*Sob!*

The Wichita Lineman, Feed the Birds from Mary Poppins, Jessie’s Song from Toy Story 2. These are no-questions-asked, quick and easy routes to make me cry. I am now crying just thinking about them. For goodness sake. Feed the Birds reminds me of my grandmother who would play the song on her organ and her dog would howl along. Jessie’s Song (which I can’t even hear in public without sobbing, so trips to The Disney Store are fraught to say the least) is about eventual and certain abandonment by everyone you love. It taps nicely into my fear and certainty that everyone will outgrow me and I will end up in a cardboard box in a lay-by. Possibly that's a metaphor, but I am now crying so much my nose is running. Excuse me a second.

Anyway, I’m not here to tell you about my fear that you will all leave me. Or about my unexplained misery brought on by the Wichita Lineman (that snow is never ending and he wants to go home, but it just won’t stop snowing. Oh God.) I’m here to talk about possibly my secret favourite genre in Victorian painting: The Knuckle-Biter. It all started with this picture…

Doubtful Hope (1875) Frank Holl

I saw this picture at an auction of the Forbes art collection, and my friend Phil and I thought it was the most gloriously miserable thing we had ever seen. The virtually dead woman clutches her last coin as the pharmacists look doubtfully on. She’s not leaving alive. No-one is leaving alive. Good Lord, any minute she might cough and it’ll be all over. Good God, that’s bleak.

Anyway, it brought about a curious game – when travelling around the country, going to galleries, Mr Walker and I play ‘Who can find the most miserable picture imaginable – so miserable you want to bite your own hand with the heart-rendering pathos and bleakness of it all…’ It’s a game for all the family! We may one day write a book on the subject, so you can bite your own knuckles in the comfort of your own home. So, we like hope dashed, imminent death, and utter devastation, and plenty of it. Here are some choice examples, the very pinnacle of the genre…

 

Never Morning Wore to Evening But Some Heart Did Break (1894) Walter Langley

There should be an entire book on the misery of fishman, possibly there is, but Newlyn seems to have produced a couple of great practitioners of depression. Take Walter Langley. He brings some excellent sea-widows to the table, with some cracking titles. It’s amazing any fishmen made it out of the 19^th century alive, seeing how many utterly desolate paintings there are of women awaiting the boat that will never return…

Among the Missing Walter Langley

What they do seem to provide you with when you marry an ill-fated Victorian fisherman, is a shawl-clad crone to pat you when your husband is lost at sea. God knows you seem to need it swiftly.

A Hopeless Dawn (1888) Frank Bramley

Lord alive, not another one?! Huddled in your miserable (but clean and honest) home by the sea, all you can do is wait for that dead fisherman, but he’s gone. Did you not check out the art work before you married him? Did you not see that Cornish + Fishing = Death? If only everyone had stopped eating fish in the nineteenth century, who knows how many lives may have been saved and canvases may have remained unpainted. I need to blow my nose again…

Hush (1877) Frank Holl

Ahh, that’s better. A nice little domestic scene, with a mother shushing her child to allow her baby to sleep. I feel better already…

Hushed (1877) Frank Holl

Well, thank you Mr Holl, that is just so bloody bleak. Yes, that baby isn’t crying any more, is it? And I bet you’re married to a bloody fisherman. It escapes me why images of infant mortality were so popular during the Victorian period. Possibly because it was marginally becoming better for some parts of society, possibly because the people buying the paintings were the ones for whom the situation was improving and they could indulge in a little ‘grief tourism’, which in my opinion should be a criminal offence. If we excuse the images of dead women that abounded as being pseudo-erotic, it is at least vaguely understandable, but dead babies?

Her First Born Robert Reid

Who would want this on their wall? It’s just appalling intrusion into grief and made-up grief at that. When I read a book where terrible things happen to characters, I move through the story with them, they are not locked in a moment of tragedy forever. This is different and I don’t understand why anyone would want to buy it.

Death of Her First Born (1876) Frank Holl

Thanks Frank, I knew I could depend on you. Was I not crying hard enough? I swear I will cough up a lung in a minute. Isn't it interesting that it's 'her' firstborn, not 'their', even though the father (I presume) is with the sobbing mother at the funeral.  God, and the kids are carrying the coffin…



 For Such is the Kingdom of Heaven (1891) Frank Bramley

This has to be one of the finest proponents of the genre. You have little girls in white and children carrying the flower strewn white coffin. I like to think that some young girl has popped off, maybe due to grief after the rest of her family died in a fishing boat accident.

I am the Resurrection and the Life or The Village Funeral (1872) Frank Holl

There is something a little Millais-esque in the features of the little girl leading the mourners. She’s so stoical, despite the fact that everyone keeps dying. The narrative aspect of such pictures is where the fun begins (in the loosest sense of the word). The best examples of Misery art are the ones where you have to work out what’s going on. I’m guessing that it’s the little girl’s mother who has died of being poor and rural, and the man whose hand she holds is her father. I’m not sure why the woman behind them is being overly emotional, but you always get one, don’t you?

