Paolo Veronese (1528–1588) was and remains well known for his often huge paintings of feasts featured in the stories of the Christian gospels, about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. He painted many of these from the late 1550s, mainly to satisfy a market for large paintings to hang in the refectories (eating halls) of monasteries in Italy.

At first sight, their narrative may seem simple, and consist of the gospel account of that particular event. However closer examination of their content shows that each contains cues to many other narratives, which appear unrelated to the central story. These appear to be largely confined to painting (and photographic) narratives, and may explain other puzzling paintings such as Poussin’s landscapes.

The Supper at Emmaus (c 1559), 241 × 415 cm

One of the first of these feasts, and possibly dating from 1555, this seems to have been an experiment which succeeded.

At its heart is the gospel narrative: after his crucifixion and resurrection, Christ appeared several times to his disciples. In this episode, two disciples had travelled on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus as pilgrims, and recognised Christ as he “sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave it to them.”

The painting contains separate passages which cue this narrative: on the far left is an asynchronous ‘flashback’ if you like which refers to the journey to Emmaus. Christ is in the centre of the painting, with a halo to indicate his identity, and is in the midst of breaking bread. With him at the table are the two bearded figures of the disciples, dressed as pilgrims, and bearing staves. On Christ’s right is a servant, acting as waiter to the group.

This leaves us to account for the other onlookers: three men, a woman, five boys, four girls, and a baby, together with assorted pet animals. The adults and children are dressed in contemporary costume, rather than the robes of the early first century, and it is that which makes it clear that this is also a family portrait, part of the narrative of the life of an aristocratic Italian family of the day.

It is not impossible to intertwine two separate narratives 1500 years apart in a single text or oral story, but unusual and a more conspicuous artifice than this painting is.

The Marriage Feast at Cana (1562-3), 667 × 994 cm

A few years later, in 1562, Veronese was commissioned to paint a much larger work for the refectory of the Benedictine Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Its central narrative is another episode of the ministry of Christ as recorded in the gospels. Here, Christ and his disciples were invited to a wedding feast in Cana, Galilee. Towards its end, the wine started to run out, and he was asked what they should do. He directed servants to fill jugs with water, which he then miraculously turned into wine.

The huge canvas shows Christ, distinguished by his halo, at the centre of his disciples, with the Virgin Mary (also with halo) at his right, and sundry disciples arrayed along that side of the tables. The wedding group is at the far left of the party.

At the far right of the canvas, wine is shown being poured from a large container, a clear cue to the gospel narrative.

There is also a great deal of other activity, in every part of the painting. On the balcony behind Christ there are scenes of the butchery of meat, which is generally claimed to be lamb and symbolic of Christ’s future death as a sacrifice for mankind, as the ‘Lamb of God’, although there are no visual cues to support that interpretation.

In the musicians below, and other guests, it is claimed that there are portraits of artists, including Veronese himself, and Titian. Other important figures which are supposed to be shown include Eleanor of Austria, Francis I of France, Mary I of England, Suleiman the Magnificent, and Emperor Charles V.

Again, Veronese has intertwined the gospel narrative with others, this time multiple snippets referring to other stories.

The Feast in the House of Simon the Pharisee (1570), 454 x 974 cm

Veronese painted many more large canvases for refectories. A later and equally spectacular example is this, depicting as its gospel narrative another feast, here in the house of Simon, a Pharisee. According to the gospel of Luke, chapter 7, during this Christ’s feet were anointed by a ‘sinful woman’, and he told the parable of the two debtors.

Slightly to the right of centre, Veronese shows Christ, this time without a halo. A woman is indeed anointing his right foot, the empty jar of precious ointment discarded in front of her. Sat opposite Christ, and apparently in discussion with him, is the pharisee of the title.

Beyond that central group, there are many other events in progress. At the left of the painting is a group in active discussion, of whom several wear anachronistic or inappropriate dress, suggesting that they are from a different time and place. There are similar disparities at the right of the painting too, where the figure at the centre looks to be of contemporary Italian origin.

The Feast in the House of Levi (1573), 555 × 1280 cm

An even more massive canvas followed, and took Veronese into danger. This was painted for the refectory of the Dominican Friary of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo, and was intended to show the Last Supper, Christ’s last meal with his disciples before he was betrayed and crucified, at which he laid out the sacrament of Communion, a key part of Christian life ever since.

However, he over-reached himself, and the painting brought such offence that he was brought before the Inquisition accused of blasphemy. Thankfully the Inquisition did not impose any penalty on Veronese himself, but required that he ‘correct’ the painting within a period of three months. This he did by changing its title, not its content, to The Feast in the House of Levi.

The new central narrative then became that of a feast hosted by Levi, a tax collector, for other tax collectors and their like. Christ’s attendance was criticised by the scribes and pharisees, leading to his answer “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Christ is shown in the centre of the painting, further emphasised by his halo. In addition to the standard row of disciples, Veronese adds a rich collection of other figures, described by the Inquisition as “buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs and other such scurrilities”, more in the manner of a Venetian feast.

Although Veronese was inevitably being very cautious in his answers to the Inquisition, and the written record may not be an accurate account, it is interesting to see his own reported explanation for these additional figures and events (from the English translation by Charles Yriarte):
We painters use the same license as poets and madmen, and I represented those halberdiers, the one drinking, the other eating at the foot of the stairs, but both ready to do their duty, because it seemed to me suitable and possible that the master of the house, who as I have been told was rich and magnificent, would have such servants. … when I have some space left over in a picture I adorn it with figures of my own invention. … I did it on the supposition that those people were outside the room in which the Supper was taking place.

The Last Supper (c 1585), 220 x 523 cm

That was not the only painting of the Last Supper which Veronese made for a refectory. This was probably his last, and a small fraction of the size of the previous one of 1573. It is very unconventional, in placing Christ (with the halo) at its far left, and putting the disciples in a disorganised huddle to the right of him.

Still there are additions, though. At the far right, in the distant gloom, a couple are seen in discussion, one wearing a turban. Nearer the viewer is a (female) child, a dog, and another figure apparently squatting on the floor.

Discussion

In these five paintings of feasts, Veronese has adorned each central gospel narrative with one or many unrelated additional narratives. Initially the additional story was that of a family portrait, but he subsequently used the technique to fill the “space left over” in his paintings with many other cameo narratives. Most of these would only have been meaningful to his contemporaries, and some were possibly quite private.

Non-serial visual narrative is not only suited to this reference to multiple narratives, but many viewers find the result both appealing and fascinating. The Last Supper has been used repeatedly as a platform for this narrative form, and remains a popular image to place on the walls of dining rooms (I have seen this done in an English pub, for instance, with a modern revision of the Last Supper).

This approach has extended to illustration, where there are series of popular children’s books based on this narrative form: Where’s Wally and Richard Scarry’s Gold Bug are examples.

This works with non-serial narrative, because the viewer can trace the cues for the central and other narratives independently and in their own time; if they fail to recognise additional narratives, they can choose to ignore them or to speculate about them. The consequences of trying this in a serial medium such as a novel, or oral storytelling, would be to confuse the audience, and lose their attention. In painting (and photography) it does just the opposite.

The following articles cover the subject of narrative painting, and narratives in paintings.

Across media

Telling the story: narrative across media, including spoken, written, movies, graphic novels, paintings, photos, and music

Specific topics

Every picture tells a story: narrative paintings, an introduction
The Story in Paintings: Poussin’s Rinaldo and Armida
The Story in Paintings: Rinaldo and Armida, murder sublimated
The Story in Paintings: Using Storyspace for analysis
The Story in Paintings: Lucretia, the hardest narrative of all
The Story in Paintings: Delacroix and the last great histories
The Story in Paintings: Turner’s narratives
The Story in Paintings: Off with his head! Veronese, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi, and Bigot paint Judith and Holofernes (Warning: contains gruesome images)
The Story in Paintings: A Feast of Veronese
The Story in Paintings: Gustave Moreau and the dissolution of history
The Story in Paintings: JW Waterhouse and mediaeval romance
The Story in Paintings: Pre-Raphaelite tableaux
The Story in Paintings: Jean-Léon Gérôme and the spectacular
The Story in Paintings: Impressionist issues, including Corot, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and Cézanne, with surprising conclusions
The Story in Paintings: Moving panoramas for the masses
The Story in Paintings: War and puzzles, with Goya, John Singer Sargent, Picasso, and others
The Story in Paintings: New narratives from Paula Rego, Peter Doig, and Stuart Pearson Wright

Narrative in landscape paintings

Narrative in the landscape
Landscape Visions 6 – figures, staffage, and Advent Calendars

Individual paintings and painters

Favourite Paintings 3 – Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with a Calm, 1651
Favourite Paintings 18 – Sandro Botticelli, Primavera (Spring), c 1482

Summary of major points, with references to the relevant articles:

They are older than written narratives, and have been much more widely accessible. Printing after 1500 made images far more common. Article Article
Painting is a singular (point in time) rather than serial (across time) medium. Article Article
The timeframe is implicit. Article Article
Visual content is explicit, but sound and other sensory data are implicit. Article Article
Narrative paintings do not usually convey speech or text, although some bear inscriptions. Article
Generally, paintings use narratives which are already familiar to the viewer. Article Article
Where they use unfamiliar narratives, they require speculation, ‘reading’ the painting, on the part of the viewer. Article Article
When the narrative is not clear, and cannot be traced to an oral or printed version, the painting may become an insoluble mystery. Article
Facial expression is important (Alberti). Article Article Article Article Article
Facial expression of animals can be used too. Article
Body language is important (Alberti). Article Article Article
Facial expression, body language and their resulting theatricality form ‘the fruitful moment’ (Lessing) Article
Simplicity in content and composition puts the narrative across more clearly. Article Article
Visual cues are given by including objects and passages which refer directly to details of the narrative. Article
Additional péripéties (adventures or trips) can condense the causes, consequences, and moral implications of the event. Article
Adding elements which are not in the original narrative generates speculation, and can confuse the viewer. Article
Narrative content weaked during the 1700s, and largely disappeared with oblique and obscure references in the 1800s. Article Article Article Article Article Article
Since the late 1900s, there has been a resurgence in narrative paintings, with many of the best following traditional rules with excellent effect. These modern narratives are often derived from modern sources such as movies; classical myths and religion are seldom sources of narrative any more. Article
The Storyspace 3 app (Eastgate) is a good tool for graphical analysis of narrative paintings. Article
The best narratives are about people, as we empathise most with human stories. Article
New and radical painting styles and techniques are no barrier to painting narratives. Article
Paintings (and photographs) are suited to the inclusion of multiple unrelated narratives, which can be both appealing and fascinating. These are only likely to confuse if used in serial media such as text or speech. Article
It is hard to include both dramatic human action and calm beauty; generally emphasis falls on beauty, and action is lacking, weakening the narrative. Article
It is possible to condense time from two or more moments into a single image. Article
Visual artifices can be used to make clear auditory and other invisible parts of an event. Article
Careful recasting of an event can strengthen the narrative. Article Article
Some painter-poets (e.g. Rossetti) have written poems first, and then painted their narrative. Article
Thoughts and yearnings can be made explicit in a form of ‘thought bubbles’, as used in graphic novels, etc. Article
Pre-Raphaelite narrative painting is notable for its lack of ‘action’, showing static tableaux instead. Article
Good narrative paintings can also refer to other narratives or establish additional points. Article
Strong narrative is possible without facial expression or body language, if composition and cues are good enough. Article
Narrative self-portraits are possible. Article
Not all paintings which refer to narratives, such as myths, are themselves narrative. Article
Artists who have undergone a ‘classical’ training should be best-equipped to portrary narrative. However, sometimes they do not deliver clear narratives, and those who were largely self-taught can sometimes be better at conveying narrative. Article
By and large, Impressionism ignored the narrative genres altogether. Article
Illustrations are intended by the artist to accompany the text narrative; narrative paintings are intended by the artist to stand alone, possibly with the support of the title and short excerpt of text. Article
Panoramas later included narrative paintings. Dioramas were easier to show, requiring smaller spaces, and moving panoramas were compact and very popular. Article
Moving panoramas were in effect long series of conjoined paintings, normally shown with an accompanying oral narrative, and live piano music. Article
‘Flashbacks’ and other asynchronous events can be shown as dreams, in the sky. Article
Painting a view remote from humans, and from an aerial point of view, will make the narrative detached from people, and ‘colder’. Article
Symbolic narrative which remains unresolved can tell a different personal story to each viewer, but still drive a consensus of reaction and opinion. Article

Index of artists covered:

Bigot, Trophime Article
Blake, William Article
Botticelli, Sandro Article
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter Article
Burne-Jones, Edward Article
Cades, Giuseppe Article
Caravaggio Article
Cézanne, Paul Article
Collier, John Article
Conca, Sebastiano Article
Conder, Charles Article
Corot, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Article
Courbet, Gustave Article
Cranach the Elder, Lucas Article Article
Degas, Edgar Article
Delacroix, Eugène Article
Delaroche, Paul Article
Detaille, Édouard Article
Doig, Peter Article
van Dyck, Anthony Article
Feszty, Árpád Article
de la Fosse, Charles-Alexandre Coëssin Article
Fragonard, Jean-Honoré Article
Gentileschi, Artemisia Article Article
Gérôme, Jean-Léon Article
Goya, Francisco Article
Hoet the Elder, Gerard Article
Hunt, William Holman Article
Kauffman, Angelica Article
Kneller, Godfrey Article
Lea, III, Tom Article
Lippi, Lorenzo (Workshop of) Article
Manet, Édouard Article
van Mieris, Willem Article
Millais, John Everett Article
Moreau, Gustave Article Article
Muller, Édouard Article
Nash, Paul Article
Nevinson, C R W Article
Palmer, Samuel Article
Philippoteaux, Paul Dominique Article
Picasso, Pablo Article
Poussin, Nicolas Article Article Article Article Article
Purrington, Caleb Article
Rego, Paula Article
Rembrandt Article
Renoir, Pierre-Auguste Article
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Article
Russell, Benjamin Article
Sargent, John Singer Article
Seurat, Georges Article
Spencer, Stanley Article
Stillman, Marie Spartali Article
Tiepolo, Giovanni Battista Article
Turner, JMW Article
Vassallo, Antonio Maria Article
Veronese, Paolo Article Article Article
Waterhouse, JW Article
Wright, Stuart Pearson Article
Zugno, Francesco Article

During the 1800s, history, and other forms of narrative, painting underwent a crisis from which they have never really recovered. This article looks at the narrative paintings of Gustave Moreau, who rethought the genre. Although now an obscure artist, the paintings which I consider here are of great importance in understanding narrative in paintings, and bear lessons which still need repeating.

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898)

Born in Paris the year after the death of David, his father was an architect and a man of culture who wished his son to have a sound and classical education. After showing good abilities at drawing, he started copying in the Louvre at the age of 17, and the following year started attending a private atelier run by François-Édouard Picot, to prepare him for the entrance exam for the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He succeeded in its entrance exam, and started there as a student in 1846.

Primarily interested in history painting, he competed twice for the Prix de Rome, the premier competition for history painting, but was unsuccessful on both occasions. He then left the École des Beaux-Arts in 1849, and returned to making copies in the Louvre, and some small commissioned paintings. In 1851 (the year that JMW Turner died), he befriended Théodore Chassériau, a former pupil of Ingres, and set up his first studio near his. The following year he had his first painting accepted for the Salon, but it did not make significant impact.

In 1853, his parents bought him a house to live in, and use as a studio: he moved in, and remained there for the rest of his life; this is now the Musée Gustave Moreau, which he established later in life. From October 1857 to June 1858, he copied Renaissance paintings in Rome, then moved on to Florence, Milan, and Venice. He finally returned to Paris in September 1859. The following year he met his mistress (whom he never married, but remained single) and set her up in a nearby flat, where she lived until her death in 1890.

From about 1859, he resolved to reform history painting by developing a new approach. He achieved progressive success in the Salon, although a hostile reception in 1869 stopped him from submitting to the Salon again until 1876. He developed a steady trickle of commissions, and a supportive circle of enthusiastic collectors. He was admitted to the Legion of Honour in 1875, and was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1888.

Despite his earlier reluctance, in 1891 he took over his late friend Delaunay’s atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts. The following year he was appointed Professor there; among his students were Matisse and Marquet. In 1895 he was a member of the patronage committee for the first Venice Biennale. His museum was finally established under the French State in 1902.

The aim of his history painting

Classical teaching at the time stressed the staging of history paintings according to Roger de Piles, and their theatricality in terms of facial expression and gesture, according to Alberti. These combined in what Lessing had termed ‘the fruitful moment’. Poussin had extended this using ‘péripéties’ (adventures or trips), which condensed the causes of the event which was depicted, its consequences and moral implications, into the narrative painting.

Cooke considers that Moreau was against the tradition of theatricality, believing that it annihilated plastic form. His aims therefore were:

• expression of the passions through his representation of dramatic human action,
• creation of calm plastic beauty engendered by the immobile human form,
• evocation of an immaterial state which he considers sublime.

As the action and calm beauty of the first two were antitheses, this posed immediate problems which Moreau then tried to tackle in many of his works.

Jason (1865)

One of Moreau’s early history paintings, his Jason referred to the classical narrative of Jason and the Golden Fleece. When Jason reached Colchis, he underwent a series of trials imposed by King Aeëtes, culminating in Jason’s victory over the dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece. These were accomplished with the help of Medea, the King’s daughter, in return for a promise of marriage.

Rather than paint one of the many action scenes from the narrative, Jason is here shown with Medea, and symbolic rather than literal representations of the Golden Fleece and the vanquished dragon. The Golden Fleece is shown by the ram’s head at the top of the pillar behind the couple. The dragon is shown by the winged beast on which Jason’s feet are placed, with the broken tip of a spear impaled in it. This was a departure from the original Greek myth, in which the dragon was put to sleep rather than killed.

There are further cues to the mythical narrative too. Among these are the vial held in Medea’s right hand, which refers to past events in which its contents were used to put the dragon to sleep, and in other trials set by her father, and to the poison which she will later administer to Jason’s young bride. It has also been claimed that the flowers decorating her body are the poisonous hellebore, a standard tool of witches.

Although more opaque than most narrative paintings, and capable of confounding the critics of the day, Moreau’s Jason succeeds when you know the original narrative well. It falls short of his aims, though, in that it lacks any sort of human action.

The Muses Leave Apollo, their Father, in Order to go Forth and Enlighten the World (c 1868)

Several studies exist for this beautiful and intricate painting, but this version in oils remained in Moreau’s studio throughout his life, and he continued to work on it fitfully. In 1882 he started to enlarge the canvas, but that appears to have been completed.

Its narrative is extremely simple, and related in its title: the Muses, of epic poetry, lyric poetry, history, song, tragedy, hymns, dance, comedy, and astronomy, are here leaving Apollo (son of Zeus, who was generally held to be their father) to bring inspiration to the human world.

Again this painting does not convey any dramatic human action, but does attain Moreau’s other two goals. In the context of his work, it anticipates the increasingly complex paintings which he made later in his career. However in this case its complexities do not (yet) obscure its narrative.

Hercules and the Lernean Hydra (1876)

Almost a decade later, Moreau painted another significant Greek mythical work applying his same principles.

This refers to one of the twelve labours imposed on Hercules, specifically that of hunting the Hydra in the marshes of Lernea, near Argos, and destroying it. The Hydra was a poisonous monster with the body of a dog and multiple serpent heads, whose breath alone was capable of killing.

Although he does not show its dog-like body here, Moreau shows its heads according to the letter of the original story, with the marshes seen behind. Hercules is shown confronting the Hydra, with a charnelhouse of remains of previous victims at its base.

Once again, Moreau is only partially successful in his aims, falling short of any dramatic human action. However by providing good cues to the original narrative, the painting succeeds.

It has also engendered long-standing controversy over its possible political connotations. It was suggested at the time that the Hydra represented the forces of anarchy behind the insurgency of the Commune in 1871. Others prefer instead that the Hydra represents Bismarck and the German princes behind the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. There do not appear to be any good cues to either.

Salome (1876)

At the Salon of 1876, Moreau showed another even more surprising painting alongside his Hercules and the Lernean Hydra: Salome.

