'. On the whole it seems a blameless way for the poor to spend their time between bouts of consumption and going up chimneys.

Snowballing (1865) John Morgan

There is an echoing of the patriotic, Lady Butler-esque pictures of soldiers bravely fighting off whomever's country we're trying to pinch (or the French, obviously), but heavily clothed in the 'urchins being scamp-ish' vibe which makes it entirely suitable for Christmas cards and holiday spirit. I find Piff's picture especially interesting as you naturally suspect the little wretch of snowballing his elders, but it is entirely possible that he didn't, he might have been innocently toasting his chestnuts at the time. No, that isn't a euphemism.

Anyway, keep warm, and if anyone unfairly snowballs you, let me know. I have a lot of unresolved issues on that front and will reap vengeance on your behalf.

See you tomorrow.

19th December - For Snow Comes Thick at Christmas Tide

2011-12-19T01:50:00.000-08:00

I ought to do some sort of countdown in order of preference now we're so close to the end of Blogvent. Oh well, I think I'm down to some of my favourites, including this little treasure...

For Snow Comes Thick at Christmas Tide Edward Frederick Brewtnall

The complete title for this little picture is For Snow Comes Thick at Christmas Tide and We Can Neither Walk Nor Ride The Hawk and Hound at Home Must Bide. Brief and to the point then.

Brewtnall was one of those artists whose work I knew but I didn't realise it was by him. I especially knew his fairy-tale scenes like Sleeping Beauty...

...but thought it was possibly by someone like Arthur Hughes. Looking at Brewtnall's work, it is very detailed and gorgeously toned. Looking at For Snow Comes Thick, our reclining gentleman looks at his hawk as both of them are housebound due to snow. Why do you need to have your hawk in the house? It's like that damn bird in Millais Isabella, sat on the dining room chair. Now, call me fussy, but I'd be concerned for hygiene. There is a reason why my chickens don't live in the house.

Anyhow, our bored chap is looking rather fine in his golden striped clothes and pale blue hose (so much more flattering than white) (unless they were white but he is now so cold he has gone blue). There is a general feeling of opulence in the room, with the tapestry, the gorgeous plant pot and the discarded lute. Despite living in such richness, our handsome gent is filled with sorrow due to the inclemency of the weather and his inability to kill stuff. Oh woe, woe is me.

To start with, I couldn't work out where the hound was, but I believe he is hiding behind the plant pot, possibly keeping a low profile, or maybe he's eaten too many mince pies. It's a very interesting image, compared with traditional images of winter inconvenience. I'm more used to seeing pegged-out peasants in the snow, but here is a perverse yet honest picture, especially for modern times. These days, you and I are less likely to snuff it in the snow with our bundle of sticks, but come the heavy snow, there may come a moment when you think 'I'm fed up of being inside...' This picture isn't about the dramatic horror of Winter, it's about being trapped in the house with your equally bored hawk. After being in the house with your relatives for a period of enforced jollity, which of us doesn't think 'Blimey, I think I need to go out and kill something...'

Mind you, the hawk is thinking 'Well, I'm nice and warm, I don't know what your moaning about, human...'

See you tomorrow.

18th December - At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away

2011-12-18T03:12:00.000-08:00

We seem to be in the home straight for Christmas and I'm flying. So far this crisp and frosty Sunday morning, I have been to work and finished up some bits that needed sorting before Christmas, I have sent a draft of Stunner 2.0 to Stephanie Pina, Pre-Raphaelite Jedi and all round fabulous woman, and am writing my blog. Blimey, that's not bad for 10.30am. Later, I am off to my cousin's house for tea and Dalek biscuits which I iced on Thursday. Bring it! Plus, I found the most beautiful seasonal image...

At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away (1897) Valentine Cameron Prinsep

Oh, sigh and swoon at how gorgeous this image is. Part Botticelli, part Scottish Widow's advert, Prinsep delivers a classical image of depth and magnificence. The figure of Summer, scattering her blossoms, reminds me of the many gold-clad ladies destined to be mown by the man with the scythe. True to form, a black draped buzz-killer has turned up and brought the party to an end. The blue sky is relegated to the corner and the dark gloom surrounding Winter spreads over the canvas.

