THE CONTEMPORARY MORAL SUBJECT
AND {TS ICONOGRAPHY {N
VECTOREAN PAINTING '

Thesis for the Degree of M A.
MlCHIGAN STATE UNIVERSETY.
.LENDA S. BAYLISS
1.970

 

,,,,,, l/flfilwfiwy 1! WM; gm f am; i
‘ Michigan State ‘t

University (.1

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ABSTRACT

THE CONTEMPORARY hOBAL SUBJECT
AND ITS ICOHOGBAPHY IN
VICTORIAN PAINTING

By
Linda S. Bayliss

This paper is a study of the painters of
contemporary moral subjects in Victorian England.

It explores the influences that precipitated the
advent of such painting and the chief characteristics
of its style, illustrating through example the manner
in which the precepts of the moral painter were
carried to completion in their works.

The most important conclusions derived from
this study are the recognition of the intimate
relationship between Victorian painters and the
class of patrons for whom they worked. 'Our understanding
of these paintings is, in effect, dependent upon the
understanding of the particular attributes of the
society itself, specifically, its religion and the
results of the Industrial Revolution, which raised

the middle-class to its position of affluence.

THE CONTEMPORARY RORAL SUBJECT
AND ITS ICONOGRAPHY IN
VICTORIAN PAINTING

By

“'6

Linda sJ‘Bayliss

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Department of Art History

1970

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The writer wishes to thank Mr. Van Liere for
advice, the loan of books, understanding, and patience
in reading through some very "rough" drafts. Thanks
also to my husband and son for their patience during

many hours of typing and re-typing.

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

IntrOdUCtionococo-0000....ooooooooooooocoo.oooococo-.01

Chapter I: The Stages in the Evolution of Victorian

moral Art.00.0.00...OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.0.0.0000000003

Chapter II: The Hireling Shepherd: A Victorian
AllegoryoOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0.00000000000000000.00.00.0017

Chapter III: The Lessons of Adultery................126
Chapter IV: The Misfortunes of Gamblers..............h4
Chapter V: The Pathetic..............................5u
Chapter VI: Conclusion...............................7O
Plates.............................................. 75

NOteSo0000000000000000o000000000000000000000000.0000.090

Bibliography.0.0...OOOOOIOOOOIOOOOOOOOOOOOOI0.0.0.0...96

iii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate Page

I. The Hireling Shepherd, (1851), City of
Manchester Art Gallery, William Holman
Hunt, (1827-1910)ooooooooCocoa-coco.000.00.00.75

II. Past and Present, I, (1858), Tate Gallery,
“Augustus Leopold Egg, (1816-1863).............76

III. Figure 1: Past and Present, II
Figure 2: PaSt and Present, IIIoooooooooooooooooo77

 

 

IV. Figure 1: Found, (1853- 1865), willmington
Fine Arts Center, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
(1828- 1888)
Figure 2: Retribution or T33 Man With Two Wives,

_ (1854),“ rennen CoIIection,Johnm Everett
“111818, (1029-1890).000000000000...000000000078

V. The Awakening Conscience, (1853), Collection
of Sir Colin Anderson, W. H. Hunt.............79

 

 

VI. Figure 1: The Road to Ruin,L(1877), Victoria
and Albert Luseum, Jillian Powell Frith,
(1819-1909).
Figure 2: The 303: 22 RUin, IIoooocoooooooooooccoBO

VII. Figure 1: The Road 39 Ruin, III.
Figure 2: The Road £2_Ru1n, IV.00000000000000000081

 

 

VIII. Figure 1: 233 Road to Ruin, V. ‘
Figure 2: The La't :ay in the Old 303e, (1852- 1862),
Tate Ge.llery, Robert Eraithwaite Tartineau,
(1826-1869).0000.00.00.00.00.0.00000000000000082

IX. The Race-Meet,(1853), location unknown, Millais...83

X. Figure 1: The Foubt: Can T‘nese Dry Bones Live?
(1856),“ Tate Gallery, Henry “Alexander Bowler
(182fl-1903)

Figure 2: Rose Fron the Sea or g Eotherts Grave,
(1856- 1803), Azhnolean Museum, arthur Hughes,
(18;)2—1915):ooooooooocoo-00000000000000...000.8”

 

iv

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

Woman's Mission-~Bad News, (1857), Tate Gallery

 

George Elgar Hicks, (1824—exhib. to 1892).....85

Figure 1: The Poor Teacher, (18kb), Victoria
and Albert museum, Richard Redgrave, (180n-
1888).

Figure 2: Nameless and Friendlegg, (1857),
Collection of Sir David Scott, Emily Mary
OSborn’ (1834-001885)0OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...0.0.86

 

Last g£,England, (1851-1855), Birmingham Art
Gallery, Ford Madox Brown, (1821-1893)........87

Too Late, (1859), Tate Gallery, william Lindsay
Windus, (1822-1907).cocoa0.000000000900000000088

 

The Blind Girl, (1854-1856), Birmingham, Millais..89

INTRODUCTION

When Queen Victoria ascended to the throne

in 1837, the industrial revolution had already effected
sweeping changes in both the material and intellectual
environments of England. The new prosperity of classes
formerly sustained on merely a subsistence level pro-
vided a broader base for increased patronage of the arts
and sciences. Inventions such as the steam-engine, the
railroad, telegraph, and gas-lights were all perfected
Within a brief span of time. The modifications in
the way of life precipitated by these revolutionary
inventions, as well as the increased financial stability
of the average middle-class family, engendered the per-
vvasive sense of self-assurance which characterized this
class. The resultant theory of progress, (best exempli-
fied by Darwin's ideas about evolution), was inevitably
extended to more theoretical areas:

When wealth, inventions and commerce are in-

creasing, it is hard not to believe that human

nature and happiness are also improving at the

same time. And in spite of their misgivings and

yearnings, the Victorians did, on the whole,

believe . . . that men were becoming less selfish,

less unreasonable and less bellicose; that free

trade would promote international understanding

and banish war; that science and education would

conquer error and superstition, and that in some

not too distant future we should see "the Parli-
ment of man," the federation of the world.1

‘ r'u

Despite the scientific accomplishments of the

57"

age, there was no weakening of faith in the truths of
God and the Bible. Religion was an excedingly powerful

force in Victorian society, as evidenced by the various

a.

evangelical groups which rose to power during the nine-
teenth century. The middle classes had not forgotten
the religion that played so important a role in their
lives when they were not so well-off. In addition,

family prayer and devotional reading and the
common observance of Sunday were an important
facet of family life . . . . "Nothing contri-
buted so strongly to awaken my spiritual sensi-
bilities," wrote one Victorian , "as the daily
gathering at the family altar, which was regular
as the morning family meal . . . The reality of
our home religion made the unseen and eternal
world as real to me as home itself.2 '

:“It was this confident faith in the Protestant
ethic taught by the Church of England together with an
accute materialism spawned by industrialization which
set the stage for artistic developments in England in

the latter half of the nineteenth century.:

~

CHAPTER I
THE STAGES IN THE EVOLUTION OF VICTORIAN MORAL ART

Victorian moral art was the product of the
same material and sociological ferment that charac-
terized the society in general. The demands of a newly-
affluent middle class supported by burgeoning industrial-
ization were countered by the ideals of a somewhat deca-
dent aristocracy. The Boyal Academy, which dominated
the art world at the beginning of Victoria's reign,
remained steeped in the aristocratic tradition of ideale
ized images and grand historical "machines" advocated
by its founder, Sir Joshua Reynolds. In a world that
was becoming increasingly materialistic, the Academy's
teachings lacked relevance.‘ The moralistic art of the
latter half of the century was developed to answer the
need for an art that suited both the material and
spiritual requirements of the Victorianséf The influences
on the painters who worked diligently to satisfy this
desire are considerable, and they will be the concern of
this first chapter.

The first of these influences Was the change in
the patronage of the arts.i As the wealth began to sift

down through the classes, more and more people demanded

the luxuries that had once been strictly the prerogative
of the aristocracy.. The self—made man was quick to
'acquire a taste for those objects he associated with
the wealth and power formerly possessed only by the upper-
most strata of society. Art, and especially painting,
fell into this category from the outset.

“Too often the taste for paintings on the walls
of the suburban home was the result of anything but a
love of fine painting. The purpose of the artwork was

to impress one's visitors and contribute to the overly-

M.

sumptuous atmosphere already created by furnishings and
draperies:

The upholsterer, by embellishment of
furniture and artistic hangings, sets up a
fairyland to enchant the drabness of the
industrial day.1

‘ ,_..

.Because paintings were symbols of opulence, quantity
was generally more important than qualityIj As w. P.
Frith, himself an artist, tells us,

but the wonder of it all is the downright
vulgarian, who sometimes astonishes us in
h-less English by his desire to collect works
of art; he has risen from the gutter to the
stucco palace, and he must pose as a connoisseur.
He does not care for size or shape, he wants a
specimen--a speciment, I think it was, he don't
know nothing about pictures, but the 'ouse
must be furnished. Mrs. G. don't care for
pictures, but he says, says he: Black, the
butterman, which rose from 2nothink has got a
lot, and why shouldn't we?

 

Despite their frequent lack of sound judgement, the public

had taken an active interest in art, which was manifested

in several ways. The first of these was the heightened
popularity of art exhibitions. It became an acceptable
pastime for well-to-do Victorians to spend an afternoon
in the art gallery. Exhibitions became social events
and attracted increasing numbers of people. This, of'fi
course, resulted in the sale of a larger number of
paintings and the support of a greater number of artists
than ever before.h In the second place, the growing
demand for art, coupled with the improved means for
reproduction of prints, resulted in the large—scale
distribution of prints of the more popular paintings,
both ancient and modern. Such prints provided increased
income for artists who had produced the paintings from
which prints were made. So even the family that could
not afford to buy an original could purchase a reasonably
.good copy for their enjoyment. Certainly, these copies
had their limitations. For the most part, they were
.in black-and-white, and such reproduction was not con-
ducive to rendering subtle gradations of colour or
texture. They were, however, most effective in conveying
the subject matter of the painting to its audience.
Undoubtedly, this helps to account for the increased
importance of subject matter in the moral painting.
Ultimately, the print was completely popularized
when Millais' painting, Bubbles,3 of 1885 appeared in an

advertisement for Pears' Soap. The rights to the

painting had been previously sold by the artist and
were subsequently sold again to the soap company.
Though this unconventional use of his painting was at
first distasteful to hillais, he soon realized that
he was uplifting advertisement more than degrading
himself.

Pears' Soap had shown that an advertisement

need not be vulgar; that it might enlist

the servifies of as great an artist as could

be found.
With the use of a recognized work of art in advertising,
it became possible for a painting to be familiar to
almost any man, woman, or child in Victorian society.
This demonstrates the potential importance of the role

played by an art that was reproduced on so large a scale.

{'The question of aesthetics was bound to occur in
L.

'this context. Millais replied, "a painter must work

for the taste of his own day.ré; This brings us to the
second of the influences thaEfled directly to the
development of the moral painting. That was the decision
on the part of the artists to create works that were
meaningful and relevant to their 233 agg.£ A dilemma,

in itself moral, faced the painter in the early part of
the Victorian era: should the artist follow public

taste, or lead it? In nearly all cases, art of any

great consequence tends to create public taste more

than adhere to it. It is rarely easy for the public to

accept a new style, even if there has been a corresponding

upheaval in society. Such was the case in Victorian
England. When moral paintings first came into exis-
tence, they were greeted with ridicule and little
understanding by the majority of the critics. But
moralistic painting never was totally alienated from

the Royal Academy, and by remaining in the good graces

of that hallowed institution, it was able to gradually
and peacefully usurp the leading role in English painting
as the century progressed.f The painter of moral subjects
sought an art-form suitable for the ideals of the

patrons of his era. In this, he was opposed to the
Fartists who advocated "art for art's sake." The latter
group, known as the "aesthetics," and led by Whistler

and Pater, contended that true art was the expression

of individual genius, irrespective of the buying public.6
'For the "aesthetics,“ 22$ existed apart from the taste

of the day; for the moral painters it was intimately
related to that tasteL;

Among the painters who pioneered in the treat-
ment of contemporary moral subjects, two important groups
need to be considered. The first of these was the
group of young artists who banded together as students
in the Royal Academy to discuss art, mostly during the .
1830's. Among the members were Augustus Leopold Egg,

William Powell Frith, and the ill-fated Richard Dadd.7

I ‘~ .,-. , 3,
They met once a week, and, 'tneir purpose Stems primarily

to have been the selection of subjects to illustrate."8
This in itself would have been of little consequence but
for the fact that Egg and Frith were destined to become
two of the leading moralistic painters of their day.
Apparently, the young artists became aware of the needs
of contemporary art which were not being met by the
Academy. This failure on the Academy's part to produce
an art relevant to the new age was noted byuwaagen as
early as 1838:

English art long laboured under the fatal

error, that the exact imitation of reality

was inconsistent with the loftiest style of

art; and that to create an ideal, the artist

must form an abstraction from nature, not a

union of its finest points.9

By 1848, the spirit of revolution was in the air,

and the formation of the Pre-Baphaelite Brotherhood in
*that year marked the beginning of a new era in British
art. The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of seven young
,men, (only some of whom were actually artists), who
advocated ennobling subjects like the Neo-Classicists,
but went to nature as the greatest exemplar of perfection,
rather than Platonic ideals.10 They favoured a return
to the simple and pious spirit in which the artists
living prior to Raphael had created their works. They
were fully aware of the technical defects of this art,
but saw in it virtues which the High Renaissance lacked.
In essence, they were opposed to the sort of pride which

caused man to turn away from nature and rely on his own

rarefied ideas for the creation of works of art. As
Pugin said,

the finest productions of Christian art are

the closest approximations to nature, and

when they failed in proportion and anatomy,

it was not a defect of principle, but of

execution.11
> It seemed that with the advanced techniques and knowledge
of the nineteenth century, it was finally possible to
combine the pious imitation of nature with a more accurate
rendering of her many facets, fortified by the sciences
of anatomy and perspective, to create the most perfect
style of art that had ever been practiced! A resolve
most worthy of the age of optimism.