This time the narrative is Biblical, and very simple. The unnamed daughter (subsequently identified as Salome) of Herodias performed a dance at a birthday feast thrown by King Herod. The dance so pleased Herod that he offered her anything that she wanted, up to half his kingdom. She asked for the head of John the Baptist, the earthly messenger sent to announce the birth and ministry of Jesus Christ. Reluctantly, Herod agreed, John was beheaded in prison, and his head brought to her on a plate; the dancer gave the head to her mother.

There have been numerous paintings showing John’s head being brought on a plate, and related variations, but Moreau’s version shows Salome in her dance before King Herod. In that central narrative and its cues, it is fairly straightforward. Once again, Moreau does not depict any action as such, although here he had ample opportunity to show a dramatic movement in the dance. Instead Salome appears frozen, or at most moving in a dead march.

Everything else about the painting, though, is extraordinary, particularly in its fusion of different cultural elements. These have been associated with the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Alhambra in Granada, the Great Mosque of Cordoba, and several mediaeval cathedrals. Motifs have been identified from Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese art and culture.

Moreau’s narrative was starting to become submerged in his exuberant and exotic symbolism.

Jupiter and Semele (1895)

This most elaborate canvas represents the culmination of Moreau’s quest to change history painting. Completed just three years before his death, he appears to have started it over five years earlier.

Returning to Greek myth, Moreau uses the story of the god Jupiter and the mortal woman Semele, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as the basis. Jupiter made Semele pregnant when he was in human form. His jealous wife Juno tricks Jupiter into an oath which makes him reveal himself to Semele in his full divine form. Even though Jupiter takes his weakest thunderclouds in doing so, this results in Semele’s destruction. Jupiter then takes her foetus and sews it into his own thigh, so that it can then give rise to Bacchus, his son.

It is hard to know how much – or, rather, how little – of this painting directly reflects or cues that narrative. Jupiter himself is shown holding a lotus flower in his right hand, and Apollo’s ornate lyre in his left. Semele is draped in mid-air over Jupiter’s right thigh.

Beyond that couple there is a cornucopia of religious and cultural figures and symbols which is so excessively rich as to defy narrative or allegorical interpretation. At the foot of Jupiter’s immense throne are at least five substantial figures, who do not appear to relate to any characters in Ovid’s narrative. Indeed, none seems to even come from a period or culture which might have been familiar to Ovid.

In this final reckoning, Moreau shows that his original aims were too conflicting to achieve. He consistently has to abandon dramatic human action, and in doing so, his paintings do not express passions. His quest for beauty and the sublime overwhelms narrative, and instead of a new history painting, we see only the dissolution of narrative, and of history itself.

Sadly, Moreau did not re-invent the genre, but created his own wonderful phantasmagoric theatricality, more Richard Dadd than The New History Painting. In doing so, I think that he proved the underlying soundness of Alberti and Poussin’s approaches.

References

Cooke P (2014) Gustave Moreau, History Painting, Spirituality and Symbolism, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 20433 9.
Mathieu P-L (1998, 2010) Gustave Moreau, the Assembler of Dreams, PocheCouleur. ISBN 978 2 867 70194 8.

There were history and other narrative painters in the late 1800s who did not see the need to re-invent history painting in the way that Gustave Moreau did. One of the best and most enduring – if still little-known – was JW Waterhouse.

John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)

Born in Rome to parents who were both (minor) British painters, the family returned to live in London in 1854. Encouraged into drawing and painting, he entered the school of the Royal Academy of Art in 1871, initially as a sculptor, as he had failed entry for painting. With a traditional and classical education in painting, he had his first work accepted for exhibition in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1874.

His early work was classical, Salon-style along the lines of Alma-Tadema and Lord Leighton, but he became more painterly over time. He showed paintings at the Royal Academy almost annually, until 1916, with increasing success. He taught at the Saint John’s Wood Art School, and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1895. He is often considered to be a ‘third-generation Pre-Raphaelite’, but his loose brushwork was quite distinct from the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, who also long preceded him.

“I am Half Sick of Shadows” said the Lady of Shalott (1915)

This late painting, and the next much earlier one, are two of the three paintings by Waterhouse which are based on the poem The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), published in 1833 and 1842. This recounts part of the Arthurian legends, that of Elaine of Astolat, as retold in an Italian novella from the 1200s, from which it gets its title.

The Lady of Shalott lives in a castle connected to Camelot by a river. She is subject to a mysterious curse which confines her to weaving images on her loom, and must not look directly at the outside world (she can use a mirror, though, to view it). Tennyson calls these reflected images ‘shadows of the world’, and this painting depicts the stanza from the poem:

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights,
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
‘I am half sick of shadows,’ said
The Lady of Shalott.

Waterhouse shows a scene which is remarkably faithful to the poem: the Lady of Shalott sits looking wistfully into the (interior) distance, in front of her loom, on which she is weaving images. What appears to be a window behind her is actually a very large circular mirror, reflecting the view of the outside which must be behind the viewer. This cleverly brings the viewer into her world, without showing the viewer in the mirror. She is surrounded by additional objects which provide abundant cues to what she is doing. In the (reflected) distance the river is shown running down to the large castellated palace of Camelot.

The Lady’s facial expression and body language match the text perfectly, showing that he is following the classical approach advocated by Alberti and practised by Poussin and many others.

In addition to the obvious links to the text narrative, Waterhouse has ingeniously made this fairly static scene a commentary on the reality of images, and of their reflections, which is common to Tennyson’s poem.

The whole painting assembles a crisp reality from its very painterly facture. The colours are rich and intense, particularly the Lady’s dress and the images in her weaving.

The Lady of Shalott (1888)

This much earlier painting depicts the climax of Tennyson’s poem.

One day, while she sits and weaves, she catches sight of the knight Lancelot. His appearance is such that she stops weaving and looks out of her window directly towards Camelot, invoking the curse. She then abandons her castle, and finds a boat on which she writes her name. She floats in that boat downriver to Camelot, dying before she arrives there. Lancelot sees her body, and the poem ends:

But Lancelot mused a little space
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Waterhouse’s most famous painting is again a careful depiction of exactly what is described in Tennyson’s poem, even down to the naming of the boat. This time he dresses the Lady in a white dress which is cut to Arthurian expectations, with long cut-away sleeves, and a symbolically black belt.

Her face shows the failing anguish and yearning of someone about to die as the result of a conflict between a curse and her desire for Lancelot, although she has limited body language. Draped over the side of the boat is an example of the images which she has spent her life weaving, a strong cue to the poem.

This painting, much earlier in Waterhouse’s career, is not as painterly but is more strictly realistic in its style, although his colours are still intense in some passages, notably the Lady’s hair, and her weaving.

Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891)

Greek mythology held that Circe was the goddess of magic, adept at all manner of potions and spells. According to Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and his colleagues arrived on her island, where she invited them to a feast, at which they drank wine which was laced with a magical potion, drunk from an enchanted cup. She then turned the men into pigs, apart from one who escaped and warned Odysseus and a few others who had stayed to look after their ships.

Hermes, messenger of the gods, then told Odysseus to use a herb to protect himself from the effects of Circe’s potion. He should then draw his sword and act as if to attack Circe with it. Odysseus followed that advice, and was able to free his men, who remained on the island for another year, feasting and drinking wine.

Waterhouse shows Circe quite true to Homer’s account, offering Odysseus the enchanted cup containing wine laced with her magical potion. Her facial expression fits this well, and her left hand wields her magic wand, ready to transform Odysseus into a pig. This is cued by the sight of a pig resting peacefully at Circe’s feet. Her right hand offers Odysseus and the viewer the enchanted cup.

As in his first painting of the Lady of Shalott above, Waterhouse uses a large circular mirror to great effect, showing Odysseus reflected in the mirror, and once again putting the viewer (invisibly) within the painting. Scattered around Circe are various flowers and berries, as she might use in her potions.

Ulysses and the Sirens (1891)

This is another story from the Homeric Odyssey (the Greek Odysseus and Latin Ulysses being identical). Circe had helpfully advised Odysseus/Ulysses that he would have to sail past the Sirens, two to five creatures who lured men to their death with their singing. In preparation, Odysseus got his sailors to plug their ears with beeswax before they reached the Sirens, so that they could not hear their song, and to bind him to the mast. He gave them strict instructions that under no circumstances, no matter what he said at the time, were they to loosen his bonds, as he would be listening to the Sirens’ song.

As the group reached the Sirens, Odysseus instructed his men to release him, but instead they bound him more closely to the mast. Once they had passed safely from earshot of the Sirens, Odysseus used his facial expression to inform his men, who then released him, and they sailed on.

Waterhouse’s depiction is quite close to the Homeric account, although he has provided a total of seven Sirens, very appropriately shown as a large eagle-like bird of prey with the head and neck of a beautiful young woman. He has added bandage wrappings around the head of each sailor to make it clear that their ears are stopped from hearing sound. This is a good example of a visual artifice which makes the cue to the text much clearer, even though it is not what is literally described in that text.

There is relatively little opportunity to exploit facial expressions here, but the Sirens are clearly singing, particularly the one closest to the viewer, who is challenging the hearing protection of one of the sailors. Another sailor, at the stern of the ship (left of the painting), is seen clutching his ears, clear body language to support the narrative.

There is some additional detail which does not appear in Homer’s original, particularly the fact that the Sirens were not described as coming out from the shore of their island to Odysseus’ ships, but Waterhouse’s gentle recasting of the scene serves its narrative strongly.

It is likely that Waterhouse would have seen William Etty’s (1787–1849) celebrated painting The Sirens and Ulysses (1837), but wisely resisted its depiction of the Sirens as three beautiful and naked young women.

Echo and Narcissus (1903)

This classical myth is known from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book III, and is the union of two conjoined narratives.

In the first, Echo is a loquacious singing nymph who annoys Zeus’s wife Hera by tricking her into believing that her husband was around. Hera puts Echo under a curse, in which Echo is only able to repeat the last words spoken, and is unable to say anything else. Echo then falls in love with Narcissus; when her presence is revealed to Narcissus, he rejects her. Aphrodite then makes Echo disappear, so that only her echoing voice remains.