Faithful Unto Death Henry Emmerson

Pathos isn’t limited to widows and orphans. There is a nice selection of animals in the world of Misery art. That shepherd isn’t tending any more sheep, however much his dogs howl. They should be a bit more dignified, which they would have been had they been painted by Landseer.

The Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner (1837) Edwin Landseer

What will happen to that dog now? What will he do for food? Will he be able to get another job?

It’s okay, I heard he got work in Cornwall.

On a fishing boat.

Gems of Brum

Ah, Birmingham, land of my forefathers (in-law). How sweet is your lovely art gallery, atop of Victoria Square? And how marvellous is your Pre-Raphaelite collection? Outstanding. Picture this: I arrived early for a talk by Franny Moyle on Sunday and so had an hour or so to run wild in the galleries. The Museum opened at 12.30pm and I was second through the doors and first into the Pre-Raphaelite room where I was all alone. Me. All alone in a big ol’ room of Pre-Raphaelite art. Queue the sound of manic laughter and a very near miss for The Blind Girl by Millais. Oh, come on, which of us hasn’t flashed a classic work of art? Exactly, we’ve all done it. Anyway, I thought I would give you my top ten works of art currently on display in Birmingham…

(I feel I should have some sort of chart music…)

10. Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus (1850-1) William Holman Hunt

There are some major, big-hitter works of art at Birmingham. I think that’s the thing about the provinces and their museums, you don’t need to go to the Tate to see a Millais, you can go to Brum or Liverpool or Newcastle. In fact, anywhere in this country you are probably a travelable distance to some great and important Pre-Raph art. This is a gorgeous work of art, so bright and fresh, the colours so luminous. Although I love the central group, I find the character on the left slightly awkward, with a weird angle lean against a tree. It is a marvellously disconcerting detail which draws away from the main action for no reason, highlighted by the carrying of the colour red across the canvas from Proteus’ tights, to Valentine’s sleeve to the tabard of the left-hand figure. It is wonderfully rich in detail which tell the story – Proteus’ knocked-off hat, the dipped sword by Valentine’s foot. I love the central group, the way that Sylvia leans in for protection and the way Proteus rubs his neck either in guilt or because he’s been given a clout. I hope it’s the latter.

 9. Waiting (1854) J E Millais

It is generally felt that Millais went downhill after he married Effie, but this little gem from 1854, shows signs of a looser handling of paint in the foreground, especially that odd off-white smear above his signature. Is it meant to be a stone? Hmm, anyway, from what I remember this is a picture of Annie Miller, possibly one of the few times Millais used her as a model. I think this is a wonderfully, low-key depiction of the frustration of love – how long will she wait? Is she waiting for her lover to arrive or is she waiting for more, like a proposal or for an honouring of commitment. Actually, is she waiting for a man? Speaking as a girl from a rural town, who spent a fair part of her youth sat in the countryside, maybe what our girl is waiting for is life, waiting for something to happen. She’s got her bonnet on, so she is obviously ready to leave with it when it arrives.

8. Night With Her Train of Stars and Her Great Gift of Sleep (1912) Edward Hughes

Now I’m not usually a big fan of long titles, but this is so charming I don’t mind. The idea that Night is a woman who flies over us and brings with her children the stars and a scattering armful of leaves/petals/birds is gorgeous. Are each of the leaf/petal/birds a dream or are they sleep, winging its way to us? Night raises her finger to her lips indicating silence, but I have to admit the train of baby-stars do look noisy. I wonder if the baby-stars represent the hub-bub of life and Night’s gift is the silence of sleep, each of her russetty bird-petals enabling us to tune out from life for a few hours. The interplay between the warm autumn birds and the cool blue of Night make it such a striking image. Beautiful.

7. Autumn (1860-62) Frederick Sandys

Oh, I do like a bit of Sandys. He’s a jolly fellow who does a decent temptress in the Rossetti-mode. This is nice because it’s a curious allegory. It’s an image I knew well but I forgot who it was by, so when Mr Walker asked me who painted the picture of the soldier and his family I guessed Hughes, although it looks quite like a Millais. Anyway, at first glance it is about a soldier with his wife and child, relaxing on an Autumnal afternoon, but then possibly his wife looks a bit young…Is it therefore his daughter and grandchild? He seems rather old to be a soldier…Is he Autumn, the personification of a season? Are the woman and child Summer and Spring? And what's with all the stuff on the left?  I do love a puzzle picture...