And where did the Pre—Raphaelites discover such
noble purposes? A young man of twenty-four, who had
graduated from Oxford in 18#3, had written a book
entitled modern gainters; originally a defense of the
much-abused Turner. This book was to become, together
with its author, one of the greatest influences on
English art for the next fifty years. The writer was
John Ruskin. The book, (which eventually ran to five
volumnes), encompassed aesthetic theory and continually
advised the would—be artist to "go to nature," for his
inspiration. It would be difficult to over-emphasize
the contribution of Ruskin in the formation of Victorian

aesthetic theory. He dominated his age as the dictator

of the taste of the times. While it would not be appropriate

10

here to thoroughly analyze Ruskin's concepts, it is

necessary that the reader be aware of his influential

position in the Victorian art world.12 A few significant

quotations may serve here to demonstrate some of Bus-

kin's basic assumptions which affected the moral painters.
0n the theme of nature,

There is room enough for invention in the
pictorial treatment of what exists . . .
All artists should be ashamed of themselves
when they find they have not the power of
being true . . .

and concerning the importance of detail, Ruskin tells us,

The work of the Great Spirit of nature is
as deep and unapproachable in the lowest
as in the noblest objectsJ-l+

In landscape, botanical or geological,
details are not to be given as a matter of
curiosity, but as the ultimate elements

of every species of eXpression and order
of loveliness.

-But Ruskin's most important contribution, (and the
one most often ridiculed today), was his thesis that
the true worth of art lay in its moral values:

The art is greatest which conveys to the

mind of the Spectator, by any means whatsoever,
the greatest number of the.greatest ideas; and
I call an idea great in proportion as it is
received by a higher faculty of the mind, and
as it more fully occupies, and in occupying,
exercises and exaits the fabulty by which it
is received.1

And I want you to think a little of the deep
significance of this word, "taste,” for no
statement of mine has been more earnestly or
oftener controverted than that good taste is
essentially a moral quality.17

11

In order to understand Ruskin's concept of the "moral,"
we must not confuse it with the twentieth-century bias
toward that word, for "Ruskin's 'moral,‘ was very close,
in its theoretical context, to our term 'emotiona1.'"18
Ladd sums up Ruskin's theories:
Three significant conclusions outline the
scope of his arguements: the artistic per-
ception of truth is spontaneous and unified;
beauty is an impression at once sensual and
morally symbolical; style is the reflection
of character in the fullest sense.19

Although Ruskin believed that art directed
toward popular approval and commercial success was im-
moral in its motivation, the artists whom Ruskin cham-
pioned generally became excedingly popular and wealthy.
This would seem to indicate that the critic's own
public esteem made it possible for him to mold the
public taste.

One final contribution on the part of Ruskin
is decidedly modern, though perfectly acceptable in his
own day.

Ruskin Suggested that in the activity of

art itself there lay the ultimate social
value, the means to the end of good living.
He . . . suggested that art was itself a
good life. This was . . . the radical
difference of his theory from all those pre-
ceding his which relegated art to pleasant
but secondary ornamentations or esoteric
elaborations of living.20

It is evident, then, Just how important art had

become to Ruskin and the society whose taste he led.

The Victorian love of purpose and order in all things

ii

lay behind Ruskin's own ideas. The morality he attached
to both the creation and the enjoyment of works of art
was the primary aspect of his aesthetics.

Though the Pre-Raphaelite painters were determined
to follow the precepts of Ruskin, they were at first
unable to win popular approval. Generations weaned on
Sir Joshua Reynolds had no taste for the mundane and
self-consciously-awkward scenes the Pre-Raphaelites
took delight in. It required the intervention of
Ruskin to stem the tide of negative public Opinion
by demonstrating to his loyal readers that the PreQRaphael-
ites, far from undermining all that was virtuous in
British art, were actually carrying out the very prin-
ciples which Ruskin espoused! This recommendation was
sufficient to insure the future prosperity of the young
members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, especially
John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William
Holman Hunt, all of whom we will have occasion to speak
of in these pages. Not only were they successful, but,
"there was scarcely a single English painter active in
the next thirty years who was not to a greater or lesser
degree touched by the flame of Pre-Raphaelitism."21

In addition to the changes in patronage and the
aesthetic ideas of the artists, we must consider the
devices that were employed ultimately by the painter to

create the new type of moral painting. Ruskin emphasized

13

'u _

assumes paramount importance. Details were meticulously
rendered, not merely for the accurate recording of
nature, but in order to convey an object's underlying
significance. For behind every object there lurked a
symbolic meaning. It was consequently important that
details by treated carefully so that the viewer would
have no difficulty in perceiving this concealed meaning.
To the Victorians, as to nearly all other civilizations,
symbols were a necessary part of life.

In a Symbol there is concealment and yet reve-

lation: here, therefore, by Silence and by

Speech acting together, comes a double signi-

ficance. And if both Speech be itself high,

and the Silence fit and noble, how expressive

will their union be! Thus in many a painted

Device, or Simple Seal-emblem, the commonest

truth stands out to us proclaimed with quite

new emphasis.22
The moral implication of the use of symbols is clear:
the good Christian must be able to see in material
things the workings of God.. Again, "it is in and through
Symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives,
works and has his being."23 Carlyle was the author of
these quotations, and although they sound remarkably
close to the tenets of modern psychology, it is necessary
to interpret them in terms of the Victorian religion
in order to view them in their proper perspective. Since
those things which an artist paints are by their very

nature symbols of something else, the artist was

1U

naturally concerned with symbolic meaning. As moral
painting grew respectable and popular, however, it lost
much of the depth of meaning that had marked the earlier
attempts, and intricaCy of meaning degenerated to the
surface recording of detail.

'rAt its best, however, the combination of realism
and symbolism was perhaps the unique factor in the
Victorian moral paintingiw This juxtaposition was
tended to be an uncomfortable one even in its own era.
Hunt's "concept of symbolism in an intensely realistic
dress did not go uncriticized for its basic irrationality."2u
But despite the incongruities, or, perhaps, precisely
because of the paradoxical nature of these works, they
came to represent the dominant pictorial expression of
the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Because details assumed such importance, paintings
could no longer be objects for brief and frivolous en-
Joyment or mere decorations. The viewer was asked to
seriously ”read" and contemplate the painting in order
to extract the moral significance. "Scarcely any picture,
scarcely even any series of pictures, tells its own story
without the aid of an interpreterfll;25 Or, conversely,

All pictures should, as a rule, tell their
own story without the aid of book or quotation,

though in some instances, no doubt, quotation
is necessary for the understanding of the picture.26

And Ruskin, writing in 185# of a Pre-Raphaelite painting
then gives this defense of the story—telling picture:

15

It may, perhaps, be answered, that works of
art ought not to stand in need of inter-
pretation of this kind. Indeed, we have been
so long accustomed to see pictures painted
without any purpose or intention whatsoever,
that the uneXpected existence of meaning in
a work of art may very naturally at first
appear to us an unkind demand on the spec-
tator's understanding. Butt. . . I hope

the English public may be convinced of the
simple truth, that neither a great fact, nor
a great man, nor a great poem, nor a great
picture, nor any other great thing, can be
fathomed to the very bottom in a moment of
time; and that no high enjoyment, either in
picture-seeing or any other occupation, is
consistent with a total lethargy of the powers
of understanding.27

It is the message which a painting conveys that is of
greatest value. Indeed, the message is the real subject
of the painting. For example, William Holman Hunt's
"purpose was to use realism and original imagery to
express significant moral ideas . . . But while in
youth a rebel with his fellow Pre-Raphaelites, in maturity
his paintings came to epitomise for the Victorian the
Christian ideal in understandable terms."28
And, finally, to summarize the aims of the

Victorian moral painter, an excerpt from a letter con-
cerning the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Charles Collins?9
written by Millais.

There are few so devotedly directed to the

one thought of some day (through the medium of

his art), turning the minds of men to good

reflections and so heightening the profession
as one of unworldly usefulness to mankind.30

16

The artist thus became the servant of mankind, to help
man on his way to better deeds and thoughts, and,
Cultimately, to heaven. Such were the aims and
purposes of the Victorian artists who dealt with the
contemporary scene, injecting it with a high moral
purpose, and whose works we will now consider

individually.

CHAPTER II
THE HIRELING SHEPHERD: A VICTORIAN ALLEGOBY

The painting that must necessarily rank as a
masterpiece of Victorian moral art is William Holman
Hunt'sl 1:13 Hireling She herd,2(see Plate I), which
was painted in 1851 and exhibited in the Royal Academy
in 1852. All of the influences cited in the previous
chapter contributed to the final effect of this work.

As one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
Hunt was one of the first conscious exponents of the
symbolic moral style of art. Although an early example
of this type of painting, The Hireling Shepherd epi-
tomizes many of the characteristics which were present

to a lesser extent in much of the subsequent moral
painting. In addition, it goes further in its complexity
of meaning than any other work of its type. It will be
beneficial to consider this painting in depth, for

both its goals and the manner in which they were achieved,
for it is in many ways the finest exemplar of the
Victorian contemporary moral painting.

Something of the nature of Hunt's technique in
painting might be of use here, asindicativo of the care
that went into his canvases, and particularly pointing

out that with such meticulous study of each and every

.17

18

fragment of nature, it is hardly likely that the artist
would not have been equally painstaking in the selection
of appropriate accessories to enhance the symbolic
suggestion of his painting. This work was begun in

the summer of the year 1851 in the fields between
Kingston and Ewell in Surrey, where Hunt, together

with his friend, Millais, was staying. Hunt describes
his search for a proper setting for the anticipated
painting, and his finally settling upon a spot along

the Ewell River.3 He also notes the care that he and
Millais practiced in maintaining the clarity of pig-
ments through the use of white porcelain palettes.

"We knew how impossible it was to give the purity and
variety of nature's hues if we allowed our pigments to
get sullied."u It was at this time that Hunt and I
Millais developed their use of the "wet white" technique
as a method of rendering flowers accurately.5 So it is
apparent that the artists made every attempt to render
nature as truthfully and exactingly as they could. The
great row of elms that create the lane in the painting
were not a part of the original scene, but were included
when the pair took lodgings later in the year at Wor-V
chester Park Farm. One can see from this that the artist's
intentions were not to render nature exactly as she was,

but rather to treat those parts that were chosen as

naturalistically as was feasible.

19

The young woman who posed for the shepherdess was
Emma Watkins, a field-hand on the estate of Sir George
Glynn at Ewell.6 She came to London so that the por-
trait might be finished in the winter. The model for
the shepherd is unknown. The composition itself is
based on the sturdy pyramid formed by the two figures
placed against the landscape background. Since the
figures were painted in the studio, they are not com-
pletely congruous with their setting, so far as lighting
is concerned. Hunt, however, has succeeded in making
them fit quite convincingly, despite this difficulty.
The lane of elms, which tends to funnel the eye back into
the picture, but a Judiciously-placed sheep halts the
gaze and sends it back along the shepherd's hand to the
main action of the painting.

