Dante Gabriel Rossetti – St George and Princess Sabra

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, St George and Princess Sabra, 1862, watercolour

The tale of the knight St George slaying the dragon and saving the princess was a popular artistic motif for the painters in the Medieval and Renaissance times. In the nineteenth century the Pre-Raphaelites such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones revived the motif. It is easy to see why the motif would appeal to the Pre-Raphaelites; it is a tale of chivalry, of a victory of good over evil, tale that ends in love. The awakening of love can be seen in Rossetti’s 1862 watercolour “St George and Princess Sabra”.

The painting shows a celebration after the quest is done and the dragon slayed, but Rossetti placed the focus not on the town’s celebration, seen in the upper left corner through a window, but on the figures of St George and Princess Sabra. The Princess had brought his helmet, turned upside down, filled with water so he can wash his bloodied hands in it but really she is using the kind gesture as an opportunity to be closer to the handsome knight. Her long red hair is cascading down her back like flames and her lips are pressed against his hands. She is grateful to be saved from the dragon, but is it just the appropriate gratefulness, or something more in her big love-starved eyes? But the sturdy, strong, bearded George is looking out at the window; is he feeling uneasy with the lady’s display of affection, or is he thinking more about his wordly duties, his place in society, his spiritual purpose, which are all perhaps more important to him than love. Both the chamber and their garments are painted in rich jewel colours of amber, garnet and emerald, as if the entire scene is bathed in the golden rays of sun falling through the opulent stained glass windows.

Interestingly, the model for the Princess was Rossetti’s own wife Elizabeth Siddal. There is Siddal’s recognisable long, flowing coppery-red hair and the facial features that we find often in Rossetti’s art. But more disturbingly, only days after posing for this painting Elizabeth was found dead, overdosing on laudanum, on the 11th February 1862. There is definitely a richness and a sensuality in Rossetti’s watercolour which we don’t find in the Medieval depictions of the same motif, and not even in Burne-Jones’ paintings of the motif. In a well-known example by Paolo Uccello, the Princess is portrayed as a lean, pale, iron-deficient damsel who is completely calmly watching St George as he is slaying the dragon. She appears so calm that her heart probably didn’t skip a beat. In comparison, the heart of the Princess in Rossetti’s watercolour is skipping a beat many many times when she is kneeling down so close to St George who, I must add, also appears more strong and masculine than the one depited in Uccello’s painting.

Paolo Uccello, St George and the Dragon, c 1460

John Anster Fitzgerald – The Stuff Dreams are Made Of

“Fly to me through this love-lit night
From one thousand miles away
And come into my sleep…
As midnight nears and shadows creep
Come into my sleep

Bind my dreams up in your tangled hair
For I am sick at heart, my dear
Bind my dreams up in your tangled hair
For all the sorrow it will pass, my dear…”

(Nick Cave, Come Into My Sleep)

John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906), The Stuff Dreams are Made Of, 1864

John Anster Fitzgerald, mostly self-taught and no stranger to opium dens, was an artist who provided a much needed source of escapism for the gloomy and doomed Victorians through his whimsical paintings filled with fairies, strange looking and often grotesque tiny creatures, half-mythical and half-imaginary, birds, bats and flowers. These paintings, so detailed and vibrant, appear very innocent and childlike at first glance, but their whimsicality was fueled by laudanum and chloral; Victorian drugs of choice. He was also known as the “Fairy Fitzgerald” to his friends because he painted the world of fairies so obsessively, and in my opinion, the most beautifully. I prefer his work over the similar works made by other fairy painters who created at the same time such as Richard Dadd and Sir Joseph Noel Paton.