Much like the endless paintings of old women in the snow, walking miserably back from church in clogs, this painting speaks of the harshness of life, the change not only in the season but in age. Summer is in the prime of life, but Winter has a hint of grey in her dark hair (which is really attractive, not that I'm biased) and is an older woman. Her gaze is a complicated mix of the inevitable and sorrow as she reaches out, her hand about to touch Summer's shoulder. Winter, bleakness, the cold, and hardship all appear as shorthand for the last years of life in Victorian art and this personification is no different. You could almost say that as she looks at Summer, Winter remembers herself and the memory brings sorrow. Summer remains oblivious to the impending doom, skipping and sprinkling flowers as if her party would never end. Sigh...yes, well, I've heard that many people feel like that and are rudely awaken when their back is cranky on wet days and they go a bit grey and maybe should invest in a stronger face cream to aid their face back into its original form in the mornings. Apparently.

Anyway, may all of your Summers be warm and sunny, and may you dodge the hand of Winter for a little longer.

See you tomorrow.

17th December - Train Caught in a Snowdrift

2011-12-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

Still no snow, although it is mighty nippy out there today. I'm rather pleased at the lack of snow to be honest as I have to journey up the country to see my lovely family in Buckinghamshire tomorrow and I'd rather not be travelling in inclement weather. I mean, can you imagine if the Walker family had to travel in conditions like this...?


Train Caught in a Snowdrift (1881) Thomas H Heawood

That's some deep snow and they are well and truly stuck. A guard wades up the side of the train, his legs entirely hidden by the drift, as curious and nervous passengers look out from their carriages. I love the gentleman wrapped up in his muffler, opening his padded door to find out how bad the situation is. Behind him shelters a young lady, not keen to expose herself to the cold. Or maybe she doesn't want to be seen, if you catch my meaning. We all know about Charles Dickens and the Staplehurst rail crash...

Undoubtedly, this is a painting based on fact. It has a simple style, a kind of 'recording of events' straightforwardness that is reminiscent of newspaper photography. This is more than likely based on a real event that happened in the painter's locality. Mr Heawood has a 'train in peril' picture for any weather condition, for example heavy rain...


Durston, Somerset, Flooded Out (1894)

No doubt also these paintings are fuelled by the public fascination with trains and their imposing presence in the Victorian, mainly rural, landscape. When we think of trains, it tends to be in the context of urban industrial expansion, bringing people from one town or city to another, but there must have also been the dimension of the mark they left across the countryside. What I see in both of these pictures, especially the snowdrift image is the power of nature striking against human industry. We may have built a giant beast of iron and steel but frozen water could halt it. It's interesting that the man can wade through the snow and make progress, but the train is stuck fast.

There are some fascinating articles on the net about the Victorian fascination with the perils of train travel, but Heawood doesn't give us a rail disaster as much as a rail failure. The train has been stopped by snow, possibly the wrong kind of snow, and as technologically advanced as it might be, that engine isn't going anywhere until someone clears the line. Put the kettle on, it's going to be a long wait...

See you tomorrow.

16th December - Christmas Eve

2011-12-16T01:58:00.000-08:00

My snow was a no show. However, the drizzle, cold wind and general hideousness has descended, turning our back garden into the Somme. There should be snow, red berries and cheery (living) robins frolicking in a jolly manner. What I have is two disgruntled hens sitting under their pen-roof looking at me accusingly. What I am in need of is an injection of Christmas spirit, so I turn to this image for inspiration...

Christmas Eve Sir William Allan

Originally titled 'Penny Wedding' and dating from around 1820-1830, it is a cavalcade of Christmas mayhem. On the Aberdeen Art Gallery website, they have a lovely piece about how Scotland was a little more reticent in the 'feast and play' aspect of Christmas, but Walter Scott became an ambassador for the more fun aspects of family frivolity and fun. William Allan was a friend of Scott and this is his contribution to the discussion.

Looking at the painting, there is a lot of movement, noise, chaos and laughter. Centrally, we have a lovely couple, the gentleman lifting his lady up underneath some handy mistletoe. This young lady looks a little unwilling, but look at the size of that mistletoe branch, the poor girl doesn't stand a chance. Another couple who seem a little less than in the mood are the couple just to their right, with the girl in pale salmon more interested in the dancing than her lover. Mind you, she might be keeping an eye out for her husband, if you know what I mean.