On the surface, the meaning does not appear
to be profound, in fact it rather seems so mundane as
to be unworthy of so meticulous a treatment. It is a
hot, late-summer's day, and a shepherd girl rests her
feet in the cool water of a brook, while she feeds
apples to a lamb on her lap. A young shepherd has
brought a moth to show the girl, wondering if she thinks
a death's-head moth to be an ill omen. We might also
Isuspect that he is using this as an oppotunity to put his
arm around the young woman. Of course, while the
shepherd idles away his time, his sheep have strayed
into a nearby wheat field.

20

In the exhibition catalogue accompanying the
first showing of the painting, the following quotation
appeared.

Sleepest or wakest though, jolly shepherd?

Thy sheep be in the corn;

And for one blast of they minikin mouth,

Thy sheep shall take no harm.7

Also in the catalogue was a statement which hinted at
the work's symbolical meaning, "Mr. Holman Hunt
painted his picture in rebuke of the sectarian vanities
and vital negligence of the nation."8 As Fleming 1
points out in his analysis of the work, it would seem’
difficult to interpret the painting in Hunt's terms
without the help of the catalogue, and even the catalogue
does not help greatly.9 Perhaps one must admit that the
lush world so carefully rendered by the artist would
itself have been a sufficient subject. Hunt, upon the
purchase of this painting by the Manchester Art Gallery
in 1897, gave a further explanation of his intentions:
Shakespear's song represents a shepherd
who is neglecting his real duty of guarding
the sheep. . . . He was the type of muddle—
headed pastors, who, instead of performing their
services to the flock-~which is in constant
peril-~discuss vain questions of no value to any
human soul. . . . I did not wish to force the
moral, and I never explained it till now. For
its meaning was held in reserve for those who.
might beled to work it out."10 .
Still, it is difficult to relate this to the scene in

question, and the meaning remains nebulous. It must,

as Hunt tells us, be read.

21

' It is apparent from the outset that the girl
in her position and prominence can easily be interpreted I
as a sort of rustic madonna. This is confirmed by the
yellow about her head. Apparently, it represents
some type of head covering, (though her scarf is on
her lap, covering the lamb). The visual effect of the
yellow area is still that of a halo. As the central
figure, she dominates the painting as any Renaissance
madonna would. Her left hand, in fact, comes close to
a gesture of blessing. But clearly, she is no madonna;
not, at least, in the traditional sense.

If we now consider these observations in

light of the professed subject, (the pastor who seeks
out vain theological entities while his sheep arelost),
it is more easily interpreted. At this time, England
was quite thoroughly Protestant, and highly suspicious
of anything that smacked of "papism." Hunt, too, was
tonscientiously éoncerned with religion; as evidenced
by the number of his paintings in which Biblical subjects
appear, and his journey to the Holy Land to verify the
accuracy of his religious works. Since he was a Protes-
tant, it is apparent that the madonna figure would
represent for him the evils of Catholicism, not the
heavenly mother who mediated at God's throne for man's
sins which she represented in earlier times. Throughout
the history of art, the madonna has been, symbblically

the new Eve. As EVe brought about the fall, (death),

22

of man; the Virgin gave him new life. Thus, the fact
that our "madonna" holds apples becomes much more
meaningful. The lamb on her lap can represent none
other than the Christ figure! And this Eve has been
feeding him green apples, which have as disastrous an
effect on lambs' stomachs as they do on humans'. So
with the shepherdess as an incarnate Eve, (or perhaps
a witch), we turn to the relative position of the
shepherd.

We know that the shepherd has brought a deathfs-
head moth to the shepherdess to ask her if she believes
.it to be an ill omen. With her gesture, she disregards
it as meaningless. Perhaps, then, our clergyman is
indulging in Scholasticism. He is concerned with
theological and philosophical inquiry, (for which the
Catolic church is famous), and not with the saving of
souls. To be sure, the death's-head moth is an ill omen:
an omen that should have warned him away from such
vanities which serve only to advance his own ago; not
to help men on earth attain heaVen. -The death's-head
moth is still more interesting when we consider the
common appearance of the skull, (the death's-head of
Adam), beneath the cross of Christ, in Christian icono-
graphy. So our vain pastor, like Adam, will likewise

be driven from Eden for listening to the advice of Eve.

23

In this context, it is easy to view the
fertile setting as the paradisical Garden of Eden,
bounded on the right by the rigid lane of elms, which
it their turn refer to the Tree of Knowledge. The
sensual beauty of the scene, with its absence of any
signs of industrialization lends overtones of Rousseau
to the symbolic meaning, and we know that the Pre-
Raphaelites were in part rebelling against the industrial
world they lived in. The fact that the land where
the scene was originally painted did not possess this
lane of elms and they were purposely added is also
indicative of the intended symbolic content.

Surely, this is a painting that was both relevant
and religious. It was a modern treatment of an ancient
theme, and should have been ideal for the Victorians.

Its highly-naturalistic effect gives it the solidity
that Sunday-school pictures of Adam and Eve lacked.
Its extensive symbolism required that it be read, and
it was both contemporary and eternal in its theme.

But perhaps it was a bit too profound for the
. middle-class at the time it was first shown, for they
wanted paintings readily understandable.- The critics were
not particularly kind, The Athenaeum claiming that Hunt,
“carries anti-eclecticism to the absurd," and "revels
in the repulsive."11 William Rossetti, a member of the

Pre-Raphaelites, wrote in favour of the work, commenting,

24

It is evident from Mr. Hunt's title

that the seemingly unimportant incident

of the old song has been treated not merely

as a casual episode of shepherd life, but

with a view to its moral suggestiveness.12
But on the whole, the painting was quite well received,
and the British Quarterly Review said, "the picture is,
in all respects, one of the best in the exhibition."13

Although the painting was not as well received

as some we will subsequently consider, (and this could
very well have been due to its comparitively early date),
it was perhaps the most complete manifestation of the Vic-
torian ideals of moral narrative art, as expressed by
Ruskin and others, that arose from the great body of such
paintings. Its highly allegorical content, coupled with
a deliberate ambiguity of meaning, made it not only
readable, but susceptable to a number of interpretations
and to endless discussion, if one wished. Discussion
was intended, for a whole series of sermons were preached
on the meaning of the weeds in another of Hunt's works,
Ehg_§ight g; the World.1u We may well wonder how some
few weeds could mean so much, but the.p0pularity with
Victorians of the "language of flowers" is indicative
of their love for such symbols.15 There are, no doubt,

specific meanings attached to the sundry varieties of

flora to be found in The Hireling Shepherd, as there are

 

to other details which we have not considered. But many
of these meanings would be of a theological nature and

their significance lost in the twentieth century.

25

It is evident that Hunt left the surface meaning
of his painting deliberately undefined, and consequently,
the symbolic aspects of its treatment acquire increased
significance. The sophisticated symbolism of the work
was perhaps too profound for the average Victorian, and
Imost later moral painters did not become so involved with
the complicated harmonies of allusion that marked 222
Hireling Shepherd.

The subject of 2h§,Hireling Shepherd might
easily be expressed as adultery. Adultery not in the
usual sense, but the symbolic adultery of a pastor en-
amoured with theological speculation, and, ultimately,
the adultery of Eve with the devil. For the Victorian
patron, however, the theme of adultery in marriage was
to prove a more feasible illustration of the fall of man,
for it included the fall of the family, and we shall
see how the concept of the family was the foundation of
the society itself. Our next chapter will be concerned
with works in which adultery and the immorality of women
are utilized to demonstrate.both the Christian ideas
about sin and the Victorian concept of sin as the violation

of family structure.

CHAPTER III
THE LESSONS 0F ADULTEBY

The Victorian family won a reputation

for itself as a noble social institution

upon whose continuance depended all that

was fine and stable in British civilisation.1
The family was, without a doubt, one of the more hallowed
entities in Victorian society. The Royal Family
was indeed its finest exemplar.

In the Victorian patriarchy, the father presided

over his ample family in a manner not unlike that of a
Mediaeval Lord over his serfs. His home was his castle
and the unquestioning rule of the father was possible
because it was deemed the prOper situation according to
Protestant religion and middle-class tradition. The
family obeyed the father out of respect for his position,
because God had so ordained it. Little wonder, then,
, that the Victorian was horrified at the mere mention of
adultery, particularly if the offender were the wife.
In the first place, this was due to the excessively
-idealized position occupied by the Victorian woman. Her
real or supposed delicacy of health, coupled with the
confining fashions of the day contributed to the image

of woman as a fragile, pure, andethereal creature,

26

2?

incapable of performing any strenuous sort of work, but

piously bearing children, confident in the Judiciousness

of her admittedly secondary role.\f

Perhaps there was never another period
in history when it would be true to

say thatfa wife was considered-theoreti-
cally an”angel and practically a slaveflQ

__J

and,

In a word the nineteenth—century -
bourgeois wife was less useful to her
husband than wives had ever been before--
less practically useful, that is. Her
function was to promote his egotism by .
herfivefy dependency and also to serve as
a status symbol, to prOVe to his neigh-
bors that he could afford to give his
wife a ”ladyfs life.“3:j '

So it was even more unforgiveable for a woman to commit
adultery inasmuch as it was a heinous violation of patri;
monial authority, an assertion of power and independence
on the part of the woman. A woman who denied her hus-
band's autocratic rule threatened to destroy the very
basis of society, became, like the shepherdess in Hunt's
painting, a latter—day Eve.

Adultery on the part of the man was not so
violently asocial. In fact, one might say that it was
further proof of man's authority that he had a mistress
was well as a wife. In part, at least, this was the
result of another moral/social doctrine:

Ladies were supposed to know nothing of the
physical side of sex until they were married,
and even then, to take no pleasure in it, but

merely submit themselves as victims to the
"animal passions” of their husbands. . . .

28

this resulted in frustrations and tensions
that went far to explain the neurotic fri-
gidity of wives and the sad fact that so
many husbands soug t their sexual satis-
faction elsewhere.
Hence, prostitution was both wisespread and openly
practiced, though, of course, never acknowledged
by "gentle" folk.

The peculiarly sacred position of domesticity
would, of course, not allow for a man to violate the
sanctity of the family by marrying twice, (since divorce
required an act of Parliment until 1865). This is the
reason that the drawing of the "Man with Two Wives,"
(Plate IV, Fig. 2), which we will consider, falls into
this category. By taking a second wife without a divorce,
a man himself violated the bounds of patriarchal authority
set up by the Victorians.

It is the strangely ambivalent position of
women, though, that will be our chief concern in con-
sidering the painter of scenes of adultery and prosti-
tution. The treatment of this subject in narrative
painting borders upon the melodramatic in its presentation.
For us, they may appear to be ludicrous and absurd,
but for the Victorians the subject was far from humorous.
The greatest care must be taken on the part of the

artist to impress his viewers with the grave consequences

of an adulterous relationship.

29

Perhaps the most eloquent example of a work
Iinvolving a wife's unfaithfulness is the set of three
paintings by Augustfis Leopold Egg5 known as Egg; and
Present, (Plate II, Fig. 1; Plate III, Fig. 1 and 2),
painted in 1858. When originally exhibited, the
paintings bore no title, but were accompanied by this
quotation in the catalogue.

Aug. u: Have Just heard that B; has been
dead more than a fortnight, so his poor
children have now lost both parents. I
hear she was seen on Friday last, near the
StranE—evidently without a place to lay
her head--what a fall hers has been!

Until the passage of the Married Woman's PrOperty
Act, which became law in 1862, a wife guilty of adultery
could be turned penniless into the streets by her husband.
Since this painting was done prior to that law, it must
be understood in light of this situation.

In the first scene of the series, the man,
his wife, and two young daughters are the principal
actors in the pictorial drama. The setting is the in-
terior of a well-furnished middle-class home. A table
forms the focal point of the composition. To the right,
the husband sits staring blankly into space in horror
and disgust, his wife lying on the floor, sobbing, at
his feet. In his hand, he holds a letter, evidently
informing him of his wife's unfaithfulness. To the left,

the daughters, who are building a house of cards on a

chair look up from their play. Beyond the table is a

30

fireplace, and in the mirror above it we can glimpse

an Open door, perhaps the very door we are looking
through. At each side of the fireplace are two framed
pictures. Aside from its effective and dramatic pres-
entation of the scene, this is excedingly rich in moral
symbolism.