When Narcissus is tired of hunting and the heat, he pauses by a spring, and drinks from it. While drinking, he falls in love with his own reflection in the water. He wastes away with this self-love, his body being replaced by the narcissus flower.

Although the story of Narcissus is very visual and popular with painters (see, for example, Caravaggio’s powerful representation), that of Echo is largely auditory and a much greater challenge. Waterhouse chooses to collapse the sequential stories into a single composite image, with Echo, spurned despite her beauty (which is explicit, unusually for this artist), whilst Narcissus is engrossed in staring at his own reflection.

Narcissus comes with good cues which link to details in the text narrative: his bow and quiver of arrows, and the broad-brimmed hat associated with warm weather. At his feet there are also narcissus flowers. Although body language is used to good effect, Waterhouse does not overdo this by adding theatrical facial expressions.

The painting, for all its realism, is very painterly.

Jason and Medea (1907)

I have already shown and discussed Gustave Moreau’s version of Jason (1865) with Medea, shown below.

This refers to the classical narrative of Jason and the Golden Fleece: when Jason reached Colchis, he underwent a series of trials imposed by King Aeëtes, culminating in Jason’s victory over the dragon which guarded the Golden Fleece. These were accomplished with the help of Medea, the King’s daughter, in return for a promise of marriage.

Waterhouse makes quite different decisions from those of Moreau. The Golden Fleece, perhaps the strongest visual cue, is nowhere to be seen, suggesting that his painting depicts Medea preparing the potion which Jason later gives to the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. Medea wears a dress which suggests, in its bold icons, her role as a sorceress. In front of her, a flame heats ingredients for the potion, which she is adding to a chalice. Jason appears anxious, and is dressed and armed ready to go and fight the dragon.

Although quite faithful to the text, this scene occurs during the build-up to the climax of this story, and is only weakly dramatic. Facial expressions and body language are appropriate but not exaggerated.

Tristan and Isolde (1916)

The tragic adulterous love between Tristan (Tristram) and Iseult (Isolde, Yseult) is thought to have originated in an ancient Persian story, and possibly Celtic legend, and was then retold in French mediaeval poems, and again in Arthurian legend, as Lancelot and Guinevere. In its essence, it consists of a love triangle.

Tristan, a Cornish knight, is successful against an Irish knight, then goes to Ireland to bring Iseult back for his uncle, King Mark, to marry. However Tristan and Iseult fall in love as a result of a potion which they have both taken. Eventually King Mark learns of the affair, and tries to entrap the couple. However this is complicated by war between Ireland and Cornwall, and at length Tristan and Iseult agree to disengage from one another. There are many variants, and different endings, some of which are inevitably tragic.

Waterhouse again follows quite a standard and faithful pictorial account, of the couple drinking the potion from a golden chalice, whilst on a ship, presumably carrying them back to King Mark. They do not have particularly strong facial expressions, and their body language indicates the beginning of their romantic involvement. Both are dressed in role, and in the spirit of popular images of Arthurian legends.

Conclusion

Unlike Gustave Moreau, Waterhouse does not appear to have had any disagreement with conventional and classical approaches (Alberti) to the depiction of narrative in paintings. Although he seldom used facial expression as a strong element, body language is usually clear, and that expected, and he provides ample supporting cues to the text narrative.

It is interesting to see his more painterly style, and use of rich colour. Some have suggested that this is impressionist, but I think that would be exaggeration. It is, though, appropriate to his time relative to the changes wrought by Impressionism.

Overall I think that his narratives work well, although by that time they had to compete with spectacular panoramas, and the beginning of the movies: tough competition indeed.

References

Wikipedia on the Lady of Shalott
Wikipedia on Echo and Narcissus
Wikipedia on Tristan and Iseult

Trippi P (2002) J. W. Waterhouse, Phaidon Press. ISBN 978 0 7148 4518 0.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) was formed as a close-knit and often co-habiting artistic group in 1848, in England. Its early doctrines were expressed in four declarations:

• to have genuine ideas to express,
• to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them,
• to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote,
• most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

Their intention was to reform art by rejection of the mechanistic approach to painting which had come to dominate from Raphael onwards, and was epitomised by the work and influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds. They preferred the intense colours, detail, and complex compositions of Italian ‘quattrocento’ art (of the 1400s). The movement went into decline after 1860, but individuals kept its ideals and style alive well into the twentieth century.

Painters who were members of the PRB itself were:

• James Collinson (1825-1881)
• William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
• John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

Other well-known painters who were associated with the PRB include:

• Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898)
• John Collier (1850–1934)
• Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)

William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), The flight of Madeline and Porphyro during the drunkenness attending the revelry (The Eve of St. Agnes) (study) (1848)

The text narrative for this painting is John Keats’ poem The Eve of St. Agnes (1819). Madeline has fallen in love with Porphyro, who is an enemy to her family. Older women have told Madeline that she can receive sweet dreams of love on the night of St. Agnes Eve, which precedes the day on which the patron saint of virgins is celebrated (21 January).

On that night, Porphyro gains entry to the castle in which Madeline lives, and looks for Angela, who remains a friend to his family despite the feud. Angela reluctantly agrees to take him to Madeline’s room, so that he can gaze at her sleeping there. Angela takes him there, and he hides in a large wardrobe. He watches her prepare for bed, seeing her full beauty in the moonlight.

He creeps out to prepare a meal for her, but she wakes, and seeing the same figure which she had just been dreaming, takes him into her bed. She then wakes properly and realises her mistake. They declare their mutual love before escaping from the castle past drunken revelers, and flee into the night.

Hunt shows the climax of the poem, with Madeline and Porphyro, dressed in their cloaks, creeping past the drunken bodies of those who have been at the feast. Through the arches at the left the drinking and feasting can be seen, still in progress. In the foreground he shows one of the revelers clutching an empty cask of drink, whilst other remains of the drinking are scattered on the floor to the right. Two large dogs appear to be somnolent, not reacting to events.

Madeline’s face has a neutral expression, and she has her right arm across Porphyro’s chest to restrain him, her left hand in contact with his right hand on the hilt of his (smaller) sword, as if to restrain him from drawing that sword. Porphyro’s face shows tension, almost amounting to anger, perhaps, as his left hand holds a door behind him, at the right edge of the painting. That door bears a key, suggesting that it is an outer door. His right hand grips the handle of his sword, as if he is about to draw it. However both figures appear relatively static, and do not appear to be moving at any speed.

There are thus ample cues to link into the text narrative, and the painting appears to follow that closely, using facial expression and body language conventionally.

John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Ophelia (1851-2)

Ophelia is Hamlet’s lover in Shapespeare’s play of that name. In Act IV scene vii, she is driven to the point of insanity when Hamlet murders her father, and as a result she drowns herself in a stream:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element; but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

Millais shows the climax of this narrative, Ophelia drowning herself in the “weeping brook”. Her facial expression has the vacant stare of imminent death, her hands and dress passively buoyant in the water.

He used extensive symbolism in the flowers shown: roses for love, and possibly alluding to her brother calling her the ‘rose of May’; willow, nettle and daisy for forsaken love, suffering, and innocence, respectively; pansies for love in vain; violets (in her necklace chain) for faithfulness, chastity, or young death; poppies for death; forget-me-nots for remembrance.

This is probably the most famous painting of all those by Pre-Raphaelites, and Millais painted its background en plein air near Ewell, Surrey, England. He then painted in the figure of Ophelia, using Elizabeth Siddal (who later married Rossetti) as his model. She posed in a bath full of water, which was warmed from underneath.

Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), Cinderella (1863)
John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Cinderella (1881)

The story of Cinderella was first published in Italy, but is well-known throughout Europe.

A widow with two vain and selfish daughters marries a widower with one good and beautiful daughter. The two vain daughters oppress their good step-sister, who is given all the chores to do and thus becomes known as Cinderella. One day the Prince invites all the young ladies to a ball, so that he can choose a wife from among them. The two vain daughters plan and prepare, intending that Cinderella should not go.

After they have left for the ball, Cinderella sits crying, and her Fairy Godmother appears. The latter turns a pumpkin into a golden carriage, mice into horses to draw it, and Cinderella’s rags into a ball gown with glass slippers. Her Fairy Godmother warns Cinderella that these changes are only temporary, and that she has to return by midnight, when her carriage, etc., will return to their original objects.

Cinderella then goes to the ball, and wins the Prince and his entire court over. As she rushes away just before midnight, she drops one of her glass slippers. The Prince finds the slipper, and launches a search to discover whose it is, so that he can marry her. When he visits the vain sisters it does not fit them, but fits Cinderella, who later marries the Prince and lives happily ever after. (There are variants in which the glass slipper is lost at a second ball, not the first.)

Burne-Jones shows Cinderella reverted to her plain clothes after the ball, but still wearing one (the left) glass slipper. She is seen in a scullery or similar area, with a dull, patched, and grubby working dress and apron. Other than the glass slipper, there is one further cue to the previous ball: a single pale pink rose to the right of her head. She is staring wistfully into the distance, her right hand holding her hair, her left raising the apron.

Millais’ version is very different. A much younger girl, Cinderella is sat in her working dress, clutching a broomstick with her left hand, and with a peacock feather in her right. She also has a wistful expression, staring into the distance almost – but not quite – in the direction of the viewer. The only other cue to the narrative is a mouse, seen at the bottom left of the painting.

Cinderella wears a small red skull-cap which could be an odd part of her ball outfit, but her feet are bare, and there is no sign of any glass slipper. It is thus impossible to decide which part of the narrative he is showing us, and it would be easy to assume that this was simply a portrait of a kitchen waif, not part of the Cinderella narrative.

Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), The Beguiling of Merlin (1870-4)

In Arthurian legend, Merlin was a (good) wizard of great significance. This narrative excerpt refers to an event in which the Lady of the Lake, Nimue (or Nimiane, or Vivian), has trapped Merlin helpless in a hawthorn bush while he is under Nimue’s spell. Merlin was infatuated with Nimue, who took advantage of that to learn his magic skills. This story has several variants: the more popular version given by Malory has Merlin trapped under a stone, but Burne-Jones used a late mediaeval French version, which has Nimue with snakes entwined in her hair.