In “Fairy” Fitzgerald’s paintings, flowers, leaves and mushrooms seem large in comparison with the small fairies who bodies have luminous glow and strange attire. These paintings were really made to be gazed at for a long time, preferably right before bedtime so all these cheerful and surreal scenes can blend into ones dreams just like in the painting bellow called “The Stuff Dreams are Made Of”. The painting shows a beautiful young girl sleeping in her bedroom, but while she is sleeping strange things are going on. The reality of the physical world of her bedroom and the realm of the fairy land are mingling and intertwining, as if a portal to another dimension has just opened. The sleeping girl is dreaming of a meeting with a handsome man and they are holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes. And who knows whether that is her actual beloved or just a man of her dreams… But all of a sudden these strange creatures start crashing her sweet love dream like some uninvited party guests. They are seen in her dream but they are also surrounding her bed and playing all sorts of instruments, but her rosy cheeks and closed eyes speak of undisturbed slumber. Interesting how she is sleeping with a pink flower crown on and even in her dream she is seen wearing it, along with the matching blue coat. These paintings really make me wonder what is going on around my bed while I am asleep? Which strange creatures are walking around my bed and are my dreams taking place there, vividly, hanging in the air of my room like a cloud?

In another painting, “Nightmare”, a similar young Victorian girl is having a nightmare, tossing and turning in her bed all because the strange beings from the fairy lands have visited her sleep, which brings to mind Fusseli’s The Nightmare painted in times when the Gothic wave swept European art in the last quarter of eighteenth century. Dreams and reality mingle in these artworks and the fantasy finds a way to enter the everyday life, no matter how narrow the path for dream may be. These dream-works are often seen as portrayals of his laudanum-induced hallucinations and they just might be that, but how fun to imagine that these things are going on while we are asleep. These paintings are a perfect fuel for daydreaming so tune in to these vibrant sparkling colours and drop out of the boring real world.

John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906), Nightmare, c 1860s

Edward Burne-Jones: Dorigen of Bretaigne longing for the Safe Return of her Husband

“Out of sorrow entire worlds have been built
Out of longing great wonders have been willed”
(Nick Cave, Are You the One That I’ve Been Waiting For?)

Edward Burne-Jones, Dorigen of Bretaigne Longing for the Safe Return of her Husband, 1871, watercolour

Pre-Raphaelite painters often drew their inspiration from literary sources and even more often the Medieval themes were the ones to catch their attention. Edward Burne-Jones’s 1871 watercolour “Dorigen of Bretaigne Longing for the Safe Return of Her Husband” depicts a scene from Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Franklin’s Tale” from “The Canterbury Tales”. In “Franklin’s Tale”, Dorigen is happily married to Arveragus who had travelled to Britain to seek training in arms and he stayed there for two years. In those two years his faithful and devoted wife Dorigen had grown unbearably melancholy and filled with sadness. In the absence of her husband, tverything seemed meaningless to her; she lost her appetite and would spend her days in tears and sighs, desiring, longing and hurting. Sometimes, aiming to distract herself, she would take a walk by the sea but seeing those horrible black cliffs which had cause many a misfortune and death, served only to exacerbate her fears of her husband dying at sea. Burne-Jones’s watercolour wonderfully portrays Dorigen’s state of absolute yearning. In an elongated canvas with a somewhat unusual composition, Dorigen, the faithful and devoted wife, is painted kneeling down and leaning on the window, her arms spread as in a surrender, as she is watching without blinking as to not miss out the sight of his ship on the horizon. The sea is trecherous, wild and unpredictable, and Dorigen is feeling more and more hopeless as days, weeks, months, years are passing by. Wild with desire and shaken by fear, sick from this unbearable longing, she has fallen onto her knees in desperation and helplessness. Will her eyes meet his eyes again and will she read the love in his gaze, will she feel again his arms wrapped around her waist, will she feel again his lips pressed to hers, his voice whispering sweet nothings in her ear, or will the sea, so envious of all the love, claim him, and will the waves pull him into their embrace… Will she wait forever for him to come home? Will he return safely, or not at all? The space around her feels constricted, claustrophobic, as if all the unbearable longing is sucking the air out of the chamber and the heavy sense of doom is weighing the ceiling. The window is narrow and unusually elongated. The dress that she is wearing is painted in this particular, very Burne-Jones shade of blue that we see often in his paintings, though in this scene the blueness of her dress seems to echo the blueness of the sea. And those dark, sharp cliffs; are they the same that Monet had painted around the same time? There is a pair of ghostly, shadowy figures drawn on her portable organ, further emphasising her aloneness and her yearning for her husband. Even further, the instrument can only be played when the bellows are pumped by someone else; being so alone, she cannot even have music to soothe her. There are also some books opened on the floor, but what is the point; the books, the music, the walks, nothing can soothe her when her beloved is not there. Only the sounds of the waves, now distant, now close, but foreboding nonetheless…