The consciousness of time is immediately
apparent in this painting, and time is an important
concern in nearly all Victorian moral painting.7
It was not so important an element in Eng Hireling
Shepherd because the scene was not itself a specific
one. Here, however, the temporal elements are
emphasized in obvious ways, the whole idea of the
series of three paintings being to present the scenes
in separate times and places. The cinematic format
is heightened in effect by the impression of action
present in the first scene. It is apparent that the
artist's chosen scene is the immediate aftermath of
a rather violent confrontation between husband and the
wife he has discovered to be unfaithful. Since the
older of the two daughters looks up, somewhat surprised,
while the other has apparently not yet noticed what
has happened, we can surmise that it was only a moment
before that the husband entered the room with his con-
demming letter. This impression is further substantiated

by his hat carelessly tossed on the table, and his

31

umbrella which lies carelessly tossed on a chair in
the foreground. The open door in the mirror seems to
indicate that in his fury he has left the door Open,
as he rushed into the room. The wife, who was peeling
an apple, (probably for the little girls), has fallen
to the floor, along with half the apple.

The reference to Eve that the apple would seem
to indicate is further advanced by the pictures on the
wall: at the left of the fireplace hangs the wife's
portrait in an oval frame, beneath what appears to be a
print in a larger frame. The print depicts the
Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden! The husband's
framed portrait is square, (an analogy for his honesty?),
and hangs beneath a reproduction of Clarkson Stanfield's
picture of a shipwreck, entitled The Abandoned8 referring,
nodoubt, to the situation of the husband. Again, the
Open door could refer to the fate of the wife, while
the umbrella might mean that life in the street is not
so comfortable as in the suburban home. The girls play
with a house of cards, probably to symbolize either .
the flimsiness of an adulterous relationship or the
approaching fall of their own household. More pertinately,
it represents society itself, which cannot exist, (in
the Victorian sense at least), if such relationships
(like card-houses) are its foundations. Symbolically,
too, the knife left on the table stuck through the apple

points significantly to the victim of Eve's sin: the husband.

32

The daughters seem to be included to increase
pathos and invoke pity for their plight. They also
could be used in order that other little girls might
identify with them and perceive how sad is the situation
of a family that is broken because of sin.

In the other two paintings in the set, we see
the sequel to the first scene. Though not nearly so
dramatic, and far less symbolic, they continue the moral
lesson implied in the first, bringing it to its logical
conclusion.

Years have passed and the daughters, now grown,
sit in their room, the older gazing out the window at
the moon, as she tries to comfort the younger. The
father has died, and they are alone, wondering, no doubt,
where their mother might be. The two framed pictures
of mother and father hanging to either side of the
window, give no specific moral reference this time,
but carry out the theme of reverence for the family.
Paired with this scene is the third painting: the other
side of the picture, so to speak. The mother sits
beneath the Adelphi arches, looking across the Thames,
crouching miserably among rotting boats as she tries
to comfort an illegitimate child beneath her shawl.

She gazes at the same moon her daughter viewed, with
remorse‘, and the rotting boat and basket symbolize her

own ruined life, for indeed, she does not even have a

33

roof over her head. 0n the damp wall, posters pro-
claim, “Pleasure excursions to Paris,“ and "Victims"
and other references to the state of the woman. The
solitary word, "Return,“ may carry a glimmer of hOpe,
a faint one indeed, but for those partial to happy
endings, the solution is there. It would be most dif-
ficult for a fallen woman to resume her place intthe
family structure.

Obviously, the first painting is the most
interestingfrom the standpoint of dramatic symbolism,
composition, and emotional impact on the viewer. In
fact, it could easily stand alone, with the somewhat
pathetic figure of the wife thrust uncompromisingly
upon the viewf-and the moral consciousness--of the
spectator. But it is still significant for our study
that Egg thought the two other paintings necessary to
complete the thought. This demonstrates both the
consciousness on the artist's part of impressing the
audience with the extent of the crime, as well as his
particular interest in dramatic scenes. The latter
interest must certainly be a heightened by his own
career as an amateur actor.

The seeming heartlessness on the part of the
Victorian man under such conditions is quite incompre-
hensible to us, but it was bound up with his moral duty

and society. Sentimental as Victorians could be,

34

they could have little sympathy for the "Damned" in
their society.
The woman of the streets, though depicted by

Egg as a most wretched creature was in truth, not
always so unhappy. Wealthy mistresses often married
as they grew older and were submerged into respectable
society:

It is a vulgar error and a popular delusion

that the life of a prostitute is as revolting

to herself as it appears to the moralist

sternly lamenting over the condition of the

fallen. . . . Women who in youth have lost

their virtue often contrive to retain their

reputation; and even when this is not the

case, frequently amalgamate imperceptibly

with the purer portion of the pepulation.10
So wrote a contemporary sociologist. It was complained
that one could not distinguish the lady of the street
from the Duchess by the cut of her clothes or her manners.
Fine apparel, driving ponies, saddle horses, and a
plush suburban home with elegant furnishings came to
the more fortunate kept women.11 Lest the lure of the
streets be too great for the young girl destined for
the near-slavery of the shops or the routine life of
a governess or teacher, the painter Joined in the ad-
monition by denouncing the immoral life of the demi-
monde.

Among the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites,

two of the best-known are works dealing with the kept

12L
woman: Found, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (Plate IV,

35

Fig. 1); and The.Awakcning Conscience, (Plate 'V, Fig. 1),
by Holman Hunt. ‘Egugg was painted between 1853 and

1865, and was Rossetti's only attempt at painting

the contemporary moral subject. It remains unfinished.
The scene depicted is of a young farmer who has come

to town to sell a calf at the market. As he passes a
street corner, a young lady recognizes him as her once
betrothed sweetheart and hides from him, for she has
become a woman of the streets. But the young man has
likewise recognized his former loved one, and here we

see him in the act of pulling the girl's hands away

from her face as she shuts her eyes and cringes in shame
against the brick wall. The young man's expression
betrays both disgust and pity for the fallen girl.
Certainly, the calf led to slaughter in the city symbolizes
the once-innocent young girls symbolic death in the

city.

As is the case with Egg's painting, the scene
is highly dramatic, emotional, and instructional in its
moral overtones. It has a similar sense of time, for
.we can sense that the incident has Just occured. The
Juxtaposition of the plain, simple garb of the farmer
with the gaudy and frivolous dress of the girl bespeaks
something of the rough, but honest, countryman.. As in
Thg_Hireling Shepherd, the painting hints at the evils

of industrialization, but only in an oblique way.

36

Hunt's painting of a similar subject13 in The
Awakening Conscience is the most complete symbolic
moral painting dealing with this subject. Typical
of Hunt's style, there is not an object in the painting
with out intentional moral implications. Originally,
the painting was intended as a companion—piece to
his work, 222.£$§§E.2£.E§2‘E22$Q: of 1851-1853, which
portrays Christ knocking on a weed-covered door holding
a lantern. The intent of Th3.Awakening Conscience was
to show how the light of God could penetrate to those
who are lost in the depths of darkness. As Hunt put it,

The pathetic verse in Proverbs, "As

he that taketh away a garment in cold
weather, so is he that sings songs to a
heavy heart," had led me to this subject
when thinking of a material interpretation
of the idea in “The Light of the World."
My desire was to show how the still small
voice speaks to a human soul in the
turmoil of life.14

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1854 with the following quotations in the catalogue.

’As of the green leaves on a thick tree,
some fall and some grow; so is the
generation of flesh and blood'--
Ecclesiastes, xiv, 18.

'Strengthen ye the feeble hands, and
confirm ye the tottering knees; say

ye to the faint hearted: Be ye strong;
fear ye not; behold your God.'-- 1
Isaiah--Bishop Lowth's translation. 5

It is interesting to note that Augustus Egg persuaded
Thomas Fairburn to commission this painting, further

evidence of the link between Egg and the Pre-Raphaelites.16

37

In the painting itself, we are presented with
a young man and his mistress in her plush apartment.
The young man is singing as he carelessly plays the
piano, with his left hand, his right arm about his
lady's waist. The woman has suddenly jumped up from
his lap with a startled look. The intent is to show
that the young man has unknowingly launched into a
song which stirred long-suppressed emotions and awakens
the conscience Of the young woman tO the evils Of her
present situation, inducing in her a moral resolve:
to repent Of her sins. As in our two preceding works,
the sense Of drama is intensified by the implied action
Of the scene. The conversion has Just this moment
taken place. The young man, still singing, does not
yet realize that his companion is no longer Of the same
mind as he. The expression on the woman's face is the
focal point Of the painting, (though it was altered
somewhat from its original state in 1856-7 when the
owner complained that he found it painful to lOOk at).17
Behind the two chief figures, a mirror reflects the
window that Opens into the room, providing the spectator
a logical means Of access, Just as did Egg's painting.

'Due to some adverse criticism that the painting
received when first exhibited, John Ruskin wrote tO
222.2i22fi clarifying Hunt's picture. Not that he
found it difficult to understand himself, for,

38

"I am at a loss to know how the meaning could be

«18

rendered more distinctly. But there seemed to be

tOO great a profusion Of symbolism for the average '
Spectator to fathom. Ruskin explains the circumstances
Of the painting and the scene depicted, calling attention
to the girl's face, and gives a most interesting explan-
ation Of the profusion of detail:

Nothing is more notable than the way

in which even the most trivial ObJects
force themselves upon the attention of a
mind which has been fevered by violent
and distressful excitement. They thrust
themselves forward with a ghastly and un-
endurable distinctness, as if they would
compel the sufferer to count, or measure,
or learn them by heart.1

Then Ruskin turns to an interpretation Of some Of these
details:

There is not a single ObJect in all that
room, common, modern, vulgar, . . . but
it becomes tragical if rightly read. That
furniture, so carefully painted even to the
last vein Of the rosewood--is there nothing
to be learnt from that terrible lustre of it,
. from its fatal newness; nothing there that has
' the Old thoughts Of home upon it, or that is
ever to become part Of home? Those embossed
books, vain and useless--they also new-—
marked with no happy wearing Of beloved , ,
leaves; the torn and dying bird upon the floor;
the gilded tapestry with the fowls Of the air
feeding on the ripened corn; the picture above
the fireplace with its single drooping figure--
the woman taken in adultery; nay the very hem
Of the poor girl's dress, which the painter has
laboured so closely thread by thread, has a-
story in it, if we think how soon its pure
whiteness may be soiled with dust and rain, her
outcast feet failing in the street; and the fair
garden flowers seen in the reflected sunshine
of the mirror-~these also have their language:

39
Hope not to find delight in us, they say,
For we are spotless, Jessy-~we are pureZO
The bird to which Ruskin refers appears beneath the
table, molested by a large cat, certainly a metaphor
for the couple's relationship. On the piano, the
music sheet is entitled, 0ft in the Stilly Night,
the song which has stirred memories Of home, mother,
and father in the heart or the girl. On the floor in
the immediate foreground is a copy of music by Edgar
Lear to Tennyson's Tears, Idle Tears. On the table
is a copy Of a book identified as Noel Humphrey's
published in 1853. Tangled embroidering wools are
strewn on the floor. The man's hat is on the table,
giving the impression that he does not live there, and
he still wears his left glove, while his right hand is
ungloved, and the glove lies on the floor. The tapestry
behind them has a deeper meaning, tOO.
[In ifilThe corn and vine are left unguarded
by the slumbering cupid watchers and the fruit
is left to be preyed upon by thievish birds. . .
-The parallelism, it was hoped, might lead
the spectator's mind to reflections beyond
thOse suggested by the inc dents connected
with the scene portrayed.
The beauty of the spring day reflected in the mirror
contrasts with the darker room, and reminds one of the
lantern carried by Christ in The Light‘gg the World,

though, Of course, this scene takes place in the day.

In his comments regarding this painting, Ruskin

#0

acknowledged that some people might be distraught
by the fact that the detail drew attention away from
the subject. The earlier criticisms of the painting
also pointed this out as one of its faults. It seems
strange, though, that the critics were unable to see
any meaning in the reflections in the mirror: “the
complicated compound shadow in the mirror is also
a mere piece of intricacy without any good or valuable
effort."22 It is obvious that she has her back against
the light, indicating that she has formerly "turned
her back on God's light," but she has now turned her
back on her lover.

A wealth of other details in this painting
are not without their symbolic meaning, but are less
easy to decipher. They are afforded great prominence,
but nowhere are they interpreted in allegorical terms.
Again, we are faced with the necessity of more personal
interpretation. As Hunt points out, we are supposed
to learn a lesson from it that goes beyond the mere
scene in the painting, and part'of that lesson is
wrapped up in our individual associations. Fer example,
if we think that the embroidery wools are a comment on
the leisurely life of the mistress, who would often
employ herself‘with such handiwork while awaiting the

whimsical arrival of her keeper; or if we chose to

#1

interpret it as her tangled, disrupted life, the
artist would probably feel that the symbol was equally
successful, for the important thing was that the
viewer had contemplated the meaning.