6. The Last Chapter (1863) Robert Martineau

My affection for this image has been discussed before. If you love to read and love a good book you will smile in recognition at the notion of crouching by the last embers in order to reach the end. I’ve been there on many an occasion, to the point where I’ve had to stop reading hardback books in bed as I’ve whacked myself in the face with a fair few as I’ve dozed off. Can you imagine having Fiona MacCarthy’s Burne-Jones biography smack you in the face? I don’t need a broken nose, thank you. Paperbacks only in bed, hardbacks when I’m upright, those are the rules.

5. Prosepine (1881-2) D G Rossetti

 

I think every time I see Prosepine, ‘Blimey, I didn’t realise it was here!’ because I have seen so damn many copies of bloody Prosepine. There are eight of them! Eight! For goodness sake. If you want proof of how disturbed poor Rossetti was by the end, look at these lovelies. Prosepine is a monumental draped figure, clutching a pomegranate awkwardly in her shadowy room. It’s all about love and loss and marriage and waiting. When Franny Moyle showed this image at the talk I attended, she commented that it was about how much hell the Morris’ marriage was. Well…kind of, but I think it’s like a reassuring mantra from Rossetti about how much hell he would like it to have been in order to excuse his actions. He wanted to rescue Jane from something, he did like to rescue women, mostly from imagined peril, so he rescued her from the ‘hell’ of her ‘terrible’ marriage to Morris, a brutal god of the underworld. The fact that none of those things are true is neither here nor there. What he did was mess up the marriage of a woman who wasn’t sure what she wanted or how to cope with what she had. Mind you, that’s harder to paint.

4. Medea (1866-68) Frederick Sandys

This is the most Rossetti-esque of the Sandys on display and actually is somewhat better than a lot of Rossetti’s output at this time (don’t tell him I said that). While sharing some elements with famous Rossetti images, it brings together a moment of drama. I think the red beads and thread are reminiscent of Fair Rosamund, heralding the imminent death and destruction of those who have wronged the witch. You don’t have to know the story of Jason and the Argonauts in order to recognise this is a woman in the throes of revenge, her passion both angry and sexual. I find the cup she pours from both intriguing and unsettling in its weirdly organic shape and the way she pulls at the beads shows her loss of control. Amazingly powerful, the colours glisten and shimmer drawing you closer before you realise this is no ordinary stunner, but a toad-toting wronged woman who will destroy you. Blimey, though, she is beautiful.

3. The Star of Bethlehem (1887-90) Edward Burne-Jones

This will no doubt crop up again in December when I am planning a Christmas extravaganza, but this huge picture is so magical, I had to mention it here. Housed in a Burne-Jones room, it dominates a wall, with a lovely photograph next to it of Burne-Jones painting it from a stepladder. My favourite bit of the nativity is the three kings as I have an obsession with crib sets, and especially with the kings. I think it was because when I was a child we had a little plastic set and while I loved the blue angel who was blu-tacked to the roof of the stable, the figures of the kings were so beautiful and richly decorated, I found I loved them the most. I also remember heating up some frankincense on one of the rings of my parent’s Belling cooker and the strange perfume it gave off. These kings are strangely and beautifully dressed, carrying their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I’ve never had to type ‘myrrh’ before, that was an exciting ten minutes before my spell-checker worked out what I was trying to spell. Anyway, this is magical, pared down and yet richly detailed, and makes me long for Christmas so I can get my crib set out.

2. Hope Comforting Love in Bondage (1901) Sidney Meteyard

I love Meteyard’s Lady of Shalott and was delighted to see this hanging in the ‘Birmingham Artists’ room just off of the Pre-Raphaelite main gallery. The colours are fresh and delightful and the figures are attractive. It’s just such a lovely image, all pretty colours and pastel softness. I love how the fabric strips bind Love, who still clings to the ribbon of his arrow quiver, but also the brambles that thread through the feathers of his wings. Love looks very sorry for himself indeed, but Hope seems to reassure him that she will remain with him. It such a lovely image and Love’s wings are breathtaking in their detail and colour. Gorgeous…

1. The Blind Girl (1854-56) J E Millais

This is a unique picture, not only in its beauty but also in its subject matter. As a portrayal of disability, it is neither glamorising or patronising, and how many other Victorian images of the disabled can you think of that aren’t revoltingly sentimental or horribly stereotyped? As I have said before, my little stunner, Lily-Rose is severely visually impaired and it has been a fascinating experience watching how she experiences the world in slightly different ways. She loves touching surfaces, she foot-taps to see where pavements change in colour or texture, she sniffs, licks and listens to things before she rams her face against something to look at it. The Blind Girl is a lesson in beauty; the little girl gazes in awe at the double rainbow, rare and stunning, while her sister who has no access to the bands of colour in the sky, feels the grass with a look of solemn appreciation. While I sense Millais feels sorrow for the blind girl for not being able to marvel at the beauty around her with her eyes, he implies that she manages her own acknowledgment of beauty through touch, hearing and all her other senses. The butterfly settled on her shawl is missed by the little girl staring at the rainbows, possibly drawing attention to the fact that we search for ‘big beauty’ while missing small, exquisite pleasures that are right under our nose. Even though the blind girl cannot appreciate the butterfly, she is busy experiencing the wonders of her environment, blade by blade. Millais, as a visually-biased practitioner, makes a complex and interesting statement in a bold beautiful way: There are other pleasures than those you experience with your eyes, and maybe if you resist being led by your dominant sense, you may well discover other beauties that you never noticed before.