Claude Monet, Rocks at Port-Goulphar, Belle-Île, 1886

J.J. Grandville: Flowers Personified (Les fleurs animées)

Grandville, Les Fleurs Animées, 1847, Rose

Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, known under the pseudonym of Grandville, was an extremely imaginative and somewhat underrated French Romantic artist, illustrator and caricaturist who was active in the first half of the nineteenth century. Grandville made a series of fifty engravings and two wood engravings called “Les fleurs animées”, translated as “Animated Flowers” or “Flowers Personified”, which served to accompany the texts written by Taxile Delord, 2 wood engravings, 50 engravings, Gabriel de Gonet, Paris 1846. The series of whimsical, playful and dreamy illustrations was completed in 1846 and published posthumously in 1847; Grandville died in March 1847 at the age of forty-three. What a beautiful last gift to the world from such a genius mind.

Each of the fifty illustrations is devoted to a single flower and the flower is presented in the shape of a woman; a splendidly dressed woman. Those who are well versed in the history of the nineteenth century female fashions will recognise that the silhouettes of the dresses that the flower-ladies are wearing, as well as their hairstyles are based in the real fashions of Grandville’s times, that is, in the 1840s fashion. The flowers are seen wearing the typical 1840s narrow bodice with a bell-shaped skirt and the flower which they are representing is usually decorating their dress and their hair. Often time these flowery beauties are accompanied by none other than their majesty the bugs and Grandville’s portrayal of beetles might just be the cutest one I’ve seen of these, usually, not so cute creatures. At the moment, I feel that the “Rose” is my favourite out of his flower illustrations. She is seated on the throne, like the Queen that she is, wearing a rosebud crown on her head and the rosebuds also decorate her bosom while the rose leaves serve as a trimming on her long flowing skirt. She looks dreamy and humble and sweet as she sits there with her sceptre while the green beetles are gazing at her. In the illustration for “Poppy”, the poppy flower is seen showering the beetles with a rain of poppy seeds and I wonder was Grandville actually trying to make a point there. The “Camellia” has a huge camellia blossom on her chest, like a large red pulsating heart. “Dahlia” and the “Briar Rose”, on the other hand, are sporting a vast dahlia and briar rose flowers as their hair decor. The “Lily” is presented as a shy, wistful bride with a long veil, her dress being held by a beetle. The little Violets are shy girls, hiding under their leaves with their purple heads. “Lilac” has a very interesting lilac bonnet as she is seen conversing with the beetle, probably discussing the deep philosophical questions such as; what is the meaning of life etc. “Tulip” looks a tad oriental with her turban-clad head. As hard as it was to chose my favourites from all of Grandville’s flower illustrations, I have chosen them for this post. Enjoy!

Camellia

Dahlia

Poppy

Briar Rose

Lily

Violet

Orange Blossom

Lilac

Marguerite

Tulip

Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat Guarded the Sacred Shield of Lancelot

“Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where the morning’s earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk… (…)
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it…
(…) … so she lived in fantasy.”

(Lord Tennyson, Idyll of the Kings: Elaine and Lancelot, 1859)

Henry Peach Robinson, Elaine Watching the Shield of Lancelot, 1859

Lady of Shalott, also known as Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat, is by far my favourite and most relatable character from the Arthurian legends. In the poem Lord Tennyson refers to her sweetly also as Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable. The Pre-Raphaelite artists seem to have had a particular penchant for portraying Elaine as well, inspired partly by her rather different depictions in Lord Tennyson’s poetry as well as by Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Mort D’Arthur”. Still, not only Victorian painters but photographers such as Henry Peach Robinson were inspired to portray the loneliness of Elaine’s life in the tower and her exceeding yearning for a knight. Elaine “hath no loyal knight and true”, as Lord Tennyson wrote in another poem about her. The poet also writes that she “lived in fantasy”, and that she is “half-sick of shadows”; hers is a lonely, lovelorn life filled with yearning and pining, and a lot of free time which she uses, it seems, to gaze day and night at Sir Lancelot’s shield. She not only gazes at it and traces its decorations with her pale fingers, but she also tends to it as if it were, and indeed it is in Elaine’s eyes, the most precious object in the world. It is something that belongs to the man she loves oh so desperately. These verses from Delmira Augustini’s poem “From Far Away” made me think of poor Elaine:

“Ah! When you are far away my whole life cries
And to the murmor of your steps even in dreams I smile.
I know you will return, that another dawn will shine.”