Concerning the moral value of this painting,
Ruskin wrote:

There will not be found one powerful as

this to meet full in the front the moral evil
of the age in which it is painted; to waken
into mercy the cruel thoughtlessness of youth,
and subdue the severities of Judgement into
the sanctity of compassion.

Thg_Awakening Conscience is an excellant demon-
stration of the manner in which the moral style of
painting was adapted to the needs of middle-class
morality. The theme here is simular in many ways
to that of the Hireling Shepherd, though positive
in its outlook. The tapestry theme is very much
like the "strayed sheep" idea. But the difference is
that the subject is much more specific, much more
relevant on the surface level, as well as retaining
symbolic meanings. Its positive outlook might also
have been more amenable to the middle-class patron.
—So Hunt, too, appears to be working for the taste of
the day.

Having considered three important Victorian
works involving immoral women, we find that the number

of works dealing specifically with a husband's

adultery are considerably less. I know of no paintings

#2

which make use of this theme, though it would not Surprise

me to discover one. A drawing in pen and ink by '

Sir John Everett MillaisZ” will serve to illustrate

the Victorian treatment of the subject. It would “r_el

seem, though, as we shall see in the subsequent chapter

that the Victorians preferred to consider gambling to

be the evil that plagued men, rather than sexual immorality.
This drawing, entitled "The Man with two Wives,"

orWRetribution," (Plate IV, Fig..2), was made in 185#.

In the scene, a young man hangs his head and his new

bride looks aghast as his former wife and children

present themselves. The little daughter reaches Joyfully

for "daddy," while the son holds his mother's arm and

~pulls shyly away. Like the previous paintings, it is

excedingly dramatic. It is also quite easy to grasp

the circumstances immediately from the scene, but, per-

. haps, this is due to the fact that this is a drawing,

not a painting, therefore much less finished in its

treatment of detail. Certainly, the dramatic presen-

tation of the scene with its emphasis upon the emotions

of the five people appeals to one's sentiment. Again,

there is the sense of immediacy--the woman has Just

been shown into the bridal chamber by the maid who appears

in the doorway.

The characteristics, then, of the painting
dealing with adultery or illicit sexual relations are

a great sense of dramatic action coupled with horror

“3

or dismay. The emotional conflict of the indi-
viduals involved is the real subject of each. The
intent of the artist in all cases was to instruct.
Just as the early Christian art was used to instruct
the people, so this variety of:§oral art Served a

similar purpose: to teach lessons of morality to both

young and old. This purpose was possible due mainly

rm

f

to the widespread use of prints which we have already
‘ noted. H

So we may conclude, that in the case of this
type of moral painting, the artist not only fulfilled
his own moral obligation to society, by putting a
lesson in the disasters of immorality before an increas-
ingly large audience; he also furthered the cause of
his own salvation through such missionary work. A
child who grew up with Egéfilggg Present on the wall
of her home would ideally not violate the family's
sanctity in a similar manner, despite the impossi-

bilities of divorce at the time.

CHAPTER IV
THE MISFORTUNES 0F GAMBLERS

If well-to-do Victorian men spent much of their

time with women of the demi-monde; it would appear
that the rest of their time was spent at the race
track.

The man of pleasure, indeed, seems to

haVe had only two passions: women and

horses. . . . Certainly women and horses

provided the best and quickest means of

getting rid of even substantial fortunes.1
For the man with less than substantial means, the results
of betting were even more disastrous. The inevitable
loans and ultimate disgrace and poverty from losses
at the track made life increasingly difficult for those
dependent upon him. The vice of gambling knew no
class boundaries, and was practiced by aristocrat and
shop-worker alike. Worse still, it was known that the
Prince of Wales himself was addicted to this dangerous
sport, playing cards for money and betting on horses,
though always on a moderate scale.2

The evils of gambling, then, certainly could

not be overlooked as a subject for the painter of moral

themes. As in the paintings dealing with adultery,

the emphasis is on the lesson to be taught, and once

4n

45

again the effect of the situation upon the family of
the gambler is eXploited by the artist to create a
pathetic situation. Indeed, the attitude of the
Victorian artist toward ganbling seems far more tol-
erant than his feeling toward adultery, but that would
be eXpected in view of our comments on the position

of man in society. Usually, the artist chooses to
portray the gambler as a well-dressed and wealthy
member of the upper stratum of society. A notable
exception is found in w. P. Frith's 3 large painting,
Egrby gay, of 1856-1858“ in which gamblers of the more
vulgar type appear alongside those who are obviously
wealthy. The many types of gambling practiced at the
Derby are reproduced in this enormous canvas. Frith's
first visit to the Derby in 1856 aroused his interest
in painting the "kaleidoscopic aSpect of the crowd,"5
and he mentions, "gambling-tents and thimble-rigging,
prick in the garter and the three-card trick, had not -
then been stopped by the police."6 An analysis of the
‘Qgrby 22y, however, lies beyond the scope of our present
subject, for it does not deal specifically with
gambling as a lesson in morality. In the latter vein,
however, Frith painted a series of five paintings in
1877, entitled 2b.: 3931 .122. 53g (Plates VI and VII,
and Plate VIII, Fig. i). The detail in Frith's work

tends to be far more literal than in those of Hunt or

46

Egg that we have considered. Rather than assigning
Specific symbolic meanings to details, Frith seems to
prefer a wealth of objects which give further meaning
to the story itself. In fact, this seems to be the
method preferred by the majority of the artists who
paint this type of subject. Thus, it is not necessary
to search beyond detail for another, symbolic, meaning,
though the artist has made that the viewer's option.

With this in mind, we can take a closer look
at the five scenes Frith created. The first of these
is almost entirely explained by the artist in this
passage:

I desired to trace the career of a youth
from his college days to his ruin and death--
a victim to one of the most fatal vices. In
the first scene my hero is entertaining a
party of friends in his college-room, who
have played at cards all night. One of them,
perhaps the youngest, has fallen asleep on
a sofa while the rest are still engaged in
furious play. The window-curtain is drawn
aside by one of the non-players, and the dawn
is evident by the lighting up of towers
of an opposite collrge by the earliest rays
of the sun. Another guest blows out a
candle no longer needed./

The drama continues with the second scene, in
which,

my youth has grown to manhood, and is engaged
in far more dangerous play than three—card loo;
for he is the centre of attraction in the
Royal Enclosure at Ascot to a horde of betting-
men, who are offering him chance after chance
of immediate or prospective ruin.a

47

The "hero," dressed elegantly, naively writes checks
while a friend presses his arm, trying in vain to
save the young man from his fate. The painting is an
excellant example of Frith's unique ability to put
a crowd of people into a painting quite successfully.
The large number of fashionably-attired ladies in the
Royal Enclosure seems indicative of the fact that the
man of pleasure's two favorite sports, gambling and
women, were "strangely intertwined."9
In the third painting, we catch a glimpse of

the upper-class home as,

the young man is seen in his ancestral

homea-with his wife and children--

in the hands of bailiffg who have

arrested him for debt.
The panelled interior is handsomely furnished, with
a number of paintings on the walls. The gentleman,
wearing a dressing gown over his trousers and waistcoat,
leans nonohalantly against the fireplace, cigar in
hand, as he gazes at the bailiff who presents the order
for his arrest. The other bailiff looks to the man's
family with pity, while the wife rises from her chair,
in shock. The little boy looks with disbelief at his
father, while the little girl continues to play with
her doll, apparently oblivious to the situation. The
wife and children are fashionably dressed as would befit

an upper-class family. In the background, two servants

H8

express their amazement over the incident.
A fairly long interval elapses between this

and the fourth scene, and now we find the man,

away from his natiVe land endeavoring

to earn a subsistence by writing plays;

while his wife devotes herself to painting

in water-colours in the hOpe of selling

her work, and thus adding to their slender

means. A French landlady presses for her

rent, the wife appeals to the woman, and

the husband is in despair.
The meagre furnishings of the room attest to the poverty
that now plagues the family. A new baby, (seen in the
crib at far left beneath a crucifix), an added burden,
has made the family's plight even more desperate.
Mother, father, and children all appear thinner, and
the daughter looks sickly and frail as she attempts
to warm herself before the fire. The boy--grown some-
what taller now--tries to console the despairing
father.

In the final scene,

my luckless hero is seen in the fifth and

last picture fastening the door of a

miserable attic, with an expression on

his face, that, assisted by the pistol

'ready to his hand, admits of but one
interpretation——death by his own hand.

12

In the decrepit garrett room, we find no clue as to
where the family might be. A cupboard door thrown
Open reVeals that it is pathetically empty. 0n the
floor is a letter from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane,

rejecting a comedy the fallen man had written. Only

49

an empty wicker crib from which a blanket hangs, and
a scattered toy orttwo attest to the fact that the
family has been here. A woman's hatbox seems to hint
at the possibility that the wife has Just left, taking
the children with her. This seems likely in view of
the impression that the crib has only recently been
deserted, the blanket left on its side, suggesting
that the family might have left hurriedly.

Once again, then, we have a lesson by example
of the perils that await the immoral person. A series
of this type has all the effect of a full-scale drama,
plus the advantage of being continually before the _
spectator, hence far less easily erased from the memory.
Again, the presence of children gives it added impact
in molding the moral configuration of the younger gener-
ation. .

A painting which seems almost a part of the
series is R. B. Hartineau'sl3 222’L§§£.Q§l‘iglth§’gld
EQQEJ completed in 1862. The artist worked on the
painting for almost ten years, and it is earlier than
Frith's series, though there 15 no evidence that
Frith was inspired by it specifically. The painting,
(See Plate VIII, Fig. 2), depicts the selling of the
family home to pay for debts incurred by the gambler.
In the foreground, at the right, the father hoists

a glass of liquor to toast the old home for the last

50

time. His hand is on the shoulder of his son, who
is also drinking. The mother appears to plead with
her husband not to teach the boy to follow in his
footsteps by drinking and gambling. At the left,
the old mother of the family makes arrangements with
the bailiff for the sale. The bailiff looks as though
he pities the plight of this family, and finds it an
unpleasant duty to deprive them of their home because
of the husband's foolish behavior. The young daughter
plays with her doll in much the same manner as her
counterpart in Frith's series. Lying on the floor
is a sale catalogue, bearing the name of the home
about to be put on the auction block: Hardham Court.
Nearly all the articles in the room have been tagged
with sale numbers, and two men in the bacfigound are
completing the tagging of saleable objects. In the
left foreground we see evidence of the type of gambling
that brought this ruin: a painting of a race horse.

The husband here, as in Frith’s work, seems
so foolish as to be almost unaware of what the loss of
his home means. He seems to be almost unconcerned,
yet, surely, he should be concerned, and the eXpression
on the man's face seems to indicate that he is not so
composed as he appears to be.

One final work of le same type is the pen-

and-ink drawing by Millais of 1853 entitled The Race

51

Meeting, (See Plate IX). Although this was completed
at an earlier date than either of the previous works,
it was never exhibited, and probably did not influence
either of those works. Rather, it is representative
of the moral consciousness of the period in regard

to the "evils of gambling,“ which resulted in a

large number of works of this type.

In this drawing, the combination of drinking
and gambling is again exploited. The gentleman, who
appears to have had a few more drinks than were
necessary, is being accosted by a large group of men
wanting to take bets from him. He has, of course,
satisfied them all by his wholesale betting, and like
vultures, they stand about hoping for a bit more,
some holding out their hands, one whispering in his
ear. The poor wife can hardly believe her eyes that
her husband would allow this gang of scoundrels to
strip him of all his money. Yet, this is indeed what
has happened. Perhaps they have even persuaded him
to borrow some money to stake on a "sure thing."
Whatever the case, the lady covers her face in hOpeless
grief and the motley crowd decendsupon the carriage.
This drawing approaches caricature in the rendering
of the faces of the betting—men, and seems remini-
scent of the work of Hogarth. This may be due to the

medium involved or an int:r:St in Hogarth on Millais' part.1u

52

The works on gambling differ, then, consider-1
ably from those dealing with adultery. While in both
the situation was pathetic for the family involved,
perhaps even for the sinner, in the paintings dealing
with gambling, the attitude evoked by the artist toward
the wrong-doer is totally different. In the case of
the woman, we were given the analogy of Eve, the evil
woman; here the man becomes Adam, the foolish man.