Go, my friends, go to Birmingham and run free among the beautiful works of art they have on display. There is no entrance charge and there is a goodly amount of works to enjoy. Bliss!

A Poem

Yesterday was National Poetry Day, so I made like Rossetti and wrote a poem that goes with a picture.

Found

The grey mist caresses, the fingers of dawn,

and homeward you find me tired and worn,

'How can it be you?'

You shout and shake,

holding my wrists so hard

to break my fall.

I fall,

but in my slump,

it is not shame,

I am well-dressed and plump,

my dress is bright, clean, fit to be seen,

my shawl is new, my smile is free,

what have you to offer me?

'I remember you...' you say,

and I, you.

A roll in the hay, no more, my heart,

And I thank you for that start in this life.

You grip me hard,

I am not your wife,

nor wish to be.

What have you to offer me?

I am so tired, my purse is full,

but still you won't release your pull.

Good God, I want my bed.

All the women of my family are dead.

All worn to dust, or full of holes,

but good for them, they saved their souls

as they rotted in cold piety.

Nothing so holy for me, you see

I like the hell-fire heat of sin,

look at the trouble it's got me in.

Caught in a net, poor silly cow,

if it helps I can say that I'm sorry now,

I regret my escape, my life of disgrace,

the terrible acts I perform in this place.

You're right to condemn, love, I see my decline,

go back to the village and say

'She was mine,

and I showed her my worth

as I left her to rot with the damned of the earth.

But I gave my forgiveness.'

And so now will I,

as I give you my time which far better men buy.

Go back to the village and tell them I'm dead,

which I would be,

but I tumbled my way out instead.

Not in the Public Interest

I’m in a tricky situation writing today’s blog as I want to talk to you about something, but it’s so complicated I’m not sure where to start. OK, here we go…

A couple of years ago, the Walker family went to the Isle of Man, and the book Mr Walker took with him was a biography of Eric Gill, by the lovely Fiona MacCarthy. Mr Walker has to look after some odd Gill drawings as part of his work and wanted to know more about the artist. Now I wish we knew a lot less.

Ironically, Gill didn't know when to say when...

All I knew at that point was that Gill was a bit eccentric and did nice fonts, used by many official bodies in Britain. I love his graphic work, I find it evocative of the thirties, it’s graceful and elegant. What I don’t like is all the incest and dog-fiddling and general horrific perversions that accompanied his artistic output. So, should I shun all of Gill’s work because I find him morally repugnant?

This blog is the result of a very interesting conversation I had on Facebook with some Pre-Raphaelite ladies about Ruskin. While Ruskin didn’t break any laws (as far as I know, although Fiona might have something to tell me on that score too) his behaviour towards women was unpleasant and damn right perverse. Balancing that are some acts of unbelievable sensitivity and forward-thinking support of women in the art. Is there a point when we have to dismiss the work of an artist as they hurt society more than they benefit it? Should there be such a tipping point, or should we separate creation from creator?

My gut reaction is that my enjoyment of a work of art is entirely separate from my endorsement or otherwise of the behaviour of the artist. Furthermore, I manage an uneasy relationship between one work and another by the same person. For example, I love Alice in Wonderland with an utter passion, but when I saw the an image of his in an exhibition on the Victorian Nude, I lost the plot…

Portrait of Alice Liddel

Oh, the above image of Alice Liddel is not the picture I'm talking about.  I am too much of a coward to post the image, for fear of getting done for kiddie porn.  The image is of a little girl of about six, nude and flat on her back, echoing Cabanel's Birth of Venus. I fretted about showing the image with blacked out areas, but to be honest it is just a picture of a little girl with no clothes on.  I have a little girl of six who frequently runs around the house with no clothes on, so by blacking out areas of what is arguably an innocent image I felt I was making it just what I feared it was.  Today has been a complicated place in Mrs Walker's head...

Why? Why should this bother me? Before I saw the image, I was aware that Carroll took pictures of little girls that were weird and questionable and I thought it was just something that Victorians did which is now seen as unacceptable, but this particular image made me swear out loud. It was in a section of an exhibition that was for over 18s only, acknowledging that modern viewers feel this is wrong. So, should I not read Alice in Wonderland as I think Lewis Carroll harboured paedophilic feelings? The mother of the little girl in the picture was present at the time of the photo and agreed to the image being taken, which winds me up even more. Could it be that there are things, such as photographing little girls as temptresses and goddesses, that were just clichés with no further or depraved thought given to it?