The basis for Robinson’s photograph seems to have been the Lord Tennyson’s description of Elaine’s obsession with Sir Lancelot’s shield. The poet writes that Elaine had placed the “sacred shield” in her chamber up a tower to the east where it can be bathed by the first rays of sun, and how she made a silk case for the shield so it doesn’t get rusty, and how she would leave her household all the time to climb the tower and gaze at the shield for hours, tracing every dint and scratch on it completely entranced, imagining all the battles and tournaments that Sir Lancelot had been in, and shivering at the thought that he may almost have died in some of them.

In Sir Thomas Malory’s telling of the events Elaine’s father, the Lord of Astolat, had organised a tournament to which King Arthur and his knights came. Sir Lancelot, who had not originally planned to attend, was persuaded to come and, upon seeing him, Elaine becamse enamoured of him and she begged him to wear her token at the torunament. Sir Lancelot, knowing how jealous Guinevere would be, decided to wear Elaine’s token and compete in the tournament but only under disguise so he takes a different shield, that of Elaine’s brother, and leaves his own shield to Elaine to keep. Here is what Lord Tennyson writes about that moment:

“(…) ’True, my child.
Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me:
What is it?’ and she told him ’A red sleeve
Broidered with pearls,’ and brought it: then he bound
Her token on his helmet, with a smile
Saying, ’I never yet have done so much
For any maiden living,’ and the blood
Sprang to her face and filled her with delight”.

And then Lancelot tells Elaine:
’Do me this grace, my child, to have my shield
In keeping till I come.’ ’A grace to me,’
She answered.’”

Sir Lancelot gets injured in the tournament and Elaine tends to him in her chambers. When he gets better, he thanks Elaine and she returns the shield to him. Now he is aware of her affections for him but he departs nevertheless and Elain dies from a broken heart ten days later. Sir Lancelot later pays for a lavish funeral – as if that is a reparation enough for a broken heart. Hm!

Arhur Hughes – Fair Rosamund

“‘My Rosamonde, my only Rose,
That pleasest best mine eye,
The fairest flower in all the worlde
To feed my fantasye…”

Arhur Hughes, Fair Rosamund, 1854

Arthur Hughes’ painting “Fair Rosamund” may be vibrant and beautiful visually, but the story behind this artwork is sinster and cruel. A beautiful, fair, long-haired and rosy cheeked young woman in the garden, what can be a more innocent motif to paint? But things are not as flowery and fragrant as they seem…

According to the legend, Fair Rosamund was the mistress of Henry II of England and he had created a garden specially for her at his royal residence in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, which was accesible only by a maze so that no one else could find their way in. How lovely to think of Fair Rosamund, safe there in her garden, a flower amongst the flowers. Unfortunately, one day, in 1176, Henry’s wife Eleanor of Aquitaine found her way into the garden, found Fair Rosamund there and poisoned her. Poisoning as a method of murder has been historically linked to women, perhaps because it’s less direct and more passive-agressive, an art that women have mastered. In the Victorian era poisoning was also a common choice of murder so perhaps the motif resonated with the Victorian artists. The tale of Fair Rosamund was a popular motif for the nineteenth century artists, in particular the Pre-Raphaelites and those associated with the movement.