He is treated almost as though he were possessed by

a strange malady over which he had no control. Indeed
the Victorian concept of the "animal passions" of men
to which we have earlier referred15 leads us to believe
that men were unable to control themseIVes in certain
situations. This is curious in light of the patri-
archal ideals, but certainly it made it easier to
explain why men did wrong.

It is notable, too, that these works all deal
with upper-class men, mg; the middle-class. The pur-
pose of this, we might assume is to pamper the middle—
class patrons, who must have liked to think that the
old aristocracy was degenerate, lazy, and sinful
unlike the hard-working, honest, middle-classes. To
have shown a middle-class gambler would have been to
-insinuate that there might be something wrong with
the society in which the artist worked. To show an
evil middle-class woman only confirmed the suspicions

of the husband that the wife must be controlled firmly.

53

Because of the different position of man in
the social structure, the paintings dealing with a
vice specifically masculine in nature are handles with
a more literal, straightforward approach, utilizing
symbolism less frequently. he result is that the
incident portrayed does not take on the ominous signi-
ficance of a parable, but rather appears to be only
a scene from life. There is no emphasis on emotional
stress (except in the case of Frith's fifth scene),
nor are there overtones of indecency and shame such
as marked the adultery paintings. Surely, no one
would have condoned the ruinous life of a gambler,
but it was not accompanied by the blushing morality
and the "conspiracy of silence” that marked matters
involving sex. Thus, where the sins of men were con-
cerned, there was a good deal more of understanding
and compassion on the part of both artist and spectator,
and never a reference to the patron-class. In this
sense, also, The Hir’ling Shepherd avoided the middle

class in its comment on the foolishness of man.

CHAPTER V
THE PATHETIC

By far the largest number of paintings dealing
with moral subjects fall into the category we have en-
titled "the pathetic." They deal with situations
intended to evoke pity and piety in the viewer. The
number of works which fall into this category is
enormous, and the treatment of them has been necessar-
ily limited to a few examples in each of three broad
categories, i. e.: (1), death and mourning; (2)
the poor and destitute; and (3) sickness and invalids.

One has but to turn through the pages of any
Victorian women's periodical to be convinced of the
importance of the pathetic to the nineteenth century
mind. There is an endless array of poems and stories
about dead children, dying children, invalids, and
other unfortunate people. It might appear to us to
be an almost sadisticconcern with such unhappy affairs,
but if we believe this, we are no aware of the Victor-
ian attitude toward the pathetic. To our minds the
concern for such things is both morbid and maudlin.

In our own society, we tend to avoid such unpleasantries

54

'-

55

altogether, for we have hospitals and rest homes where
people can die inconspicuously. But for the Victorian,
when death came, as with birth, it was usually in the
home, and, consequently, a much more immediate eXper-
‘ ience than it is in our own era. This goes far to
explain the funeral portraits and photographs (of the
dead person in his casket), that were commonplace
decorations for the parlor wall.1 Since both birth
and death took place in the home, the Victorian was
ever conscious of the Providence that gave, sustained,
and took away the lives of loved ones. This intimacy
with death made it more a part of everyday existence
than it has been in the mid-twentieth century.

Th

(D

sentimental concern with death was also
responsible for the Victorians' fondness for passing
a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the graveyard.2 Their
closeness to death, which helped to asuage their grief
over the loss of a loved one, and their firm belief
in the goodness of God (in whose care the dead now
rested), made such Sunday outings more like family
reunions than morbid setimentality over graves.

Two paintings which represent graveyard scenes
will serve to demonstrate this aspect of moral painting.r

These are The Doubt: Can These 23y Bones Live? by

 

 

 

Henry Alexander Bowler3 (See Plate X, fig. 1) and

Home From the Sea, or §_Kother's Grave, (Plate X; Fig. 2),

by Arthur Hughes, painted 1856-1863.+

56

In the first painting, we have a scene in
a graveyard with a young woman leaning contemplatively
over a tombstone, considering (as the title indicates),
the wonders of Christian rebirth. The answer to her
- doubt appears in the forground. Another grave marker,
bearing the word BESURGAM, has given root to a large
horse-chestnut tree. The dry bones, evidenced by the
skull at the left, are given further impetus by.a
bright blue butterfly perched there, the whole being
a simple demonstration that indeed there is life in
death. This work was painted in 1856, but it lacks
the intricacy of most of our previous paintings. It
demonstrates the use of the techniques developed by
the Pre-Raphaelites to convey a message that is not
particularly profound.

Although Bowler's painting teaches a moral
(or perhaps we should say a religious)lesson , the
second painting is much more effective in this respect.

in Home From the Sea, the scene depicted is of a boy

 

who has left his mother for the adventuresome life of
the sea, and returns, only to find a newly-dug grave.
Overcome by his grief, he lies sobbing at the side

of the grave, remorseful and helpless, regreting that

he could not have been with his mother in her last hours,
perhaps feeling that had he stayed she would not have
died. The girl next to the sailor, whom we might

assume to be his sister, was added at the later date,

5?

and did not constitute a part of the original com-
position.5 Though the subject is as emotionally-
loaded as a Victorian painter could have desired, Hughes'
treatment has a surprising delicacy of feeling that
tends to remove it from the exaggerated pathos of
many similar works. The figure of the girl, solitary,
monumental, and helpless, too, in consoling the boy's
grief, has enhanced the original effect. The boy's
hat and bundle have been thrown to the ground at the
right. The details of the landscape background are
carefully rendered in the Pre-Raphaelite manner.
A heavy shadow across the grave reflects the mood of
the young man, while the background is bathed in
sunlight, and a lamb grazes among the tombstones. The
light and the lamb might be overt references to religious
ideas of resurrection but they are not specific enough
to make it certain.

The pathetic is here heightened by the
ambiguity of the boy's role: did he leave home of
necessity or for the sake of adventure? If it were from \
necessity, then the tragedyis increased by the irony
of the necessary leaving of home to help the family
ending in the loss of the mother. 0n the other hand,
it is also like a prodigal son motif, if the boy had
left purely for the sake of the adventure. Once
again, we have a painting that not only provokes pathetic

.emotions, but also teaches a lesson in morality.

58

Pathetic, too, were the scenes of persons
grieving over the death of loved ones, not because
of remorse, but simple because it was a sad thing to
lose a relative. Our own reaction to hanging on the
wall such a painting as Woman's Mission-gag Eggs,

(Plate x1), by G. e. Hicks6

would most certainly be
negative. This work depicts a woman consoling her
husband over a death in the family. In his hand,

he holds the black;edged letter which informed him of
the bereavement, and his wife tries to comfort him

in his grief. It is as difficult to understand this

as it is to understand portraits of the dead or flower-
covered caskets. In each case, the intent was not
morbid, but moral.

There was another aspect to the pathetic which
is often overlooked, but of paramount importance to
the morally-minded Victorian. This was the importance
of the setiment itself. Though the Victorian's idea
of helping the indigent was to build more churches
and contribute to the Society for the Prevention of
Vice,7 he was still eXpected to feel pity for those
who were virtuous, but less fortunate than he. It was,
in fact, immoral not to feel pity for those deserving
of it. It is easy for us to view this show of pity
as an outgrowth of guilt on the part of the wealthy

Victorian who saw nothing immoral in accumulating

59

wealth at the expense of others. He felt greatest
pity for the sick, the blind, the crippled, the
grief-stricken parents of a dead child, or a high-
born person forced into desperate poverty through
no fault of his own. He felt it was the grace of
God that kept him from similar circumstances, and
instead of working to alleviate suffering, he thanked
God that it was not his own lot in life. The strong
sense of predestination; of a plan for the progress
of society ordained by God, was one of the major
factors inhibiting the passage of much social legi-
slation, (such as laws prohibiting children under
thirteen from working over forty-eight hours a week),
until after 1866. It seems incredible to us that any-
one who could oppose such legislation would be capable
of pity, but on the other hand, it would be difficult
to accuse the Victorians of lacking pity. The fault
may lie in their religious reaction to bad conditions
as part of the "vale of tears," that the Protestant
believed the world was. It seems, hOWever, that the
middle-class had things a trifle better than the
factory—working children and the slum-dwellers.

With these comments in mind, we turn to our
second group of paintings, those concerned with the
perils of poverty and failure. Three paintings which

illustrate the concern over the predicament of the poor

60

are Richard Redgrave'58 The Poor Teacher (Plate XII,
Fig. l) of 18cc; Emily Mary Osborne‘s9 Nameless and
Friendless, (Plate XII, Fig. 2); of 1857; and Ford
Madox Brown'slo Last 2; En land, (Plate XIII), 1855.
Redgrave's The Poor Teacher is described by
Lister in this way:
[It] is the narrative painting par
excellence, telling a story, yet not
telling all, for much is left to us
to piece together. We are left in exquisite
suspense.
The painting represents the pitiful story of a young
girl forced to work as a teacher, who has Just receiVed
a letter telling her of a death in the family. She
holds the letter on her lap. The plight of the
working-girl was frightful to the Victorian, who con-
sidered it prOper for his wife and daughters to do
nothing,
"My daughter, I am glad to say, has
no need to work." In some such phrase must
many a rising shop-keeper . . . have congratif
ulated himself.12
Hemce, the story of the young girl's fate was viewed
with genuine horror by the head-of the middle-class
Victorian family.

In the governess, he saw, but
for the grace of God, his own daughters.13

At this time, the roles of teacher and governess were
practically interchangeable, and the lot of either
left much to be desired.14

61

"The young woman in the painting, not a great
deal older than her pupils, wears a dark, high-necked
gown in contrast to the light, low-necked, and short-
sleeved ones of the girls. Still, as Ruth Greenls
points out, there are some incongruities in her attire.

i‘Her dress, with the puffed sleeves,ais not so plain

L as might have been eXpected, and its cape or collar
has no relevance to the out of the dress, with the
white collar above it. It seems that the young lady
is making use of a dress from better days. Her hair
style is likewise somewhat frivolous, with the curls
at the sides, rather than pulled into a simple bun.
These are clues that the woman has come from a reason-
ably good family, but for some reason has been forced
to go to work. We might guess that the prolonged
illness of the relative of whose death she has Justed
learned created the necessity for her present situation.

Other details in the painting include the music
on the piano of “Home, Sweet, Home," referring, no
doubt, to the young teacher's thoughts. The stack of
books on the table verifies the fact that she is a
teacher (rather than a governess), and the top one is
laid Open, as though she were reading it when she
received her letter. On the table is a tea cup, indi-
cative, perhaps, of her frugal repast. The seated
girl gazes enviously at the two girls playing outside

and the whole painting is divided into a dark side,

62

(occupied by the teacher), and a light side, where the
younger girls are.

The tragedy is increased by the contrast between
the lively young girls (girls such as she herself must
have been a short while ago), and the mourning young
‘woman, who has not only lost a loved one, but has also
lost her chance of being placed in a "good" marriage
by her family as these girls surely will be.{fiThe
tragedy of the working girl was a lesson for the
middle-class father more than for any other member of
Victorian society.‘ For him, it was a continual reminder
of his own importance to his wife and daughters,
and he must be thankful that Providence has made it
possible for him to keep his own family in luxury.

For the wives and daughters themselves, such a reminder
was aimed at underlining the importance of the head

of the household, and the fate of the woman without

a male protector. J

Nameless and Friendless is quite similar in
content. Here, the woman, destitute, has come to
one of the art dealers of the period to try to sell
her watercolours. Since watercolours were a hobby
of well-to-do women, we might suppose that she was once
more fortunate. Now, ironically, she has only her
slight talent in creating trivial scenes to save

herself and children from starvation. The expression

(of the dealer is so readable that it needs no elucidation.

63

The woman herself, with a boy we may assume to be her
son, stares bleakly at the floor, nervously playing
with the wrapping string she holds between her hands.
The boy looks at the older man almost defiantly.
The woman, in this case, is probably a widow. int that
ltime, women had almost no property rights, and a woman
without a husband or father was unable to assume any
reapectable position in society,;consequently forced
to become a teacher, governess, or domestic servant--
or a prostitute. Many women in this situation must
have tried to use such mean skills as they had to
remain respectable yet make a living. This painting
is even more interesting when we realize that the
artist was a woman. Perhaps She knew this situation
all too well!