 

I know of people who won’t touch Carroll with a barge pole because of his photos and weird relationship with little girls, but as far as we know he did not commit a criminal act. So, should the line be drawn if an artist harms another person? OK, then what about Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal? He neglected her at best and was a proactive part of her suicide at worst. Looking at Beata Beatrix (left) I feel no doubt that Rossetti thinks he is to blame for her death, so should I reject his work because (on his own evidence) he mentally tortured a woman into taking her own life?

Richard Dadd’s Fairy-Fellers Master-Stroke (right) is one of my favourite pictures because it is so insanely detailed, in all senses of the phrase (also, it’s one of my favourite Queen songs). I find it interesting the character that is a portrait of his father is in the pathway of the axe, possibly reflecting his father’s murder. It’s horrible, but Dadd was insane and any judgement I feel towards him is entirely tempered, if not totally negated, by my sympathy towards a sufferer of a severe mental illness. However, my understanding liberal position is no comfort to his dad, I’m sure. Do I not judge or blame Dadd and his work because he was insane? Surely people who commit acts of cruelty and perversion can claim a mental imbalance that causes them to go against the well being of others? Is it right that I am willing to overlook murder, but uncomfortable with a man who photographed children?

My further worry is this. It has been hinted to me by someone whose knowledge on these matters I respect, that there are some very dark secrets as yet unpublished about a painter I love. If I understand them rightly, it’s terrible and it would affect the way I see their art because it puts things in a whole new context. It might be that one day soon this stuff is published and we have to deal with it, but should it be? If the criminal acts happened, it was over a hundred years ago and all those affected are dead; is it selfish of me to say I don’t want to know, I want to enjoy the pretty pictures without my brain saying ‘But, of course, you know what he did….’?

I would like to sum up nice and neatly, but I’m not sure that I can today. I can just tell you what I think and would very much like to hear what you feel. I have it narrowed down to the following in my own head:

If a piece of information is already in the public domain, then maybe it can help me understand their work in a different way. The complexity of Carroll’s love for Alice does add something to his work, a sadness, maybe even a jealousy for the lack of care that little girls have. I can rationalise it as a-sexual, and I choose to interpret it as that until someone cares to prove me wrong.

As for artists who misdeeds are as yet unknown, I think I would rather not know. As a fellow human, of course I want to know, the side of me that is interested in people always wants to know everything. However, part of me doesn’t want to know about the dark misdeeds of a beloved artist as I don’t think it adds anything to my appreciation of his art to know his dark secret.

If it isn’t apparent from his art instinctively, then I think it’s none of my business.

I’ve argued myself into a corner as in the case of The Unnamed Artist, I had already guessed his secret after viewing a retrospective of his paintings about a decade or so ago. Urgh, people are revolting…

Agatha Christie and Burne-Jones

It’s a little known fact, unless you have the misfortune to either live or work with me, that in times of crisis I turn to Joan Hickson. There is no voice in the world that has the ability to calm me and set me straight like that of Joan, the definitive Miss Marple. She reminds me a lot of my maiden Aunt who bought me the Millais jogsaw for Christmas and who was also called Joan, so I tend to think of Joan Hickson as being ‘Auntie Joan’. Anyway, for reasons I will not bore you with, I am stressed at present. Not pleasantly stressed, not ‘publishing my second edition is a lot of work’ stressed, but nasty stressed, where no good will come of it. I have been listening, almost non-stop, to my assorted Agatha Christie CDs, unabridged and read by Joan Hickson and it was while I was listening to my favourite, A Murder is Announced, that I realised that one of the characters says something very odd. The scene is between Edmund, an earnest young man, and Phillipa, a young widow with a secret and a job as a gardener...

‘It’s frightfully easy to be clever about how miserable everybody is. And it’s all a habit really. Yes, I’ve suddenly become convinced of that. After reading a life of Burne Jones.’

Phillipa had stopped pricking out. She was staring at him with a puzzled frown.

‘What has Burne Jones got to do with it?’

‘Everything. When you’ve read all about the Pre-Raphaelites you realise just what fashion is. They were all terrifically hearty and slangy and jolly, and laughed and joked, and everything was fine and wonderful. That was fashion, too. They weren’t any happier or heartier than we are. And we’re not any more miserable than they were…’ (page 180 in my edition) (and Agatha Christie left out BJ's hyphen)

Published in 1950, A Murder is Announced is around the fifth Marple to have been published. I must have read and listened to the book countless times and never clocked that passage before, but it made me stare with a puzzled frown, much like Phillipa. Jolly? Really?