Now, this is really one of those paintings where every single detail tells a story and where you eye can just wander all over the canvas and take in all the details, delight in the colours, and let it all come alive. Despite the beautiful, lush and fragrant garden setting, Hughes chose to depict a dramatic moment when the Queen has entered the garden. Drama is lurking from the background. In the foreground there is Fair Rosamund with her beautiful, long wavy coppery hair and her sweet round face. I must say, I do love the way Arthur Hughes paints female faces, they are just so lovely. Her medieval-style dress, in green and purple, seems to echo the colour of the irises that are growing beneath her feet. She looks like a nymph almost, with her coopery locks all loose and untied, a flower-child, a hippie gal. Her hand gesture, her slightly parted lips and a look of worry in her eyes suggest that something is not quite right. Something has disturbed her and it is evident. In the background we see the Queen Eleanor who has just entered the garden. The path that leads from the garden gates where the Queen is standing to the Fair Rosamund is lined with blue foxgloves; a flower known for its poisonous properties. The painting may be silent, but the flowers in it speak volumes. The irises before Rosamund are not perhaps solely here for the aesthetic, as beautiful as they are. The Greek goddess Iris, amongst other things, had also the task of chaperoning the souls of the dead females to the Elysian fields. In a way, this hints to Fair Rosamund’s fate; from her flower garden she will depart into the Elysian fields.

Arthur Hughes was not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but he was closely associated with the movement, he exhibited his paintings alongside the Pre-Raphaelites and he focused on portraying medieval themes. As I said, I really love the vibrant colour and the attention to details in this painting. I just cannot get enough of this painting. Just look the play of the sunlight and shadows on the garden path and the fallen leaves, how alive it seems. The dense ivy, the white roses, all the different shades of green. It is just stunning!

Lovers are Strangers: John Atkinson Grimshaw – Lovers on a Moonlit Lane

“Expressing your uncertainties
Through years of anniversaries
Then five years down the line
You’ll say: she was never my type
Lovers are strangers
There’s nothing to discuss
Hearts will be faithful
While the truth is told to someone else”

(Michelle Gurevich, Lovers Are Strangers)

John Atkinson Grimshaw, Lovers on a Moonlit Lane, 1873

John Atkinson Grimshaw was a Victorian era artist who is mostly remembered for his captivating and atmospheric paintings of nocturnal urban scenes. The pompous American expatriate Whistler said: “I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy’s moonlit pictures”, and this is a true testament which reveals just how captivating Grimshaw’s nocturnal paintings were back in his day. Whistler wasn’t the type of person who would give praise or credit lightly. A few years ago I wrote a post about Grimshaw’s Dreary Victorian Streets where I connected the desolate, urban mood of his paintings with the music of Joy Division, but today I want to tackle a painting which is nocturnal but less urban and more romantic than his other ones.

Painting “Lovers on a Moonlit Lane” was painted in 1873, which is a decade earlier then his more famous masterpieces, though he was already thirty-seven at the time. The painting shows two lovers meeting in the moonlit lane near a forest. The tree branches point the way and the glowing full moon casts light on the face of two beloveds. The vertical canvas suits the nocturnal foresty scene because it gives space for the trees to stretch their branches into the night sky. The night scene with the hauntingly dark and tall trees brings to mind the setting of a poem or a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, but also the motif of nature in moonlight and the figures of lovers irresistibly reminds one of the painting by Caspar David Friedrich. The muted colours, blues and greys, are helpful in conveying the mood. Romanticism, like the ghost of the past, haunts this painting and gives it beauty. Distant fog and unknown paths, uncertainty of love, like frost, bites the hands and cheeks… The motif of the trees which are mostly bare, the leaves that have fallen on the frozen muddy ground and the path leading nowhere all indicate a sense of ending. Autumn is giving way to winter, the vibrant leaves of autumn have rotten and fallen on the ground, a question lingers in the air: will the flame of their love survive the winter frost, or will it perish and be forever lost?

The painting has the Tim Burtonesque “Corpse Bride” aesthetic and that is why it came to my mind when I was listening to Michelle Gurovich’s song “Lovers are Strangers” which I recently discovered. I love the lyrics of the song, but also, the music sounds like something that belong to a macabre carnival, the film “Coraline” or that fits the imagination of Tim Burton. In my mind, all of these are connected together.