Burne-Jones is faithful to the old French version, showing Merlin, his face full of stupor, trapped limp in a hawthorn, which is in full blossom. Nimue is looking down at Merlin with a powerful stare, holding a book of spells high in front of her. Her hair has black snakes in it, just like the classical monster Medusa.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), The Blessed Damozel (1875-8)

Rossetti was both painter and poet, and in this unusual joint role, wrote the poem on which his painting was later based. Other artists, including JMW Turner, have written verse to accompany their paintings, but Rossetti’s poem is possibly even more famous than his painting.

The Blessed Damozel (1850) centres on a female lover who has died and gone to heaven, looking down at her surviving male lover, and voicing her desire for their reunion in heaven. The first four stanzas are inscribed on the frame of the painting:

The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.

Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.

Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.

(To one, it is ten years of years.
…Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me — her hair
Fell all about my face…
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)

(Damozel is a variant of damsel, in turn derived from the French demoiselle, for a young unmarried lady.)

Rossetti has painted a very unusual work for his poem, in which the main part is divided into two sections, and there is a third in the predella at its foot.

In the top section he shows the damsel of the title, looking full of yearning, and staring into the distance. Above her are a series of ‘thought bubbles’ (as they have become in graphic novels, etc.) containing scenes with her lover, and at the very top is a dove, representing the Holy Ghost. As in the poem, she has stars in her hair, but only six are shown, not seven, the absent star perhaps representing Merope, the lost Pleiad who was cast out of heaven. She holds three lilies (purity) in her hands, and pink but not white roses (passion) are seen too. Her hair is chestnut brown, not “yellow like ripe corn”.

Below her in the main painting are three angelic female heads, and at its foot, in the predella, her lover is seen recumbent in his yearning and thought, looking upwards among rich green wooded countryside. Overall this may have been modelled after classical Venetian paintings depicting the Virgin Mary, an eroticisation of a conventional religious composition.

Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), The Prioress’s Tale (1869-1898)

This is one of the narratives contained in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, told by pilgrims from London to Canterbury.

It is set in a Christian city in Asia, in which there is a community of Jews. The young son of a widow is brought up to revere the Virgin Mary, singing a popular mediaeval hymn Alma Redemptoris Mater (Nurturing Mother of the Redeemer) as he walks to school through the Jewish quarter. Satan incites the Jews to murder the boy, which they do, throwing his body on the midden.

His mother finds him there, and his body miraculously starts to sing the hymn again, despite his throat being cut. Christians call for the provost, who has the Jews responsible drawn by wild horses and then hanged. The boy’s body continues to sing throughout his funeral, until the abbot asks how he is able to sing. The boy replies that although his throat was cut, he had a vision in which the Virgin Mary laid a grain on his tongue, telling him that he would keep singing until the grain is removed. The abbot then removes the grain, allowing the boy to die properly at last.

Burne-Jones shows the Virgin Mary placing the grain (taken from the flowering heads in her left hand) under the boy’s tongue, with her right hand. She is identified by her classical ultramarine blue cloak and halo, the boy not on the midden-heap, but stood in mortuary cloths in his grave. Around them are symbolic flowers. Behind are troubled scenes in the city, although it is not clear exactly which part of the narrative they represent – probably the Christians’ response to the disappearance of the boy.

John Collier (1850–1934), The Sleeping Beauty (1921)

The Sleeping Beauty is another ‘fairy’ story widespread through most of Europe, best known from the version of the brothers Grimm, and retold by Tennyson in his early poem The Day-Dream.

The central story tells of a princess, who has seven good fairies as her godmothers. An eighth and evil fairy was overlooked, and seeks a way to get revenge. She puts a curse on the princess that she will prick her hand on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. One good fairy tries to reverse this, changing the spell so that it will put her into a deep sleep for a century, and can only be awakened by a kiss from a prince.

Royal edict then forbids all spinning throughout the kingdom, but when the princess is a young woman, she discovers an old woman spinning, and pricks her finger on the spindle. She then falls to sleep. The king summons the good fairy to try to address the problem. Her solution is to put everyone in the castle to sleep, and to summon a forest with brambles and thorns around the castle, to prevent anyone from entering.

A prince later hears the story of the Sleeping Beauty, and rises to the challenge to penetrate the trees and bramble thickets around the castle. He discovers the sleeping princess, kisses her, and she and the rest of the castle wake up. The prince and princess marry, and they all live happily ever after.

A pupil of the Pre-Raphaelites working long after most of the them had died, Collier chooses part of the story before the climax. Here the princess and her two companions are shown asleep, with the dense woodland and brambles seen through the window.

Conclusions

Pre-Raphaelite artists, including those of the PRB itself and those associated with the movement, used conventional narrative techniques in their paintings, including facial expression, body language, and additional cues to the text narrative. These generally worked well.

What is most remarkable, both in these examples and in their body of work, is their reluctance to show scenes involving action of any kind. Almost without exception, they have painted static tableaux rather then snapshots of active narrative. Indeed, when looking for these examples, I had a wide choice of portraits of various figures taken from narratives, but hardly any showing any form of action.

Largely forgotten until revived recently, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) was the most popular painter of the Salon and the art market during the period that the Impressionists were active, and rejecting the Salon.

A realist whose style has been dubbed Néo-Grec (Neo-Greek), many of his most popular works showed scenes of the spectacular. His recent revival has been driven in part by re-evaluation of his works, which now reveals that many of his paintings (and sculptures) were not just playing to the gallery.

He was a pupil of Paul Delaroche, so I will start with the latter’s most famous narrative painting before looking at a selection of Gérôme’s works.

Paul Delaroche (1797–1856), The Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1833)

England in 1553 was in turmoil. King Edward VI’s reign of six years was marred by economic problems, social unrest which erupted into open rebellion, and war with Scotland; these had culminated with the King’s death at the age of just 15.

There was dispute over who should succeed him, as he had no natural heirs, but he had drawn up a plan for a cousin, Lady Jane Grey, to become Queen. Her rule started on 10 July 1553, but King Edward’s half sister Mary deposed her on 19 July. She was committed to the Tower of London, convicted of high treason in November 1553, and executed on Tower Green by beheading on 12 February 1554 at the age of just 16 (or 17).

Lady Jane Grey and the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Bridges, take the centre of the canvas. She is blindfolded, the rest of her face almost expressionless. As she can no longer see, the Lieutenant is guiding her towards the executioner’s block, in front of her. Her arms are outstretched, hands with fingers spread in their quest for the block. Under the block, straw has been placed to take up her blood.

At the right, the executioner stands high and coldly detached, his left hand holding the haft of the axe which he will shortly use to kill the young woman. Coils of rope hang from his waist, ready to tie his victim down if necessary. At the left, two of Lady Jane Grey’s attendants or family are resigned in their grief.

Lady Jane Grey wears a silver-white gown which dominates the entire painting, forcing everything and everyone else back into sombre mid tones and darker.

Delaroche appears to have made an accurate depiction of the scene, but in fact he made one major alteration: Lady Jane Grey was actually executed in the small court-like space within the Tower known as Tower Green, and not in a dark room.

Although he has little scope to use facial expression, body language is very important, and there are numerous cues to the original narrative. The painting is charged in atmosphere by its plain composition, and by the radiance of Lady Jane Grey’s gown. This painting caused a sensation at the Salon of 1834, where it was first exhibited.

Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904)

The Duel After the Ball (1857-9)

On leaving a masked (fancy dress) ball in the winter of 1856-7, an elected official and a former police commissioner fought a duel in a copse in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. One was dressed as the character Pierrot, the other as Harlequin. Pierrot was wounded as a result, and the incident became notorious because of the personalities involved, and their comic costumes.

Pierrot leans, as white as his costume, collapsed against one of his team, his face suggesting shock if not imminent death from a wound bleeding onto his chest. His limp right arm still bears his sword, which now drags on the ground. Two other friends are visibly distressed at his condition and trying to console him.

Harlequin, with his second, walks off towards the distance at the right. His sword is abandoned on the snowy ground, near four feathers which have dropped from the American Indian headdress of his second. In the murky distance there is a hackney cab, ready to take the combatants away, and a couple walking along the edge of the copse.

Gérôme uses the full range of conventional narrative techniques, with strong cues to the original story. He stages it theatrically, with the absurd grim humour of the participants’ costumes, making it intensely effective. Exhibited at the 1857 Salon, this became one of the most widely reproduced paintings of its time, although his rival Thomas Couture was upset that his more academic version of the incident was largely ignored.

Phryné before the Areopagus (1861)

Phryne or Phryné was the nickname of a famous hetaera (courtesan or prostitute) in Ancient Greece. Born about 371 BCE, she was accused of impiety by profaning the sacred Eleusinian Mysteries. When she was brought to trial before the Areopagus, which functioned as the court of appeal, her defence removed her robe and bared her breasts to arouse their pity.

Her beauty filled the judges with fear, that they could not condemn a prophetess and priestess of Aphrodite, and she was acquitted out of pity. There are different accounts of her trial, some which deny her breasts being bared before the judges, but this painting is based on the account by Athenaeus.

Phryne is shown to the left of the centre, in the midst of the semicircular court, completely naked apart from some jewellery on her neck and wrists, and her sandals. She is turned away from the gaze of the judges, her eyes hidden in the crook of her right elbow, as if in shame and modesty.

Behind her (to the left), her defence has just removed her blue robes with a flourish, his hands holding them high. The judges, their chests bare, but wearing uniform scarlet robes, are taken aback. Some have faces of pure fright, others anguish or grief, or disbelief. Most have raised their arms in a variety of anxious gestures.

Gérôme tells this narrative almost solely using facial expression and body language, to show the emotional dialogue taking place between Phryne, her defence, and the judges. Although one or two of the expressions appear a little exaggerated and melodramatic, the painting succeeds, and its story is clearly told.

Superficially, it is easy to suggest that Gérôme was using Phryne’s nakedness to appeal to the lowest desires, which remained one of the popular attractions of the annual Salon. However it is more likely that this is a statement about attitudes to the nude female form and the judgement of the Salon. Manet’s Olympia was rejected by the Salon just two years later (1863).