In a way, this is much like the lovely red Pre-Raphaelite book I spoke about a while back. It is again a reflection of mid-century attitudes to the Pre-Raphaelites. Christie was writing around a hundred years after the formation of the original Brotherhood, and unless it is a comment on the character, then in post-war Britain the PRB were seen as jolly, slangy young chaps. Wow. Mind you, if we don’t see them as such now, why is that any better?

Edmund is a strange young man in the novel. He lives with his mother and has the misfortune of being the only Socialist in the village. Despite some humour being found at his reading the Daily Worker at the breakfast table, even though as his mother points out, he isn’t a worker, Edmund is a fairly sensible character who acknowledges his shortcomings and paradoxes. It’s unlikely he is wilfully mistaking the characters of the PRB, so why would he think they were jolly?

William Gaunt didn’t think so. When he published his book about them in 1942 it was entitled The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy, but then had to be changed to The Pre-Raphaelite Dream in 1943 as the original title was seen as too depressing for Wartime Britain. He doesn’t see anything jolly in the story; at best it is a story of dreams, but then all of the dreams were crushed to greater or lesser degrees. The Brotherhood couldn’t stay together, their values became repugnant to each other and for all Morris’ revolutionary zeal, the world went on as before. God, I feel depressed just reading that book. The only thing that cheers me up is that the illustration of Ophelia says it is by Rossetti.

Going back a little further, I have a rather lovely book from 1920, called Three Great Modern Painters: Leighton, Burne-Jones and Whistler, which is the binding together of three ‘Masterpieces in Colour’ volumes, which explains why it is such a rum selection of artists. Reading through the portion of the book on Burne-Jones, it’s hard to see any sort of jollity apart from the description of the painting The Depths of the Sea. It is described as being ‘unusual’ in its humour, however grim, as the rest of Burne-Jones work is seen as wistful and medieval.

Oh Ned, you do make me laugh...

So turning again to Robin Ironside’s Pre-Raphaelite Painters, I tried to work out what Edmund had read that would give the impression of the lighter side of Pre-Raphaelitism. Contemporary with Christie’s novel, Ironside’s book is the closest thing I can get to Edmund’s knowledge. In the introduction I can find only references to love and death, sorrow and hope, sex and mystery, but not a damn chuckle between them. The only source of humour I can possible scrape is lovely William Morris. There is a fond humour in the recounting of his exploits, in his passion and joy in creation of the medieval world, but he represents the only jollity and it isn’t much.

Maybe Christie was referring to Phillip Burne-Jones? Mind you, he was a member of ‘The Souls’ and by all accounts they were no more jolly that the PRB. Maybe what Edmund meant was sexual shenanigans? Well…I guess the rumours about Rossetti’s behaviour would have been known, and the Ruskin-Millais case, and possibly Burne-Jones and Maria Zambaco business, but Edmund goes on to say that sex was fashionable after the Second World War, but now everyone is miserable and that’s just fashion too. It’s such an odd thing to say, that the Pre-Raphaelites are a bowl of happiness with a cherry on top. I can only think of a couple of reasonable explanations: Firstly, it’s meant to show that Edmund isn’t as smart as he likes to think, or that he lies, possibly to throw suspicion on him in the book. The only other thing I can think of is that maybe Christie herself wasn’t very conversant with the output of the Pre-Raphaelites beyond a few pictures. Maybe if you have only seen The Pretty Baa-Lambs, King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid and April Love, possibly you would think they were a giggle-factory too. It leads me to consider why we think of the Pre-Raphaelites in entirely another way?

One of the complaints I have about Desperate Romantics is that it was all drinking, nudity and histrionics. Now, not even my life is like that all the time (I have every third weekend off), so why do we imagine that PRB is all sex, death and laudanum? Isn’t that as odd an opinion as Edmund’s? It is my humble opinion that the modern view of Pre-Raphaelitism is still influenced by the 1960s, and it is no coincidence that two of the three PRB ‘films’ we have occurred in and around this period. Ken Russell made Rossetti into a Rock God in an era where such men burnt out and died rapidly. The Love School attempted to redress the balance, but still we have Lizzie’s death as the ‘point’ of the story. Mr Walker refers to Lizzie as the Marianne Faithful of PRB-ness, and I think that is quite telling. Desperate Romantics added nothing more to the sex-and-drugs-and-oil paint story and again Lizzie’s death is the ‘point’. We see nothing of Hughes, Burne-Jones, Morris, Solomon, Waterhouse and so on and so on because all the people who write the story of Pre-Raphaelite art want to show us is Lizzie Siddal dying in a very 1960s way. Rock and Roll.

As I’m a bit cross now, I’ve decided it’s time for cake. The glorious thing about A Murder is Announced is not only the Pre-Raphaelite references but also the cake called ‘Delicious Death’. I should add at this point that when I’m stressed I also bake, so I baked Delicious Death last week in preparation for this post. I was thinking of you when I ate it, I promise…

If you too would like some Delicious Death, the recipe can be found here.