James Tissot – Young Lady In A Boat

James Tissot, Young Lady In A Boat, 1870

James Tissot, the painter of the idle and glamorous lives of the wealthy Parisians, was popular and received critical acclaim in his time but today he is in the shadow of the more revolutionary painters from his time such as Monet or Degas. Tissot was extremenly prolific and left us many, many wonderful genre paintings of people enjoying everyday life; going for walks, sipping tea, going on balls, gossiping, children playing, reading books and lying in a hammock, spending afternoon gliding on boats or enjoing a picnic under a grand old chestnut tree… All of his paintings are very meticulous and detailed and just a joy to gaze at. Tissot put a particular emphasis on the clothing the figures in his paintings are wearing and that is no surprise, for his father was a succesful drapery merchant and his mother designed hats.

My favourite Tissot painting at the moment is “Young Lady In a Boat”, painted in 1870, just a year before Tissot’s departure for London following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. It shows a pensive young woman dressed in a sumptuous white dress with ruffles and a hat with striped ribbons. A fan in her hand. A flower bouquet in front of her and a little pug behind her. I particularly love her pose; she is holding her chin with her hand and gazing into the distance. Her pinkie finger is touching her lip, what a dainty pose. You can see it also in the drawing bellow which is one of the studies for the painting that Tissot made. Is she sad or just bored? Or both. Is she suffering from ennui? The pug on the other hand looks not pensive but perplexed and he certainly adds to the charm of the painting with his humorous face expression, the face which a critic at the time compared to a monkey. The lady’s hat with those striped ribbons and her hair bring to mind the portraits of the Directoire period (1795-1800) and this was no accident, for Tissot had purposefully tried to emulate the styles of the period and this is evident in a few of his paintings from that time period. Directoire period was a glamorous time of frivolity after the terrors of the revolution and perhaps this is why Tissot decided to emulate the style.

James Tissot, Study for Young Lady in a Boat, c.1869–70. Graphite on buff wove paper, 25.3 x 24.3 cm

Tissot’s paintings are really like a dream; beautifully dressed women lazing around in splendid gardens, gliding on boats, sipping tea in warm salons whilst the children are playing hide and seek. These are people, mostly women, that seem to have everything but there is always a hint of sadness in their faces, as if despite having everything they aren’t fully happy. There’s always a sense of something missing from their lives, perhaps they feel the weight of the contraints on them, both of their corsets and of their society, maybe too much idleness brought too little to fight for or desire, maybe they don’t know what they want but just feel a certain void inside. A void that perhaps a little pug could solve.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Venus Verticordia

“‘Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart

That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—”

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia, 1864-68

Painting “Venus Verticordia” is a gorgeous example of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s style of portraits from the 1860s. The original model for the goddess of love was an exceptionally beautiful cook that Rossetti had met in the street. We don’t know what she looked like; perhaps she fit Rossetti’s ideal of a woman perfectly, or perhaps with his imagination and with his brush he transformed her into his feminine ideal. Regardless,in 1867 he had altered the face on the portrait to fit the features of his favourite model Alexa Wilding who sat for many of his paintings. The goddess of Love was portrayed in so many ways and so many times throughout history, but here she takes on the typical features of Rossetti’s feminine ideal; her hair is long, lush and auburn, her eyelids heavy and langorous, her lips thick and pouty, her neck strong. This is a far cry from the weak, frail and melancholy beauty exemplified by his lover and muse Elizabeth Siddal whose face and figure domineered his art of the previous decade.

“Venus Verticordia” means “Venus, changer of the heart” and was said to change the hearts of men from lust to love, but the mood and symbolism in Rossetti’s portrait tell a different story. The eroticism isn’t subtle and subdued here, but rather the goddess’ breasts are lavishly exposed. The space around her is filled with lush, vibrant flowers, roses and honesuckles, whose symbolic connotations of passion and female sexuality would have been known to the Victorian audience. She is holding a golden arrow in her hand, a motif we usually see with her son Cupid, the god of desire erotic love. A contrasting motif to all this is a golden halo and butterflies around her head, both are symbolically connected with spiritual, not earthly or sensual matters. The halo typically graces the heads of saints and butterflies are sometimes seen as symbolic of the soul, so perhaps a soulful love and not just a carnal one.