Cleopatra before Caesar (1866)

Cleopatra VII Philopator, known as Queen Cleopatra, was the last active pharoah of Ptolemaic Egypt, ruling from 51 to 30 BCE. For much of this period she ruled jointly with relatives; in 51 BCE, when she was ruling with her ten year-old brother Ptolemy XIII, they fell out, and she tried to rule alone.

In 47 BCE, she took advantage of Julius Caesar’s anger towards her brother by having herself smuggled into Caesar’s palace in Egypt, so that should could meet with Caesar. Although she was probably taken in while inside a large bag, this has traditionally been described instead as being inside a large roll of carpet. She became Caesar’s mistress, bearing him a son, and convincing Caesar to fight and defeat Ptolemy’s army at the Battle of the Nile, restoring Cleopatra to her throne.

Cleopatra is stood at the edge of the carpet from which she has just emerged, dressed (or undressed) for seduction. She looks at Caesar, her expression hard to read because of its angle of view. Her breasts are exposed below an elaborate Egyptian jewellery collar, and wispy veils hang from a belt-like girdle slung from her hips. A slave cowers behind and to the right of her.

Caesar is seen working at his desk, looking up at Cleopatra, his hands held out as if trying to regain control of the situation. Behind Cleopatra several men, presumably Caesar’s counsel, are sat at a table.

Gérôme uses the classical combination of expression, body language, and obvious cues such as the carpet, to link well with the text narrative.

The Death of Marshal Ney (1868)

Michel Ney (1769-1815) was a leading military commander during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and was made a Marshal of France by Napoleon. Following Napoleon’s defeat and exile in the summer of 1815, Ney was arrested, and tried for treason by the Chamber of Peers. He was found guilty, and executed by firing squad near the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on 7 December 1815. He refused a blindfold, and was allowed to give the command to fire upon himself.

Unusually for Gérôme’s narrative paintings, on this occasion he has chosen to show the scene just after the climax of the story. Ney’s body is abandoned, slumped and lifeless on the muddy ground, his top hat apart at the right edge of the canvas. Behind where he stood but a few moments ago, there are half a dozen impact marks on the wall, from bullets. The firing squad is being marched off, to the left and into the distance.

No face is clearly visible, and body language is minimal. Gérôme here achieves his narrative using composition, and cues such as the bullet marks, alone. Instead of the tense horror of the shots about to be fired, or being fired, (as used by Manet and Goya, for example), he opts for this cold, bleak, heartless execution, which is grimly effective.

Pollice Verso (1872)

The narrative here is extremely simple: when a Roman gladiator – here a murmillo wielding sword and shield – gets another – here a retiarius wielding net and trident – in the position that the former can administer a fatal strike, the potential victor looks towards the crowd, for direction. If they show the thumbs up, the life of the vanquished is spared; if the thumbs point down, pollice verso, then the victor can proceed and kill the vanquished.

In this, one of Gérôme’s most spectacular paintings of spectacle, its bright colours and fine details make it almost super-real. Although supported by a rich array of facial expressions from the crowd, this painting is about body language, specifically the simple gesture of pointing the thumb downwards. There are of course abundant cues, in the details of the gladiator’s armour and equipment, Caesar’s imperial throne and box, and much more. But here the story is centred on a hand gesture, and its consequences for the retiarius on the ground.

The Tulip Folly (1882)

The tulip flower was originally imported from Turkey, and became extremely popular in the Netherlands during the early 1600s. The Dutch cultivated them to produce varieties of different colours, petal and leaf patterns, and these became associated with wealth and status.

By 1634, the value of tulips had become very high, out of all proportion to their real worth. Certain varieties in particular became highly sought-after, and the subject of financial speculation. Eventually the bubble burst, prices collapsed, and paper fortunes vanished almost overnight. This resulted in a credit crisis and national financial problems.

Gérôme’s unusual narrative is told quite simply, and in the absence of facial expressions. One group of (government) soldiers are shown in the middle distance, destroying beds of tulips, presumably in a move to manipulate the market. In the foreground, a soldier of a different group (probably an officer, given his fine ruff) stands guard over a pot containing a single rare variety of tulip. His sword is drawn ready, although pointing at the ground just by his valuable plant.

This choice of narrative must have had contemporary significance. It has been suggested that it may refer to the economic crash of 1873, the first international recession resulting from market speculation, or perhaps in irony to the high value of Gérôme’s paintings when it was painted in 1882.

Bathsheba (1889/95)

The Biblical story of Bathsheba is one of the more sordid of its histories. King David lusted after Bathsheba, a gentlewoman of fine birth who was married to one of David’s generals. Having made her pregnant adulterously, David first tried to make it appear that the unborn child had been conceived in wedlock, then when that failed he put Bathsheba’s husband into danger in battle, so that he was killed, and David became able to marry her as a widow.

David first developed his lust for Bathsheba when he saw her bathing on the roof of her house, which became a popular motif for paintings. However, Rembrandt chose a very different scene for his Bathsheba with King David’s Letter of 1654.

Gérôme, who was surely aware of Rembrandt’s and other famous versions of this narrative, perhaps predictably opted to give us David’s view of Bathsheba, washing herself, naked in the small garden on her roof. Bathsheba has her back turned to the viewer, and is washing her left elbow with her right hand. Her face is barely visible, but her body obviously highly desirable to David. A servant is by Bathsheba’s feet, helping her bathe. Bathsheba’s clothes are piled loosely to her right, on a small stool. Behind them stretches the city, bathed in warm light.

There are none of the subtleties or emotional complexities of Rembrandt here, and the story appears to have been shown quite faithfully to the original. Gérôme dodges the many moral and other higher issues, and tells it plain and simple.

The Artist’s Model (1895)

Gérôme took to sculpture in 1878, when he was 55. This is an unusual narrative self-portrait, showing him at work on his marble figure Tanagra (1890), currently in the Musée d’Orsay, and inspired by secret excavations near Tanagra, Boeotia, Central Greece, in 1870. These had revealed antique polychromy figures which had suddenly become all the rage with collectors. This shows his model, Emma.

This is a very unusual painting, one of several which Gérôme made of models with sculpted figures. Body language and the many visual cues placed around the painting are key, there being little scope for facial expression. The main participants – Emma, his model, Gérôme himself, and his marble sculpture – are central, and carefully arranged. Scattered at the edges of the floor are reminders of gladiatoral armour, and other props used for his paintings, together with one of his polychrome sculptures of a woman with a hoop, at the right edge.

Androcles (c 1902)

The story of Androcles (or Androclus) and the Lion was first recorded by Aulus Gellius and attributed to Apion, claimed to be a true account, but has become widespread in European folk tales. It was turned into the successful and still popular play Androcles and the Lion by George Bernard Shaw, but that was not published for a decade after this painting.

Androcles was a slave in Rome, with a mean master, so he decided to run away. Hiding in the woods, he became short of food, and weak. One night a lion came into the cave in which Androcles was sheltering. The lion was roaring, and scared Androcles, who thought that he was about to be eaten by the lion. But it was clear that the lion had a very painful foot; eventually Androcles plucked up the courage to look at the animal’s foot, from which he extracted a large thorn (or splinter of wood). The lion was overjoyed and very friendly towards Androcles. They became friends, and the lion brought Androcles food, to build up his strength.

One day soldiers were passing, and found Androcles. They returned him to Rome, where the law prescribed that such runaway slaves were to be put in the arena with a hungry lion. The day came that Androcles was put in the arena, but when his lion was released, he turned out to be the same lion who Androcles had been so friendly with. Instead of the lion killing Androcles, they showed their friendship. When he had explained how this came about, Androcles was made a free man, and took the lion as his pet.

Gérôme shows the salient event in the first part of this story, in which Androcles extracts the thorn or splinter from the lion’s paw. With Androcles’ face angled towards the paw, the only expression available is that of the lion, which Gérôme uses to great effect, in expressing its agony and distress. You don’t have to know anything about lions to see that.

Androcles is shown working carefully to extract the object, almost surrounded by the lion’s substantial body. This is all faithful to the story, and cued in with it very well.

Summary

Several, perhaps many, of Gérôme’s narrative paintings are of spectacular events. He is adept in his use of classical narrative techniques, including facial expression, body language, and cues to details within the original story. Unlike the contemporary Pre-Raphaelites, his paintings are often full of action, and sometimes donwright thrilling.

However, looking beyond such superficial matters, his narratives often appear to have deeper significance. Their re-examination is more than justified.

Reference

de Cars L et al. (2010) The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), Skira. ISBN 978 8 85 720702 5.

Even without a manifesto or coherent philosophy, one of the few consistent features of the Impressionists was their total abstinence from narrative genres such as history, mythological, and religious painting. For those genres signified the classical Salon tradition, which they united in fighting.

That said, their immediate precursors, including Corot and Manet, did paint narrative works, and in their own pre-Impressionist careers, several of them did venture into narrative. This article looks at how far they went, and what they made of narrative paintings.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875)

As one of the major influences on the Impressionists, through his landscape paintings, Corot did paint occasional narrative works, particularly during the middle and later part of his career. I have chosen as an example one of his landscapes in which he has set a narrative from mythology.

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld (1861)

The classic version of this myth was recorded by Virgil in his Georgics, although Ovid wrote a slightly different account in his Metamorphoses.

Orpheus was the son of Apollo, who was the most entrancing player of the lyre. He fell in love with the uniquely beautiful Euridyce, whom he married. However when Hymen blessed their marriage, he fortold that their love would not last. Soon afterwards, she was wandering in a forest with her nymphs, when she met a shepherd, Aristaeus, who fell in love with her. When he was chasing her in the wood, she was bitten by a snake and died.

Orpheus was stricken with grief; his father Apollo advised him to go to Hades to see his dead wife, and provided divine protection for this. He eventually reached Hades, the god of the underworld, and charmed him with his music. Hades agreed to let him take Euridyce with him, provided that he did not look at her until he had left the caves of the underworld. Inevitably, when just a few feet from safety, Orpheus turned to look at Euridyce, who was taken back into the underworld.

Corot shows the couple, Orpheus leading Euridyce, as they near the light at the exit of the underworld. Orpheus is instantly recognisable by his lyre, held high in front of him, and both are clearly moving towards the right edge of the painting, and the edge of the dark wood. Although they are too small for facial expressions to be significant elements, their body language is clear, with Orpheus looking straight ahead, holding Euridyce’s left arm with his trailing right hand.