Fear not, there are some happy couples in the room. The soldier and his lady at the front seem jolly, and around the fire on the left are people happily resting together. Right at the back, in the centre are an older couple who lean in to each other. It is as if Allan is showing us love in its many guises, both fleeting and true and everything in between.

You can see why it had its original title of 'Penny Wedding'; it would be understandable to think the couple under the mistletoe are a bride and groom, despite her reluctance. There are notes of red and green dotted around the scene hinting at its Christmas theme, but I also find it to be sort of pantomime-esque and staged. The roof line lends a proscenium aspect to the framing, and makes you feel like you are seeing something artificial rather than captured life. In saying that, I don't mean it to be negative, as there is often a staged unreality of expectation in what we think Christmas will contain, and the parts that make the whole of this image can be counted among them. We expect warmth, companionship, love, romance and family, and hopefully that is what each of you, my lovely readers, will get in your stocking this year.

I don't want the children drinking at the front. Santa can keep those.

See you tomorrow.

15th December – The Sisters of Charity

2011-12-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

So, apparently it will snow tonight. Not just a bit of snow, but apocalypse levels of snow fall, enough to bury a double-decker bus. I was told this by someone who read it in the Daily Mail, so I may take it slightly with a pinch of salt, but I may also sprinkle that salt on the pathway to my door, just to be sure. It seems to me that we get over-excited in England when it snows, and rush out, buy forty loaves of bread, and hide. We should relax more, it used to snow in olden days and no-one got phased back then. Look, they had time for things like this…

The Sisters of Charity (1871) Charles Burton Barber

Ahh, it’s a touching tale of the extremely rich at Christmas. Mother and daughter stand on their doorstep and sprinkle food for the assembled cast of Bambi. The deer are exquisitely observed, the two on the right are especially beautiful, and a seemingly endless procession of them are filing up from the forest on the left. Wouldn’t that be a lovely, if disconcerting, sight on Christmas morning? I’ve opened my door on a guilty-looking hedgehog before, but I think a great herd of deer might top that, especially as I live in the middle of a city.

Turning to the two figures, the title refers not to their relationship but to their spiritual position. The mother and daughter are bestowing gifts of food upon the poor and needy, who just happen to be animals. Mind you, you don’t get much poorer than that. That poor young deer in the front has never even owned a pair of shoes. It’s shocking, there should be a charity single for him.

I noticed the woman is dressed in black. It could be that her fashionable, fur-trimmed outerwear just happens to be black, but I wonder if she is a young widow, which would make her act of kindness to others even more full of pathos. Here’s where my ‘narrative art’ gene kicks in and I wonder if there is a story behind it. Did her husband die while out hunting and so she vowed to tend the deer rather than cause them harm, ultimately the downfall of her husband? Are the pair of does on the right any reflection of the figures in the doorway? I strongly suspect that she is a widow and her role now is to bestow charity, even if it is to deer. Mind you, if the deer were to blame for her husband’s death then maybe they ought to approach with more caution, she might want revenge…

I think it was the robins in the centre front that did in her husband. No-one ever suspects the robins…

See you tomorrow.

14th December - The Four Seasons: Winter

2011-12-14T05:17:00.000-08:00

Today, I am melancholic. Look at my sad face, it's pitiful. The reason I'm all teary is that it is the 150th anniversary of Prince Albert's death. The picture for today is therefore The Four Seasons: Winter by Eloise Harriet Stannard.

Happy Christmas!

I'm not sure why I didn't know before, but I didn't realise that Prince Albert died this close to Christmas, the ultimate Victorian invention. In fact, there were a good number of 'dead in the snow' pictures to chose from for today's post. There seems to be a special genre for 'poor and dead in the snow' and I wonder if the added pathos of Christmas, 'the happiest time of year', brings an added dimension of misery to the images. What could be a greater contrast to the archetypal jolly Christmas feast than a miserable dead robin. It's enough to put you off your brandy butter...

Turning to our picture above, there is an irony in the dead robin in the snow, as you'd think Winter was the robin's best season. The other robin dips its little robin-y head in grief, before no doubt shedding little robin-y tears. Or maybe pinching the dead robin's berries. What? He's not going to need them....