The painting left no one speechless when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Art critic and writer John Ruskin found the painting tasteless to put it lightly while others such as the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote: “The great picture of Venus Verticordia has now been in great measure recast; the head is of a diviner type of beauty; golden butterflies hover about the halo of her hair; alight upon the apple or the arrow in her hands; her face has the sweet supremacy of a beauty imperial and immortal; her glorious bosom seems to exult and expand as the roses on each side of it. The painting of leaf and fruit and flower in this picture is beyond my praise or any man’s; but of one thing I will here take note; the flash of green brilliance from the upper leaves of the trellis against the sombre green of the trees behind. Once more it must appear that the painter alone can translate into words as perfect in music and colour the sense and spirit of his work.”

Stills from the film “Love Witch” (2016)

When I look into the eyes of this redhead Venus conjured in the imagination of the Victorian artist, poet and an aesthete, the image of Elaine Parks from the film “Love Witch” (2016) comes to mind; both have that look of indifference and power in their eyes, a certain awareness of their beauty and dominance, and they are confident about their inevitable success in love matters. It is a gaze that brings doom to a man who gazes back at it.

Ford Madox Brown – Capturing the Atmosphere: Walton-on-the-Naze and The Hayfield

Ford Madox Brown, Walton-on-the-Naze (1860)

The final days of August are always tinged in melancholy. Summer is not yet gone, and autumn has not yet arrived. The rich and vibrant facade of summer is slightly cracking and a yearning for what once was fills the cracks, and even a sunny, warm day or the beauty of a blooming rose are haunted by a feeling of nostalgia for the passing summer. The first rain, or a gust of wind, the first sight of yellow leaves on a chestnut tree all seem ominous of what is to come. This mood inhabits some of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings and two of such examples are landscape scenes by Ford Madox Brown. His paintings “The Hayfield” and “Walton-on-the-Naze” both possess that rich yet wistful ambience. Most of the painting “The Hayfield” was painted slowly and patiently during a period of time from late July to early September and, following the Pre-Raphaelite philosophy of painting directly from nature, Brown would walk miles and miles from his house two times a week to a spot where the scenery was the most delightful. Waiting for the perfect light, he would start painting at 5 am. The twilight scene shows the end of a working day; the moon had just risen but there is still enough daylight to reveal the scene to our eyes. The farmers are slowly getting ready to go home, there are children sittin in the haycart and one man is gazing up at the moon. You can feel the chill in the air, the slightly damp, cold grass, children’s cheerful chatter… The colours of the painting proved to be controversial, just as was the case with John Constable’s landscape some years before, but Brown stated in the catalogue for the painting that: “the stacking of the second crop of hay had been much delayed by rain, which heightened the green of the remaining grass, together with the brown of the hay. The consequence was an effect of unusual beauty of colour, making the hay by contrast with the green grass, positively red or pink, under the glow of twilight”. This shows us that the Victorian audience had a perception of reality and nature different to what it really was and they didn’t want to see the reality in art, but rather their dreamy vision of the world around them.

The painting “Walton-on-the-Naze”, painted during Brown’s visit to this small coastal town in Essex in August 1859, again features the motif of a rising moon and the gorgeous effect of light. This might be his most beautiful landscape because the ephemeral light and the effect of depth are just mesmerising. The air seems soft, rosy and palpable and the rainbow in the sky adds a whole new dreamy dimension to the scene. I had had the luck of seeing the rainbow but a few weeks ago and its beauty still charms my memory. The male figure is the portrait of Brown himself and the female figure is Brown’s wife Emma. The little girl is their daughter Catherine. The beautiful visual rhythm of the stacks of wheat in the foreground may reminds us of the harvest time and the work that is to be done, but this painting isn’t the harvesting type like the previous one, but a touristy type because Brown and his family were on holiday in that coastal town when he painted it and this reflects the Victorian discovery of coastal towns and the sea as places for leisure, rest and fun. Londoners could have easily reached the coast via a steamer train and one is seen in the background of this painting. Even Elizabeth Siddal and Rossetti stayed on the sea for her health around the same time. The layers of depth in this painting are superb, I mean just look at the ship disappearing on the horizon, a pink sky behind it, how utterly dreamy.

Ford Madox Brown, The Hayfield, 1855-56