Of a somewhat different sentiment is Ford
Madox Brown's Lg t‘gf England. It was painted at a
time when a close friend of the artist had emmigrated
to Australia and Brown was tempted to follow. In fact,
the man and wife in the painting are actually portraits
of Brown himself and his wife, Emma.16 The hand of
a child that the wife grasps under her shawl was also
’painted from one of their own children. The artist
wrote a sonnet about the emmigrants, beginning with

these lines:

The Last of England! o‘er the sea, my dear
Our homes to seek amid Australian fields,17

64

The sonnet describes the scene, ending with,
She grips his listless hand and clasps her child,
Through rainbow tears she sees a sunnier gleam,
She cannot see a void where he will be.18
Aside from the excellent summary of the relationship
between husband and wife, the sonnet demonstrates some
of the ideas the artist was attempting to convey through
the couple's eXpressions. Here is a man who, in a sense,
has admitted defeat. His embittered expression shows
that he feels betrayed by his native land, feels that
it should not be necessary for him to leave his well-
loved England in order to seek his fortune. The wife
looks sad, but seems also firmly resolved that they
will have a new life, and grips her husbandls hand to
demonstrate her confidence. In the background, "a
reprobate shakes his fist with curses at the land of his
birth . . . his old mother reproves him,"19 A child -
stares bewilderedly next to its mother. The lifeboat
in the background bears the name, "Eldorado."

Again, the theme that is exploited is appealing--
or horrifying-~as the case may be, to the middle-class
gentleman of the day. As in the previous works, the
idea of failure is impressed upon the viewer, though
in this case the failure is accompanied by hope. All
of the paintings seem to emphasize the tragedy of failure,
and consequently effect a feeling of gratitude in the

viewer that the grace of God is upon him. Like Mediaeval

carvings of the "Damned" suffering in hell, the pathetic
painting taught Victorians to walk in the "ways of God."
Illness was an ever-present danger in the
rapidly-industrializing England, and tuberculosis took
an enormous number of young lives each year. Epidemics
of many types were eSpecially disastrous in the
closely-packed tenements of the lower classes and factory
workers. The inadequacies of Victorian medicine made
it impossible to save the lives of more than a few of
the stricken children and adults, and, of course, the
lack of knowledge about T. B. caused an ever increasing
number of invalids and deaths. This was coupled with

T...

the ideal of woman as a frail, white creature, who
fi’dared not go out in the sun for fear of the dreaded
tanned skin of a worker. If the woman did not have
tuberculosis, she must at least pretend to be fragile:

Delicacy, as a sign of refinement, was

widely upheld by polite fiction. To be

put on a pedestal was apparently the only

cure for a disease known as ”decline,“ a

disease which threatened the young women

. . . and made an astonishing number of

them helpless invalids for no manifest
reason.20

Certainly, the gaunt, hollow-eyed creatures of Rossetti's
dreamy vision are the product of this ideal.

Illness,then, was a constant companion of the
Victorian, and a popular subject for painters. A
painting that deals specifically with the ravaging effects

of T. B. is Too Late (Plate XIV), by the Liverpool artist,

66

William Hindus,21 of 1859. The painting represents

a woman, stricken with tuberculosis, and beyond help.

Too late, her lover has returned and he covers his face
with his arm in grief and remorse. The sentiment is
close to that of Egm2_gggg_thg gig, in its emphasis

upon the unconsolable sorrow of person who returns

to a loved one to find that she is gone or wasted away.
The invalid holds the back of a chair for support, and
her thin face and emaciated condition reveals the
advanced stage of the disease. The identity of the

other woman, who helps the invalid, and the young

girl staring at the returned lover, cannot be ascertained
with certainty, but perhaps they are the sister and niece
to the rust; woman. Though this painting is meticulously
treated, it lacks the detail of many of its kind, and
seems broader in its treatment, more in the Reynolds
tradition than in the Pre-Raphaelite. This may be due

to the provincial location of Windus.

The intent on the part of the artist is to evoke
pity, quite simply, and no doubt he succeeded splendidly.
The lack of any further meaning or detail make this
work purely sentimental, and even the moral lesson it
intends to convey about the returned lover is watered
down by the maudlin emotional overtone and the emphasis
on expressions of individuals, rather than the integration

of symbolic and compositional devices to enhance the idea.

67

It is a well-known story that Windus himself
was such a sensitive painter that when Ruskin severely
criticized the morbid sentiment in TQg_La£g, he gave
up painting altogetherigZ Indeed the criticism was not
entirely unjustified, but Ruskin was unusually violent,
particularly in light of his praise of many Pre-Raphaelite
paintings of similar content. It is difficult to
understand why Heme From the Sea did not similarly
enrage the critic.

Like the chronically ill, the crippled and blind
provided excellent pathetic subjects. Millais' The
‘gligd girl, (Plate XV), of 185u-1856 is one of the
most touchingly beautiful in the Pre-Raphaelite mode.

The blind girl, with the little girl who is her guide,
has stOpped to rest outside town, perhaps after begging
there. Her monumental figure, so like a madonna, is
poised against the sensuous green landscape. A rainstorm
has Just passed over, in the still-dark sky we can see
a double-rainbow, and the landscape is rendered in the
peculiarly intense yellowégreen that appears against a
stormy sky as in the Spring. All of this beauty brings
home the pathos: the girl cannot see it. The little
guide, sensing the beauty of the world about her, has
pulled the blind girl's scarf over her own eyes to try
to see what it would be like to be blind. Still more

pitiful are the flowers by the blind girl's hand and the

68

brilliant butterfly that perches on her scarf. The
girl's ragged clothes, the rather crude sign about t
her neck, "Have Pity on the Blind, " and her firm but
helpless grasp of the little guide-girl's hand lend
credibility to the portrayal, as well as increasing
the pathos.

In the Victorian world, a painting of this
subject had universal appeal. Not a man, woman, or
child could help but be reduced to tears before such
a pitiful scene. This, of course, did not mean that
they would immediately rush out to establish institutions
for the blind, but certainly they would give thanks to
Providence, which kept them from a similar fate.

Among other types of pathetic scenes, the
most popular were those involving animals (such as dogss
mourning over their master's grave)23 and those dealing
with unfullfilled or lost love.2u fine idea of romantic
love was almost as dear to the Victorians as that of
the family, perhaps because the two were so closely

25

dependent upon each other. Since marriages were
based more upon social and economic connections of the
pairs' respective families, it is unlikely that many
middle-class matches were strictly the result of true
love.‘ But to consider these paintings would require

a volumne in itself, so great was their number and

their implications in society.

69

We have seen, then, that for the Victorians
art was, as for Aristotle, a "catharsis of emotions."26
But Aristotle was speaking of tragedy, and perhaps it
becomes all the more pertinent that he was. Obviously,
the effect of many of these paintings is very much like
that of drama, even if it is of the soap-opera variety.
Unlike drama, however, these works had the advantage of
being ever-present. While the scenes in drama pass
quickly, those in paintings may act to evoke their
respective emotional responses whenever they are viewed.27
Since the Victorians were largely families that had only
recently risen to affluence, their affinity for more-or-
less simple-minded paintings was predictable. Photo-
graphers Joined in the profitable business by producing
compositions very much like those in paintings. The
photograph answered the desire for realism and detail
in art so well that, "One might argue that photography
was invented to meet an existing demand for records

28 The increasing availability °f

of visual fact."
photographs, coupled with the widespread reproduction
of paintings through prints (and later through photo-
graphs themselves) helped make it possible for almost
every Victorian home to possess some of these pathetic

moral paintings and photos.

A.—-"

CHAPTER VI
CONCLUSION

"The love of literalism and the love of
exaggerated sentiment are two essential points for
understanding Victorian art."1 These two points have
certainly been adequately illustrated in the foregoing
discussion of individual works. In addition,
the works were intended, "not merely to amuse, but
to instruct, purify, and ennoble."2 The characteristics
and purposes of the Victorian contemporary moral
painting are thus adequately summarized. It remains
for us to speak of the role they actually played in
their society and how they finally lost their prestige.

r These works must be understood totally in
' the light of the environment that produced them.;(The
morality of which they spoke was a strictly Victorian
morality. They were in no sense reformers, and this
is most clearly demonstrated by'a painting not previously
mentioned. This is Ford Madox Brown's £2353 which
was painted between 1852 and 1865. This is perhaps
the only work in the realm of Victorian moral painting
that even touches upon the question of social reform.

And even then, it sadly lacks any real concern with the

70

71

plight of the working-class. In this painting,
the workers are somewhat idealized, depicted as
being noble and almost Neo-classical in their poses.
The central core of workers excavated a street is
surrounded by a sort of panorama of people. Included
are a poor flower-girl in rags, a motherless group
of children, some wealthy ladies, and the two social
reformers of the day, F. D. Maurice and Carlyle.
The inclusion of these men in the painting would seem
to indicate that Brown was suggesting reform. Yet
the treatment of the scene is far too casual and
composed to hint at any really radical change. An
advertisement for the Working Ran‘s College, seen
on a wall seems to be the answer to the working-man's
depravity, at least the only answer that Brown is
willing to suggest. The very lack of any reforming
sentiment in this painting is indicative of the
real concern of the moral painters: to please the
middle-class patron. When Brown treated a subject
so susceptible to reform overtones and allowed so
little of the distress of the poor to show through,
it is apparent that he-approved on the whole of the
conditions in nineteenth-cenury London.

The religious background which defied change
in society and ideas about the virtues of work in the
Protestant atmosphere led to the self-assurance which

was as much a characteristic of the moral painters as

72

of their patrons. The pervasive belief that things
were inevitably becoming better ironically made it
difficult for reform measures to be passed. In
painting, there were few artists who were willing

to believe that there was something inherently wrong
with the society. Even in literature, there was such
a strong sense of propriety about presenting violent
episodes, that rarely would a book advocating social
reform dare to elaborate upon the conditions of the
poor and working-classes of the period. Dickens
himself was preper enough to be read by ladies.

The whole problem, then, in our own understanding
of the Victorian moral painter, is to grasp these
reasons for his avoiding the issues that would seem to
have been so obviously worthy of his skill, and instead
painting intricately-detailled masterpieces of symbolism,
meant for intellectual discussion and occupying the
time and thoughts of a household not yet possessed
of television and radio. It is, perhaps, this very
aSpect that retains its relevance in our own age. Though
we may find some works ludicrous, they often have a
sense of mystery about them that makes them fascinating,
and in this sense not unlike the highly symbolic works

of Mediaeval and Renaissance artists.

73

Otherwise, they must be regarded as historical
documents in the strictest sense of the word. Parti-
cularly, those in the category of the pathetic. A
painting like TQEDHireling §E£P§2£Q is valuable both
for its technical excellance and its complex symbolic
and religious overtones. This can hardly be said of
a work like Nameless and Friendless.

Since this style could only exist in the
exact moral and social climate of middle-class Vic-
torian England, it necessarily began to lose much
of its impact with the approach of the twentieth cen-
tury. The Aesthetic Movement led into Art Nouveau
by the end of the century and subject matter began to
loosen its hold on the painter.4H(The moral variety
of painting became academic and lost much of the
brilliancy lent it by Hunt and Millais in earlier years.
Sir Edward Burne-Jones,5who continued to paint in
the Pre-Raphaelite manner, never dealt with contemporary
subjects at all. A somewhat perverted moralism was
to mark the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley6 who proved
to be the last great artist in the tradition of the
Pre-Raphaelite moral painters. As late as 1897,
though, an art magazine contends,

In the long run it is genuine power in
expressing ideas worth expression that will
survive. Techical shortcomings, such as
those that cramped Rossetti, may not stand

in the way of his assured position among
masters.7

74

But long before this, the fatal doctrine of
"Art for Art's Sake," had been propounded and was
winning wider and wider acceptance. By the time of
the outbreak of World War I, the disillusioned artists
could no longer profess that the purpose of art
was to instruct,rfor the lesson had done nothing to
avert the catastrophic destruction in EurOpe. rlhe
moral painting assumed a minor position in illustrative
work, and once more painting assumed a decorative or
intellectual function.\ So ended the story of the

Victorian moral painter.

75

 

I. William Holman Hunt, The Hireling Shepherd,
1851.

76

 

II
0 Au 4 I
g
uftus LeO’pOld
an. P
-. resen
t I
_m I |-—— ________’
’

 

III. Augustus Leopold Egg, Past and Present, I, and
II, 1858.

 

 

IV. Figure 1: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, figugfi, 1853-1865.
Figure 2: John Everett Millais, Retribution, 185A.

78

79

 

V. William Holman Hunt, The Awakening
Conscience, 1853.

 

 

VI. William Powell Frith, The Road _t_:_o_ Ruin, I and II,
1877.

80

 

VII. The Road to Ruin, III and IV.

81

 

Figure 1: The Road to Ruin, V. °
Figure 2: Robert Braithwaite Martineau, The

Last gay in the Old Home,

82

1852-1862.