Winter seems to throw up a party of fears for our Nineteenth Century cousins. The Poor could easily be freezing to death, often with bundles of sticks on their backs. The Old are exposing themselves to harsh weather to go to church. Everyone is risking illness and potential death to step outside in the snow. Under such conditions who is in the mood to celebrate? Blimey, who can risk it? It could be argued that the Victorians partied hard because life was so fragile and if the husband of the Queen, arguably the most privileged man in the country could be just snuffed out, then a dual existence of celebration and fear becomes the norm.

Unlike Queen Victoria, I won't spend the rest of my life mourning Albert and avoiding the public, I'll be cheerier tomorrow. In the meantime, be kind to robins and keep warm.

I'll see you tomorrow.

13th December – A Carol

2011-12-13T07:56:00.000-08:00

Picture, if you will, a tiny car barrelling down the motorway and a woman belting out Christmas carols at the top of her voice. That, gentle readers, is me on my commute at the moment, singing along with the Annie Lennox Christmas album. I verily live up to my Native American name of ‘Sings Loud in Small Car’. I’m not sure what my favourite carol is, possibly a toss up between ‘Hark the Herald Angels’ and ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman’, especially the latter as I like the thought of being saved from Satan’s power when I am ‘gone astray’ (which is quite often). I do like the opportunity to sing loudly and in public, so maybe carolling is a way forward for me, much like the people in today’s picture….

A Carol Laura Alma Tadema

A group of cherubic kiddiwinks belt out classics in the hallway of their home. Blimey, they’re organised, one even has a lute. It wasn’t like that in my day. Also, just because I grew up in the middle of Wiltshire, please don’t imagine it was some romantic Thomas Hardy-esque Casterbridge Christmas. We ambled through the various 1960s new-build estates, then gave up when our wellies filled with rain. To avoid the wellies-and-rain combination, these smart children are carol singing indoors. Genius! The roughest terrain they are going to tackle is the rug. Victorian kids had it easy…

Looking at the children, their faces are together in a neat arrangement...

The two youngest sing, holding a large book of music between them, the elder boy plays his lute and the girl carries a plate with a scroll and some tulips. Ahhh, the tulips. Not especially known as a Christmas plant, but they do enable us to date the picture exactly. This painting is set in 1636, and while it wasn’t unusual for Laura Alma Tadema to use seventeenth century Dutch style in her work, this picture is easy to date because rather than being about Christmas, it’s about folly and wealth.

I’m guessing that the tulips pictured on the silver plate are Rosen, the variegated red/pink and white variety, possibly even Admiral Verijck, a specially prized specimen, pictured below…

During the Tulip Mania of 1636-37, the lovely Admiral would cost you 1045 florins. The price rose dramatically from December 1636 to February 1637, and so the children are carrying an extremely expensive bunch of flowers as they sing in the middle of the period of mania. Maybe the young lady with the plate should pay more attention as the petals have begun to fall and one has settled on the fur of the bear. The flowers won’t last much longer, and neither will their fortune if it is dependant on something as fragile and transient as the fashion for flowers.

Modern discussion of Tulip Mania began in this country in 1841 with the publication of Charles Mackay’s splendidly named Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Greed and folly were seen as herd instincts for people, all driven mad as they clamoured to buy into the thing that would make them rich. Alma Tadema seems to have contrasted the tulip on the silver plate with the carols, songs about a child born in a stable.

So, where are the children? It seems they are within their own home, singing for their parents, but why are they faced with a closed door? It might be as simple as the parents will open the door and bestow gifts upon their lovely offspring, but as images go, surely it would be less ambiguous, more straight-forward, to have the parents smiling at their carolling kids. The only thing I can think is that it hints that not all rewards are forthcoming. The children sing sweetly in the corridor but the door remains closed, just as Holland went mad for the tulip but the reward for their actions was not given when the bubble burst and the tulips fell in price. It could be that the painting is suggesting that their wealth is as fragile as the tulip that is already falling apart.

Sing up Kids, by February you’ll be busking for your supper.

See you tomorrow.

12th December - Preparing for Christmas

2011-12-12T03:37:00.000-08:00

I really need to do my Christmas cards, it's rather shocking. I always think that I'll be all prepared, then all of a sudden we're hurtling through December and I've not achieved a damn thing. Well, I took some sparkly pictures of Lily to stick in the cards of relatives and close friends and I think I may have bought some cards a while ago...oh heavens, so much to fit in. Do you think it has always been this way? Did the Victorians feel this stressed? Did young ladies have to secrete small bottles of gin in their muffs to cope with the pressure? Looking at this beautiful image, I wonder...