I love thee true! (Yes, all of you)

Gentlemen, avert your eyes or suffer a terrible fate! I’ve decided that, despite my best efforts, I’m still not 'fatale' enough and so am making a conscious effort to add a bit more ‘belle’ and ‘sans merci’ to my allure. Hang on, I’ll have a bit of a break so I can talk to you properly without any imminent threat of being dragged off to my elfin grot, which to be honest, sounds a tad unsanitary anyway. There, that’s better, you’re quite safe, I’m back to being ‘avec merci’ or whatever it would be.

I want to talk to you about Keats and some pretty fine paintings. Starting with Keats, I love Keats. I adore him. He can do no wrong. Unlike my love of paintings, my love of poems comes from a different place in my heart as I am a practitioner, albeit an occasional one. I can’t draw or paint for toffee, so admire those who can for their technical as well as their creative ability. With writings, it’s different – I tend to think ‘I hope one day I’ll be that good’ or ‘Damn it! I wish I’d written that!’

‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ is a marvellous poem, simple and subversive in subject. A brave knight sees a beautiful young woman in a meadow and stops. From that moment on, he is lost because she is a witch, a fairy and captures his soul, leading him off to her home in the hillside where she kept all her lovely young men prisoner as they slowly fade away. When the knight awakens out of his daze, he sits on the lonely hillside ruined by the experience, but unable to leave. Marvellous.

Anyway, on to the imagery. I was surprised by how few paintings of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' existed, I mean in comparison to other popular images of the Victorian era. There are some corkers though, and some are among the best known paintings of the era.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci Arthur Hughes

Let’s start with Arthur Hughes. He shows the beautiful faery child leaning and singing to the smitten knight, and he is a goner. The girl bends almost impossibly, almost spineless, maybe a little serpentine and the knight is frozen in his devotion. I love that the horse seems to be either bowed at her power or hiding from her. Jarring the image of a pretty girl and her knight are the ghostly forms behind her, writhing and flailing in the air, prefiguring his fate when he too will be a wraith. It is an interesting combination of the picturesque and the grotesque which is at the heart of 'La Belle Dame...', which Hughes shows with skill.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1902) Frank Dicksee

Possibly the best known depiction of the subject has to be Dicksee’s offering. Like Hughes, he shows the moment when bending, the beautiful woman sings her way into the knight’s soul. He is well and truly defenceless against her mystic powers and seems to feel a physical shock from her possession. I love his outstretched hands as if he is literally falling as well as metaphorically.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci  (1901) Henry Meynell Rheam

 Rheam’s illustration shows the knight being lulled to sleep, and his dream of the terrifying spirit world where he will be trapped with the other victims of the faery’s power. Kings and knights all dwell there as pale shadows and a smoky mist swirls around the recumbent knight, as if his soul is drawing out of him in a cloud under the almost disinterested eye of the damsel.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci  (1926) F C Cowper

The latest in date of our bevy is Cowper’s maiden striking a rather ‘flamenco’ pose, surrounded by soporific poppies. She is the most actively mad of the girls, winding her hair with flowers as her knight lies unconscious at her feet. I adore her dress – when I become sans merci, I intend to do it in a frock like that. I am somewhat obsessed by the knight’s pointy feet. They are very pointy, and a little bit curved, or that might be where the light is hitting them. Nice shiny armour. If I am going to beguile gentlemen, it’ll be nice to get a shiny one.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci  (1893) J W Waterhouse

Here we have my favourite. Where other paintings have horses and large-scale glories, Waterhouse focuses attention on the kneeling girl and her knight, bending to be caught in her hair. He trusts the symbolism that she wears her heart on her sleeve, nothing to hide, but he has missed that she has slipped the hair-noose around his neck and he is lost. Even when he wakes he will be unable to leave, even though time has passed. He has lost his sense and reason and will to do anything but stay and remember the beautiful girl who stole his will from him.

So my course is clear if I am to go out and break the spirits of gentlemen in a merciless manner. I have to grow my hair a bit more and get a fabulous frock. I’m sure that is all I am missing, after that I will go and find a mead to haunt, awaiting a knight. In the meantime I shall be reading the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood website book of the month, Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand, taking note of Larkin who would make a splendid Belle Dame, had she not got other things to do….

Type! Type! Type!

I have spent a naughty amount of time recently think about being a Victorian seamstress.  Why naughty? Because it is to do with the novel I should not be writing until I have finished redrafting Stunner.  Yet I find myself contemplating the fate of a young woman, apprenticed into sewing and millinery in 1860s London.  This post is my way of getting it all out of my system until after I’ve finished with the second edition of Fanny’s biography.  In theory.

Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! (1876) J E Millais

Before I started my research, I didn’t have much idea of what it was like to be a Victorian seamstress.  Fanny went straight from being a housemaid to being a good-time girl, so it was never part of my research for Stunner.  I guessed it would be miserable, as most forms of work seem to have been, so I was unsurprised by the grimness of some of the illustrations I’ll show you below.  Among the pictures I found, there were also some fairly charming ones, like Millais’ Stitch! Stitch! Stitch! which is typical of his portraits of women during this period.  The loose-handling of dark paint draws attention to the pale face, seen in profile.  The girl has paused, possibly lost in thought, but the title of the picture, taken from the poem ‘The Song of the Shirt’, pushes her on in her work.  The image has a typical sort of simplicity, the focus being on her face and expression, with her hands partially hidden as they hold her work.

Relenting Thomas Brooks

Oh, well this is a little grimmer.  Mother and daughter seem to be stitching but there is not enough to keep a roof over their head it seems.  At this point you have to fall back on your pitiful female state in order to persuade.  The main thing I didn’t realise about sewing was the difference between being a slop worker and working in a shop.  The character in my book works in a shop, possibly in hope of an apprenticeship, but many women worked from home.  There were positives and negatives to do with both arrangements.  To be an apprentice meant you were guaranteed food and lodgings (how much and what quality was another matter) but you were then tied to your place of work, your hours could be extended beyond reason as you were trapped.  To work from home kept you with your family, but your earnings could be much less and you risked losing your home and livelihood in the uncertainty.

Widowed and Fatherless (1888) Thomas Kennington

Another thing that was news to me was the sneaky growth of this employment among the struggling middle-class.  Women who found themselves poor but not working class could take in piecework or ‘slop work’ and be a seamstress with a kind of respectability.  You may be working (bad) but at least you are sewing (not so bad), so doing a genteel trade which as a nice lady you would be indulging in as a hobby.  Widows and spinsters seemed especially vulnerable to the vagaries of income and so pictures such as Kennington’s could be seen as representative of their position.

The iconic seamstress poem must be ‘The Song of the Shirt’ by Thomas Hood.  It is a powerful poem that makes me smile in recognition, as it gives a timeless expression of hard work.  I especially love the passage where the seamstress admits she works so hard ‘Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in a dream!’ which makes me think of when I type late at night and find myself dreaming that I am still typing only to wake and find I have printed the letter ‘a’ for three pages, like a long scream.  At least I won’t starve to death or have to go on the game, which is the fate that awaits these poor women who wish for one short hour of rest in their endless task, day and night.

Weary or The Song of the Shirt (1877) Edward Radford

Here we go then, first out of the stalls is Edward Radford’s lovely picture of such a sad subject.  The girl almost seems to bathe in the light, her poor belongings around her and her child asleep in her bed.  I never like to see a cracked basin in a painting, it never bodes well.  She looks absolutely exhausted, almost unable to sit up or hold her work, dressed in what Hood refers to as ‘unwomanly rags’.

The Song of the Shirt Anna Blunden

This seamstress is a little better dressed, praying for an hour of peace and rest.  The green of her dress possibly refers to the rich grass she fantasises about wandering in.  Again, she is in the light by a window, possibly referring to how they are trapped inside, needing the light but unable to go outside.

The Song of the Shirt Charles Rossiter

The Song of the Shirt John Thomas Peele

Yet more mournful maidens, pausing in exhaustion and thought.  I especially love Peele’s woman’s expression and the detail in her room, although that mug on the cupboard is looking a bit chipped.  By contrast, Rossiter’s miserable girl doesn’t seem too bad, at least she gets a cup of tea and her jugs are very much intact.

The Song of the Shirt Richard Redgrave

That’s more like it - burnt down candle, chipped ceramics and no rug on the floor.  That’s good, old fashioned, black and white misery.  It looks like it’s about two o’clock in the morning.  I think if I was still sewing at that hour I’d want an hour off to tip-toe in the grass.  There is just no time for her to relax and on she sews until she collapses in exhaustion or goes blind.  Blimey, how grim…

Relaxation (1908) Thomas Kennington

Hang about, this looks like fun!  See, if you go and work in a shop it’s all gossip and jolly ribbon with your chums…I’m surprised any dresses or hats ever got made if this was the level of work that went on.

So which was the truth?  Working to death or gossiping with the girls?  Possibly somewhere in between, although the season in the Spring and Summer, then at Christmas, seemed to bring on working weeks of dizzying length.

It is impressive that the level of awareness was as good as it was.  Much as we care about sweat-shops now, the concern for the well being of seamstresses seems to be very vocal and the images of broken-down women no doubt aided the strength of the argument.  Piece-workers especially seem to have been exploited with low wages and the work, although not obviously physically gruelling, was a challenge of endurance, long hours and poor light.  The desperation must have been intense and the knife-edge of work and ability must have shortened many a seamstress’ life.  Not the jolliest subject for a book, but I look forward to writing my heroine’s plight.  Type! Type! Type!