Rather than use an abstract form to represent the underworld, Corot has used a wood, with a pool in the middle distance. Behind that are spirits of the dead, some still grieving their death. Although this setting is unconventional, Corot has followed standard practice in most respects, and the narrative is clear, well-cued, and coherent with the text version.

Édouard Manet (1832–1883)

Manet, who did not exhibit with the Impressionists, was another major influence on their approach and painting. He painted several strongly narrative works through his career, from which I have chosen three.

The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama (1864)

The US Navy warship USS Kearsarge and a Confederate States Navy warship CSS Alabama fought the Battle of Cherbourg, off the French coast near Cherbourg, in June 1864. The Alabama had been pursued for two years by the Kearsage at that time, and was in the neutral port of Cherbourg undergoing repairs.

With nowhere else to go, the Alabama left harbour on 19 June, and the two vessels engaged in combat in clear sight of the French coast. The Kearsarge got the upper hand, and the Alabama was holed below the waterline and started to sink. The Alabama was abandoned and sank, most of her survivors being rescued by the Kearsarge.

Manet shows the sinking Alabama in the middle of the canvas, flying a white flag of surrender. The Kearsarge appears to be behind and to the left of her, in the midst of smoke from her own guns. Two other vessels are on hand: a small local pilot cutter in the foreground (French according to its flag), and in the distance at the right is the British yacht the Deerhound, which rescued some of the survivors. One survivor in seen swimming from right to left, towards the cutter.

Alberti’s rules can hardly apply to warships in such marines, but Manet appears to have painted a scene which is largely consistent with contemporary accounts, on which he had to rely. However the position of the swimming survivor is odd and out of kilter with that of the Alabama. This is an odd narrative for a painter who was not a marine specialist.

The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868)

Maximilian became Emperor of Mexico in 1864, although he was the son of Archduke Franz Karl of Austria and Princess Sophie of Bavaria, and had served in the Austrian Navy. He installed himself as Emperor with the support of Napoleon III, who had intervened in Mexico.

However he was strongly opposed by forces who remained loyal to Mexico’s deposed president, and when Napoleon withdrew French troops in 1866, Maximilian’s rule collapsed. He was captured the following year, court-martialled, and executed by firing squad with two of his generals on 19 June 1867. The firing squad did not kill the men at their first attempt, and a coup de grace was needed to ensure their deaths.

Manet painted three similar versions, of which the earliest was cut up (probably by the artist), and a third, incomplete painting remains intact. There is also a much smaller study.

He decided to show the moment of execution, with a disorganised firing squad at almost point-blank range of their victims. In this painting, Manet puts them in field dress which could easily be interpreted as being French. Their faces are turned away from the viewer, only their body language and actions being clear. At the back of the squad (right of the painting) their commander is fiddling with his rifle, and disinterested in the execution.

Maximilian appears to be an old man, although he was only 35 at the time. The nearer of his generals assumes the expression of horror, and appears in his posture to have been hit by bullets. Maximilian’s face is oddly neutral, and he appears to be holding the hand of the general on each side of him. The other, distant, general appears almost detached from the group, with an odd expression and little body language.

Behind the scene of execution is a small group of people peering over the top of a wall, watching what is going on in apparent detachment.

Although the narrative is clearly portrayed and appears faithful to history, it is not clear why Manet did not make better use of facial expression and body language, in the way that Goya had previously in his The Third of May 1808 (1814).

The Barricade (Civil War) (1871)

The Paris Commune rose up from frictions arising from the end of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, effectively providing Paris with its own radical socialist revolutionary government from March to May 1871. At the end of this, during ‘Bloody Week’, there were numerous battles between the French Army and the Communards, many of which were fought over barricades which the latter had built in the streets. These culminated in a massacre at the Père-Lachaise Cemetry on 27-28 May.

In this sketch, Manet uses a similar composition and elements to The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico above, of a firing squad shooting at very close range a couple of Communards. Facial expressions are either not visible or not shown, although the situation and body language are clear.

Edgar Degas (1834–1917)

One of the pivotal figures in the Impressionist movement, Degas was also one of its few artists who had undergone full formal training in classical painting, and one who seldom painted ‘Impressions’. As would have been expected of a painter after such training, in his early career he painted several narrative works. I have selected two to discuss here.

Dante and Virgil at the Entrance to Hell (1857-8)

In Dante Alighieri’s epic poem Inferno (14th century), Dante, the author, becomes lost in a dark wood, and is assailed by three beasts. He is at last rescued by the great Roman poet Virgil, and the pair embark on a journey to visit hell. Undergoing a fearful crossing of the River Styx, which is heaving with the tormented dead, the two arrive at the entrance to hell, where the gate bears an inscription ending with “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate”, traditionally translated as “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”. The remainder of the poem details the various parts of hell.

A popular subject for narrative paintings, one of its most famous versions was Eugène Delacroix’s first major painting, The Barque of Dante (1822).

Degas’ sketch shows two figures, their hands clasped, and looking at one another. Neither has a face developed sufficient to discern any expression, and being cloaked, all other body language is absent. There is no inscription visible, and without knowing the name of the painting, it would not be recognised as being narrative at all.

Degas also made sketches for other narrative paintings which are as difficult to read and relate to their narrative, such as David and Goliath (c 1864), which I cannot illustrate here for copyright reasons.

Interior (‘The Rape’) (1868-9)

Degas painted his Interior later, included much more detail, but it is even more mystifying than his early history paintings.

A man and a woman are in a bedroom together. The woman is at the left, partly kneeling down, and facing to the left. Her hair is cropped short, she wears a white shift which has dropped off her left shoulder, and her face is obscured in the dark. Her left forearm rests on a small stool or chair, over which is draped a dark brown cloak or coat. Her right hand rests on a wooden cabinet which is in front of her. She appears to be staring down towards the floor, off the left of the canvas.

The man stands at the far right, leaning on the inside of the bedroom door, and staring at the woman. He is quite well-dressed, with a black jacket, black waistcoat and mid-brown trousers. Both his hands are thrust into his trouser pockets, and his feet are apart. His top hat rests, upside down, on top of the cabinet in front of the woman.

Between them, just behind the woman, is a small occasional table, on which there is a table-lamp and a small open suitcase. Some of the contents of the suitcase rest over its edge. In front of it, on the table top, is a small pair of scissors and other items which appear to be from a small clothes repair kit (‘housewife’).

The single bed is made up, and its cover is not ruffled, but it may possibly bear a bloodstain at the foot. At the foot of the bed, on its large arched frame, another item apparently of the woman’s clothing (perhaps a coat) is loosely hung. On that end of the bed is a woman’s dark hat with ribbons.

Although so theatrical as to imply narrative reference, all attempts to attach a text narrative to it have so far failed. One of the most detailed and plausible readings was that of Theodore Reff, who claimed that it depicts a scene from Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin, whose heroine discovers on her wedding night that her marriage is poisoned by guilt.

The biggest problem with that attribution is that the bed shown is only a single, and other more minor discrepancies have been pointed out. It has also been suggested that it is based on a lithograph showing a prostitute with a client. The mystery remains.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)

Best known for his portraits and curvaceous female nudes, Renoir was far more accomplished, being a fine landscape painter and in his early years as an Impressionist was innovating as rapidly as Monet.

Diana the Huntress (1867)

The Roman goddess Diana has been popular as a motif for paintings, and is typically shown as a huntress, armed with a bow and arrows, and associated with the hunting of deer. Although there are narratives involving Actaeon, in particular, these are quite different from what is shown in Renoir’s painting.

Renoir shows Diana looking down at the deer which she has just killed using her bow and arrow. Her face appears expressionless. Her hands grasp the top of her bow, to her right, and the deer lies at her feet.

This appears to be a static portrait of a female nude cast into the role of Diana, rather than any mythological narrative.

The Judgement of Paris (study) (c 1908)

This is the study for the following painting in oils.

There are various accounts of what is now known as the Judgement of Paris. A common core to them is that three of the most beautiful women were brought to Alexander (or Paris), the son of King Priam of Troy, for him to determine which was the most beautiful. The women were Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. The prize was to be a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, donated by Eris, goddess of discord. Athena’s rage at losing caused to her join the Greeks in the war against Troy.

Renoir’s sketch appears to have been made primarily for compositional purposes, and therefore contains just the thee nude women with Paris presenting the golden apple to the middle of the three.

The Judgment of Paris (c 1908-10)

The finished painting adheres reasonably closely to the sketch, and to the original myth, although Renoir has added Hermes (Mercury), who is recognisable by his caduceus, winged helmet, and winged sandals.

Each of the faces is expressionless, and body language appears expansive but not particularly informative. It is almost certain that, as many painters before him, Renoir used the framework of the myth as an opportunity to paint three beautiful female nudes, rather than to engage in any real narrative.

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

Paul Cézanne was an early associate of the Impressionists, who during the 1870s learned Impressionist landscape painting from Pissarro in the region around Pontoise. In his early years as a painter, he made several dark canvases using the palette knife, in his ‘dark period’ of couillarde (‘ballsy’) works, with disturbing narratives of violence, rape, and murder.

The Judgment of Paris (1862-4)

Cézanne is one of the few artists who does not seem to have turned this myth into an excuse for three nudes, but has shown quite a mature approach to its narrative. Priam, seated at the right, appears to be handing the golden apple to Aphrodite, second from left, whilst Hera modestly keeps her back turned towards him, and Athena is trying to seduce him and take the apple.

Unfortunately this appears to be quite a rough sketch, and there is no useful (or readable) facial detail. But body language and cues such as Hera’s thin veil are sufficient to connect details with the original text narrative.

Afternoon in Naples (c 1875)

Here, though, Cézanne has become as mysterious as Degas. A naked woman is seen reclining and making love to a naked man, on a bed. The man is prone, his back uppermost. A black servant has just entered the room, bearing a tray with a pot of tea and cups. The servant is clad only in a bright orange skirt or loincloth, and has a bright yellow hat. All the three faces are obscured.