Preparing for Christmas George Goodwin Kilburne

In her gorgeous pink pin-striped dress, a young woman hangs some holly on a mirror. Something or someone has caught her attention and she is distracted from her task. At first I wondered if someone was saying 'up a bit, left a bit...' to her, but looking at her face, she appears to be gazing dreamily at someone. She is definitely dewy-eyed in her distraction, and I'm surprised it isn't mistletoe she's hanging. Maybe she's spotted someone under the mistletoe she fancies kissing. Quick, shove the holly on the mirror and get over there!

Yuletide George Goodwin Kilburne

Kilburne was a bit of a Christmas powerhouse, and he illustrated many Christmas cards. His pastel-pretty images made sweetly sentimental cards, exactly in tune with the Victorian sensibility. I find his images share themes and imagery with Pre-Raphaelite art: Look at the young woman hanging her holly. I find many similarities between her and Rossetti lovelies. Her palette is paler but the feeling is the same. The two women decorating the suit of armour make me think of Millais maidens and Keats poetry. Although Kilburne's art seems a little cliched, I suspect it is because his imagery and style are often copied in the archetypal Christmas cards we all know today.

So, possibly I should start hanging the holly and my worries will drift away as I spy my handsome husband under the mistletoe. Hmmm, well, I can't say Kilburne's young lady looks without care, she looks a little distracted. Maybe she is also worrying about posting dates and whether or not she's remembered to buy for all the cousins' children, has she forgotten anyone? Does she have enough chestnuts? Oh, heavens, do I have enough chestnuts? I better check...

See you tomorrow.

11th December - Dressing the Christmas Tree

2011-12-11T00:16:00.000-08:00

We put our Christmas tree up right at the beginning of December this year. We usually put it up quite early, in order for it to be all pretty for people who come for Lily's birthday on 6th, but this year it went up on 1st. Looking at it now, it does add a lovely nostalgic twinkle in the corner of the room and makes me feel all warm and cheery, especially as I am typing this in a fairly chilly, dark room. Hung on our tree are decoration gathered on our travels: Mr Walker and I tend to go on holiday in the Autumn and buy something to hang on the tree from places we have been. There is the most gaudy Eiffel Tower being clutched by a fairy, a shiny red Empire State Building, a glass heart from the Lake District, and a cat holding a present from the Isle of Man. When we hang our decorations we can remember the places we have been together and we continue to add to them, with a painted York scene bauble from our trip up north in October. All this rambling on has a point, and that is today's picture: Dressing the Christmas Tree by Bessie Maud Christian Fagan...

See, it's not all muff jokes and eating. I think this is a beautiful image, not my normal thing on these posts, but in its way an evolution on from things like Cherry Ripe by Millais. All that is clear at first view are her hands, her head and the little pink bird, emerging from the darkness. The more you look however, the more you make out, and the tree with its candles are just about visible behind her. There is a quiet seriousness to the image which contrasts with some of the more lively scenes I've talked about so far. For example, the frenzied food unpacking of the Christmas Hamper couldn't be further from this little girl hanging her bird on the tree.

Her expression is interesting, she looks happy but not bouncy grinning. She has a look of thoughtful pleasure which she shares with us as she pauses in her task. I like quiet images of Christmas, I value the moments that are about reflection and pleasure, rather than battling through crowds and dealing with difficult people. Isn't it telling how stressed everyone gets this time of year? Driving through the city I have been carved up viciously many times and I've begun to fear for my well-being on the motorway I commute down. Possibly the next person who endangers me in a car will be pulled over and presented with this picture. Hey chaps, relax, go hang a bird!

I wish you all a peaceful, bird-hanging Christmas. I'm off to feed my Christmas cake. Again.

See you tomorrow.