LE

83

 

IX. The Race-Meeting, 1853, Millais.

 

Figure 1:

Henry Alexander Bowler, The Doubt: Can

 

These gay Bones Live? 1856.

Figure 2:

Arthur iughes, Some From the Sea, 1856-63.

 

85

 

”crud-9.1.! if mum" .1] [H I'll-IN- .Il I‘Ir 1.1: (.JUfl)’. LMH

XI. George Elgar Hicks, Woman's Mission--
Bad News, 1857.

XII. Figure 1:
Figure 2:

1857.

 

Richard Redgrave, The Poor Teacher, 18M4.
Emily Mary Osborn, Naneless and briendless,

 

RA

8?

 

 

XIII. Ford -Madox-Brown, T. e Last 9; England,
1851-1855,

 

 

88

 

XIV. William Lindsay Windus, Too Late, 1859.

89

 

XV. Millais, The Blind Girl, 1854-1856.

NOTES

Introduction

1Basil Willey, "Origins and Development of the
Idea of Progress," Ideas and Beliefs of the Victorians,
(New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1966), p. 45.

 

 

2Gordon Rupp, "Evangelicalism of the Nonconformists, "
Ideas, p. 108.

Chapter 1
1Siegfried Giedion, Hechanization Takes Command,
(New York: Norton, 1969), p. 3657*

2W. P. Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences,
Vol. I, (New‘York: Harper & Brothers, 1889), p. 298.

3Collection of Pears' Soap Company.

York: Schoken, 1966), p. 197.
5John Everett Millet, quo. in ibid., p. 195.

6For an account of the Aesthetic Movement, see
Gaunt, The Aesthetic Adventure, (New York: Schoken, 1967).

7Dadd went insane, and spent most of his life
in istitutions, continuing to paint, however. His work
is much more fantastic in its subject matter than Frith's
or Egg's.

8Allen Staley, "William Powell Frith," Romantic
Art in Britain (1 he Philadelphia Museum of Art, 19
P- ”293-

9Waagen, Edinburgh Review, quo. in G. H. Fleming,
Rossetti and the Err—Hannaelit“ Broth? rdood (Great
Britain: western Printing Services, 1967), p. 49.

10For an account of the Pre—Raphaelites, See
Gaunt, The Pre-Raphaelite Dre an; Fleming; or Robin Iron-
side and John Ge re, i1e- Ha‘; nae lite Painters, (New York:
Phaidon, 1998). p .

9Q

 

91

11Augustus Welby Pugin in The Builder, August,
1845, quo. in Quentin Bell, Victorian Artists, (London:
Routledge and Kegan-Paul, 1967), p. 21.

12For an excellant summary of Ruskin's aesthetic
and position in Victorian society, see Henry Ladd,
The Victorian Morality of Art, (New York: Ray Long &
Richard Smith, Inc., 1932)*

13John Ruskin, from Modern Painters, quo. in
Fleming, p. 49- 50.

1“Ib1d., p. 50.
15From Preface to Second Edition, ibid., p. 50.

16Ruskin, quo. in H. R. Rookmaaker, Svnthetist
Art Theories, (Amsterdam: Swet & Zeitinger, 1959), p. 56.

17Ruskin, quo. in R. L. Peters, Victorians on
Literature and Art, (New York: Appleton-Century- Crofts,
Inc., 1961), title page.

 

18Ladd, p. 329.
19Ibid., p. 330.
ZOIbid.

21Jeremy Haas, Victorian Painters, (New York:
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969), p. 125.

22T. Carlyle, from Sartor Resartus, quo. in
Peters, p. 12.

 

23Ibid., p. in.

2”Mary Bennet, William Holman Hunt Catalog,
Walker Art Gallery,1969, p. 12.

25John Stuart Mill, quo. in Peters, p. 11.
26William Powell Frith, I, p. 30b.
27Ruskin quo. in Linda Nochlin, Realism and Tra-

dition in Art, 18b8-1900, (Hew Jersey: Prentice-Hall,

 

 

28Bennet, p. 4.

29Charles Collins' best-known work is Convent
Thoughts, of 1850, Tate Gallery.

92
30John Everett Millais, quo. Nochlin, p. 116.
Chapter II

1William Holman Hunt, (1827-1910). For most
recent bibliography, see Bennett, pp. 17-18.

2

3William Holman Hunt, Pro-Raphaelitism and the
Pre—Raohaelite Brotherhood, I, (London: Macmillan
and Co., 19057, pp. 262-263.

City of Manchester Art Gallery.

“Ibld, p. 26a. 51b1d. 6Bennett, p. 29.

7§$gg L223,.Act III, scene vi, quo. Bennett, p. 29.
8Exhibition catalogue, quo. in Fleming, p. 182.
9Fleming, pp. 182-183. 10Bennett, p. 29.

11The Athenae‘um’ Play 22, 1852, quo. in Fleming,
p. 183.

12Nilliam Rossetti, quo. in Bennett, p. 30.
13Bennett, p. 30.

luKeble College Collection, Oxford.

15For a discussion of this, see Humphrey House,

"Man and Nature: Some Artists' Views," in Ideas, p.
227-228.

Chapter III

1H. L. Beales, "The Victorian Family," Ibid., 343.

2James Laver, Manners and Morals in the Age 22.
thimism, 1848-1914, (New York: Harper & Row, 19 ), P. 31.

3Ibid., p. 38. “Ibid., p. 197.
5Augustus Leopold Egg, (1816—1863). Most recent

bibliography, Staley, "Augustus Leopold Egg," Romantic
Art, pp. 283-284.

 

6Egg, quo. in Raymond Lister, Victorian Narrative
Paintings, (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1966), p. 59.

7House, p. 224. 8Lister, p. 54.

93

9Staley, p. 283. 10Mayhew, quo. Laver, p. 103.
11Laver, pp. 102-10u.

12Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (1828-1882). See
Staley, "Dante Gabriel Rossetti," Romantic Art, for
Bibliography, p. 309.

 

13See Hunt, II, pp. u3i-u33, for a discussion
of the relationship between the two paintings Found,
and The wakening Conscience.

 

1”1pm., I, p. 3&7. 15Bennett, p. 35.
15Ibid. 17Ibid., p. 37. 18Ruskin quo. ibid., 36.
19Hunt, I, pp. #18-419. 20Ibid., 419.
21Hunt, quo. Bennett, p. 36.

22Horning Chronio18, April 299 185”: quo. in
Hunt, I, p. 405-

23Ruskin, quo. in Nochlin, p. 127.
214Sir John Everett Millais, (1829-1896). Most

recent Bibliography, Staley, "Sir John Everett Millais,“
Romantic Art, p. 316.

25
Chapter IV
1Laver, p. 78. 2Ibid., p. 80.

3willian Powell Frith, (1819-1909). Staley,
"William Powell Frith,” Ronantic Art, p. 294.

“Tate Gallery, London.
5Frith, I, p. 293. 51bid. 7Ibid., p. 3A6.
8Ibid., pp. 3&6-3b7. 9Laver, p. 78.
loFrith, p. 3&7.
111bid. 12Ibid.

13Robert Braithwaite Aartineau, (1826-1869).
See Hunt, I, pp. 302, 320; II, pp. 308—309.

14Millais was a member of the Pre—Raphaelites,
and Hogarth appeared on their list of "immortals" worthy
of emmulation.

 

9h
15See page 27.
Chapter V

1A glance through any Victorian family photo
album will verify this; some older people still indulge
in this practice.

2See Ironside, Introduction.

3Henry Alexander Bowler, (1824-1903). For further
information, see Haas.

“Arthur Hughes, (1832-1915). Most recent Bibli-
ography, Staley, "Arthur Hughes," Romantic Art,p. 331.

5Lister, p. 60.
6George Elgar Hicks, (1824-1892). See haas.

7On this, see Lord Lindsay of Birker, "The Social
Conscience and the Ideas of Ruskin," Ideas, p. 277f.

8Richard Redgrave, (1804-1888)o See Maas.
9Emily Mary Osborn, (183h-c.1885). See Haas.

10Ford Madox Brown, (1821-1893). See Staley,
"Ford Madox Brown," Romantic Art, p. 296.

11Lister, p. 22 12Lever, p. 38. 13Ibid., p. 92.
1”Ibis” p. 92.
15Ruth M. Green, Appendix I, Lister.

16Ida Proctor, masters 9: British Nineteenth-
Century Art, (London: Dennis Dobson), p. 99.

17Brown quo. in ibid., p. 99.
181bid. 19Ibid.

20Viola Klein, "The Emancipation of Women: Its
Motives and Achievements,“ Ideas, pp. 26H-265.

21William Lindsay Windus, (1822-1907). See Staley,
"William Lindsay Hindus," Romantic Art, p. 302.

22The entire story is cited by Gaunt, Pre-Raphaelite,

“I
23See Lister for examples. “*Ibid.

95

25See Ironside's Introduction for further
explanation.

26Aristotle Politics VIII. 7. 1341b 35.

27There is reason to assume that a closer link
survived between the Victorian narrative painting and
the contemporary stage than has been established. The
prominence of Egg, for example, as both actor and painter
lends credibility to such an assumption. Such specu-
lations are beyond the sc0pe of the present study.

28House, p. 224.

Chapter VI

11bid., 223.

2Laver, p. 178.

3Manchestcr City Art Gallery.

“Sec Gaunt, Aesthetic.

5Sir Edward Coley Burns-Jones, (1833-1898), see
Gaunt, Aesthetic and Pre-Raphaelite for the position
of this artist.

6Aubrey Beardsley, see Gaunt, Aesthetic.

7Gleeson White, "The Work of Mr. Byam Shaw,"
The International Studio, I (June, 1897), p. 209.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bell, Quentin. Victorian Artists. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1967. .

Bennett, Mzry. William Holman Hunt. Walker Art Gallery,
19 9.

Bentham, Jeremy, and John Stuart Mill, The Utilitarians,
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and
Legislation. New York: Dolphin Books, 1961.

Fleming, G. H. Rossetti and the Pre—Raohaclite Brother-
hood. Great Britain: Western Printing Services,

1967.

Frith, William Powell. fly Autobiography and Reminiscences,

three volumnes. New York: Harper & Brothers,
1889.

Gaunt, William. The Aesthetic Adventure. New York:
Schoken, 1967.

. The Pre-Raphaelite Dream. New York: Schoken,
1966.

 

 

. Victorian Olympus. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1952. ,

Giedion, Siegfried. Mechanization Takes Command. New York:
Norton, 1969.

Hunt, William Holman. Pre—Ranhaelitism and the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood. London: Macmillan
and Co., 1905.

Ideas and Beliefs g: the Victorians. New York: E. P.

Ironside, Robin, with John Gere. Pre-Raphaelite Painters.
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Ladd, Henry. The Victorian Morality 93 Art. New York:
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97

Laver, James. Manners and Morals in the Age of Opti-

mism, 1856- ”12 . —New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Lister, Raymond. Victorian Narrative Paintings. New
York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1966.

Haas, Jeremy. Victorian Painters. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1969.

Millais, John Guille. The Life and Letters of Sir
John Everett Nillais, Bart, P. R. A. London:
1899, two volumnes.

 

”Millais."1asters in Art Series, IX (Part 107, Nov.,
1908). Boston: Bate & Guild Co.

Iorazé, Charles. The Triumph of the EIiddle Classes.
Cleveland and New York: World Publishing Co., 1966.

 

 

Nochlin, Linda. Realism and Tradition in Art, 1848—120 .
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966_* _

Pelles, Geraldine. Art, Artists, & Society. New Jersey:
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Peters, Robert L. Victorians 23 Literature and Art.
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Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Eng lishness of English Art.
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Proctor, Ida. Masters of British Nineteenth Century Art
London: Dennis" Dob son, 1961.

Reynolds, Graham. Victorian Painting. New York:
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Rookmaaker, H. R. Synthetist Art Theories. Amsterdam:
Swet & Zeitinger, 1959.

Rosenblum, Robert, Frederick Cummings, and Allen Staley.
Romantic Art in Brita in, Paintings and Drawings,
12660-1360. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1968.

 

Rossetti, William Michael. Ruskin: Rossetti: Pre-
Raphaelitism, Papers 1855- 1862. London:
George Allen, 1899.

 

98

Ruskin, John. Pre-Raphaelitism. New York: John
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Schmutzler, Robert. Art Nouveau-gggendstil. Stuttgart:
Gerd Hatje, 1962.

Sitwell, Sacheverell. Narrative Pictures. London:
B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1937.

Wingfield-Stratford, Esme. The Victorian Cycle. New
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White, Gleeson, "The Work of Mr. Byam Shaw." The Inter-
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