10th December - Grandmama's Christmas Visitors

2011-12-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

We're off visiting relatives today, armed with mince pies and ninjabread men. This visit is in honour of my daughter's sixth birthday, and the next time we'll see them all will be Christmas Eve (not long now). It was always a major component of Christmas when I was growing up, to visit my Grandma on Christmas Eve, a bit of a ritual, and so it seems right and proper to take Lily up to see her Grandparents and her cousins on Christmas Eve before we entrench ourselves at home. It seems that we're not the only ones and for many people the visit to relatives was a precious part of the Christmas period. Take this picture, for example...

Grandmama's Christmas Visitors George Adolphus Storey

Ahh, look at their little smiling faces. Every Grandma's heart would swell with happiness at the sight of such a jolly party. I'm not sure if the dog came out of the coach or belongs to Grandma, but I'm guessing the latter, and I suppose he represents the faithfulness of the children in their visit. Or Grandma has just set the dog on her grandchildren. Lordy, how many of them are there packed into that coach? God, one of them has a trumpet, there will be no peace this afternoon. The coachmen are smiling in a particularly evil way as if to say 'Yes, happy Christmas Grandma, you don't know it yet but the one at the back has a tin drum...'

The first time I saw the picture I thought the girl at the front had one enormous sleeve, but of course it's just her huge muff. Ahh, December is indeed Muff Month and hers is very impressive. It's almost up to her armpit! In my extensive muff research I have come across this very special item...

This, my friends, is a muff pistol. Should you be set upon by rascals and vagabonds, you can whip this out of your muff and shoot them. Now, that does seem a little harsh, but December can be a rough month with all that carolling and eating and endless shopping, so possibly it wouldn't hurt to be packing heat in your muff. The young lady descending from the coach does look like she would be kind of handy with a piece, if only to keep her siblings in line, especially the one with the trumpet.

Who allows a child to take a trumpet to a relative's house? The parents obviously hold a grudge. Mind you, nothing says Christmas like developing a nervous twitch because of a child's toy. We get to spend Christmas this year with Cookie the Animatronic Dog, the present that Lily so desperately wished for.

And remember, an animatronic dog is not just for Christmas, it's for life. Oh joy.

See you tomorrow.

9th December – Christmas Presents

2011-12-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

Have you done your Christmas shopping yet? Sorry, no pressure, and don’t worry, I’m woefully behind on mine. For the first time, Lily-Rose wrote a letter to Father Christmas as she is desperate to get a certain toy in her stocking, so she grasped the pen in her little five-year old hand and then started crying as she had writer’s block. Oh, the drama. How much simpler things were in years gone by….

Christmas Presents (1882) Hugo Oehmichen

Those were the days, when you were happy with an apple and a wooden windmill. These children appear to be leaving a church or convent school, with gifts from the benevolent nun, just seen in the doorway. This is a fascinating picture as the more you look, the more you see. For example…

Here is a nice poor family, and the children have had some great gifts. Who wouldn’t want a jaunty windmill on Christmas day, although in his excitement, Windmill-Boy has dropped his apples. The other boy offers what looks like a cross to his baby sister, but doesn’t appear to be wearing any boots. He carries some, so maybe he has been given a new pair. The mother doesn’t look overjoyed, just tired and poor and her facial expression is echoed in that of the girl in the centre.

It strikes me that they both look sad and thoughtful, possibly because charity provides their Christmas for them, rather than providing it themselves like nice Victorians are meant to. She may be the oldest child there, and so unlike her delighted companions, she knows that life is unrelentingly hard, despite moments of bestowed joy.

I love the little blonde girl, who rather stands out with her pale blue pinafore and fair curls. She represents the simple, childlike pleasure of Christmas, filled with glee over her new doll and whatever else she has stashed in her apron. The reason she is so happy might be that she swiped the church silver on the way out and that’s what is bundled in her pinafore. Bloody orphans.

Balancing the image, on the other side to the poor mother and her family, is the wealthy family.

Now, did the little girl say ‘Mama, all I want for Christmas is to point at some poor people’? Well, Santa obviously got her letter, and Grandma is having a good point too. I wonder if the little girl is gesturing at the orphan who has a new ABC book?

‘Quick, Grandmama! They’re learning to read! No good will come of it!’

Now, in my opinion, even worse than allowing poor people to read is arming them with a whip like this little boy…

Come the class war and he’s already armed. Little did the Nun suspect that the boy already knew what he was going to do with his new whip. At home was Rex the dog and Flora the pig, and together they would take the world by storm….

See you tomorrow!