This could be a proper narrative, although its origin appears obscure. Or it could, as others have suggested, merely be an erotic fantasy set in Italy as a place of sensual freedom. It may allude to Manet’s Olympia, and sketches include a black cat, which is omitted from this final oil version. It may also allude to paintings by Courbet and Delacroix. It remains a mystery.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (c 1875)

Saint Anthony was born in 251 CE to wealthy parents in Lower Egypt. When he was 18, his parents died, and he became an evangelical Christian. He gave his inheritance away, and followed an ascetic life. For fifteen years he lived as a hermit. During this time the devil fought with him, afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and dreams of lustful women. Then the devil beat him unconscious.

Friends found him and brought him back to health, so he went back into the desert for another twenty years. This time the devil afflicted him with visions of wild beasts, snakes, scorpions, etc., but again he fought back. He eventually emerged serene and healthy. He went to Alexandria during the persecution of Christians there, to comfort those in prison. He returned to the desert, where he built a monastic system with his followers.

Cézanne appears to have been aware of a contemporary version of the story by Gustave Flaubert which expands considerably on the original accounts, and provides great details of the succession of temptations, which includes the Queen of Sheba with a retinue of (negro) boys, personifying the deadly sin of lust.

Cézanne shows the shadowy figure of Saint Anthony slumped against a bush at the left, his arms held out to shield himself from the temptations. The devil is shown, in stereotypical form, wearing red robes, with an animal head and horns, behind Saint Anthony. In front of them is the naked (rather than clothed) Queen of Sheba, her right arm held high to accentuate her form. Around her are naked (but not black) children. In front of Saint Anthony is a black bag presumably containing money, and a book.

None of the faces is sufficiently detailed to show any expression. Their body language is theatrical, though, and cues in strongly to the original narrative and its reworking by Flaubert. Although quite crudely executed, the narrative does work.

Summary

The 1800s was a century of crisis for narrative painting, and that crisis is reflected in the paintings discussed above. The simple answer, adopted by most Impressionists from about 1870, was to ignore the genres which brought narrative, and to paint landscapes.

Where pre-Impressionists and Impressionists (during the early part of their career) did attempt narrative painting, in their efforts to avoid Alberti’s ‘rules’ they tended to produce difficult or obscure paintings, whose narrative connections were weak, or possibly absent. Despite his classical training, Degas seemed to have great difficulty in expressing narrative, in contrast to the largely self-taught Cézanne, who – during his Impressionist period – painted the clearest narrative of all.

They also paved the way for narrative painting in the early twentieth century, which ignored Alberti and so often posed the viewer puzzles, rather than told stories.

During the 1800s, most western cities increased greatly in size, and the scope for exploiting paintings for commercial gain increased concomitantly.

The population of Paris grew from just over half a million in 1801 to nearer three million by 1901, and London grew from one million to nearly seven million over the same period. By the middle of the century, the Paris Salon could attract as many as 50,000 visitors per day, with a total of as many as a million visitors in its better years.

Sales of prints and illustrated books also soared, particularly among the growing middle classes.

Illustration or art?

I have always been unhappy with the tendency of ‘artists’ to use the word illustration as a disparaging term for works which they consider lack the qualities of ‘fine art’, particularly as it has proved impossible to define key terms such as art and illustration. This becomes even more of a problem when considering narrative works, so here I will rely on the following functional distinction.

Graphical representations (including paintings, drawings, prints) of narrative will here be deemed to be illustrations when the artist has intended them to accompany a copy of the written text (or similar) of the narrative; when the artist has intended the graphical representation to stand alone, possibly with the support of an informative title and a short excerpt of poetry or similar, then they will not be deemed to be illustrations, but separate works of art.

For example, many paintings and illustrations have been made of John Bunyan’s allegorical novel The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678); if you are unfamiliar with its history or narrative, Wikipedia has an extensive article here. Among the more famous illustrated editions is that of William Blake, dating from 1824-27, an example plate being shown below.

Blake intended this as a complete illustrated edition of the book, and however artistic his watercolours might be, they rely on the text narrative which accompanies them.

However Samuel Palmer and other painters made standalone paintings (and other graphical art), such as Palmer’s Christian Descending into the Valley of Humiliation (1848), below. Whilst they cue the textual narrative in title and content, they are narrative paintings rather than illustrations, in this context.

The popularity of panoramas

I have already given an account of the history of painted panoramas here and here, which almost exclusively showed landscape (or cityscape) views at first.

During the 1800s, they were developed to include more narrative works, particularly depictions of epic battles, and are still used occasionally to commemorate important battles.

Even at the end of the 1800s, as their popularity was waning, Árpád Feszty and a hoard of assistants depicted the narrative scenes they imagined of a millenium earlier, as the first Hungarians arrived to settle their country.

Full-size panoramas required a lot of space, and sometimes purpose-designed buildings, but in 1821-2, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) invented the diorama. This is the same Daguerre who less than twenty years later invented the daguerrotype process in photography, and was a professional panorama painter. Being considerably less demanding on space and resources, dioramas quickly became widespread and very popular, and included a wide range of narrative subjects.

Making them move

At about the same time, the moving panorama was invented in the UK. Rather than display a very long painting statically, moving panoramas put the painting on a flexible fabric support, and moved the image past the spectators. Although these became popular in Europe, they were most successful in the US, where a scene painter named John Banvard made them spectacles for the Broadway theatres in New York, and grew rich as a result.

In the 1840s and 1850s, moving panoramas were all the rage, showing scenes along the course of the Mississippi River, voyages around South America to California’s gold rush, Arctic explorations, and a whaling voyage around the world. Most of these had some form of underlying narrative, but it was usually very simple, such as the timeline of a journey.

The most prominent exception to that is The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress (1851), recently restored and on show at the Sacco Museum. In over 240 metres (800 feet) of fabric painted using distemper – as would have been used for theatrical scenery, for instance – it shows the complete narrative of John Bunyan’s book The Pilgrim’s Progress, in a very different way from Blake’s illustrations.

In reality, a moving panorama is nothing of the kind, but rests somewhere between painting and illustration (even by my definition above).

When shown to their spectators, they were in effect a series of still images presented in strict sequence, a bit like a modern slide presentation. The fabric on which they had been painted would be periodically advanced, then stopped, whilst a narrator told the viewers the narrative of that particular section of the image. This was often accompanied by live piano music.

So although they are in effect a long series of conjoined narrative paintings, they were as reliant on an oral account of the story as book illustrations are on their printed text.

The Sacco account of the Pilgrim’s Progress is, like Blake’s printed version, also a work of art in its own right, though. John Banvard may have been a second-rate amateur painter, but those who created the moving panorama of Bunyan’s book included some of the leading landscape painters in the US, such as Frederic Church.

Surviving moving panoramas include:
The Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress, Saco Museum, Saco, ME, with the 33 minute video here.
A Panorama of Mormon Life, Museum of Church History and Art, Salt Lake City, UT.
The Garibaldi Panorama, Brown University Library, Providence, RI.
Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage around the World, New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, MA.
The Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley, Saint Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO.

Conclusions

In the midst of all the other problems faced by narrative painting in the 1800s, it was also transformed into mass entertainment. In this it relied on accompanying oral narrative (and narration), and became a curious mixture of conventional painting, the graphic novel (comic strip, etc.), and a crude mechanical precursor to the movie.

By 1910, panoramas, moving or static, had faded into history as the western world was swept by movies. It looked as if narrative painting was also dead and gone.

Reference

Routhier, JS, Avery KJ & Hardiman, Jr, T (2015) The Painters’ Panorama, Narrative, Art, and Faith in the Moving Panorama of Pilgrim’s Progress, UP of New England. ISBN 978 1 61168 663 0.

I have already shown some examples of battle panoramas. Long before the advent of the panorama, painters have been trying to tell the stories of battles and wars. This article looks in more detail at a small selection of works showing these from the 1800s up to the Second World War.

War Artists, official and unofficial, can work in any of the genres, but they are generally most effective and influential in history painting, with its inevitable narrative.

Francisco Goya (1746–1828), El Tres de Mayo (The Third of May) (1814)

In November 1807, Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain and fought the Spanish in the Peninsular War. The people of Madrid rebelled on 2 May 1808, in an uprising which led to fierce battles. The following day, before dawn, the French forces rounded up and shot hundreds of the rebels at various locations in Madrid.

Goya’s depiction of this is one of the great paintings of Europe, and is discussed extensively in Wikipedia. From a narrative viewpoint, it not only follows Alberti’s rules, but is exemplary, as seen in the detail of the Spanish prisoners about to be executed.

Facial expression and body language are at their peak in the prominent figure wearing the white shirt. He is strongly supported by the other victims, and the blood and corpses at their feet make it abundantly clear what is about to happen to them.

This classical approach to the narrative of an execution by firing squad contrasts with Manet’s The Execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (1868) shown and discussed here, and with Gérôme’s The Death of Marshal Ney (1868) shown and discussed here.

The most immediate difference is timing of the depiction in the painting: Goya opts for the moment before the shots, which is the instant of greatest drama; Manet prefers a few moments later, when the shots have just been fired, which is technically the climax; but Gérôme waits until the body is well dead and the squad marching away, for maximum coldness and detachment. Being paintings, the viewer is then left to imagine the narrative prior to and after the instant shown.

Édouard Detaille (1848–1912), Le Rêve (The Dream) (1888)

Rather than showing military action from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1, Detaille here makes a direct political statement. Showing a group of young conscripts just before reveille, when on exercise probably in Champaign, he paints their (imaginary) collective dream of previous battles, spread across the coloured clouds of the dawn sky.

This ‘flashback’ technique sided with the rising militarism and thirst for righting the wrongs which the Franco-Prussian War had done France, and the following year conscription was introduced. The painting was awarded a medal, was bought by the French state, and presented at the 1889 World Fair. Its huge canvas is now one of the less popular works on display in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

C R W Nevinson (1889-1946), Paths of Glory (1917)

Nevinson quotes from Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written In A Country Church-Yard (1750):
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nevinson leaves the viewer to construct their own narrative of the deaths of these two soldiers behind the Western Front, and to draw their own conclusions. Its frank depiction of two of the more than 5.5 million Allied (and 4.3 million Central Powers) dead was judged too much by the official censor. Nevinson therefore exhibited the painting with a brown paper strip across it, marked ‘censored’, for which he was reprimanded. As is so often the case, this created greater publicity.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Gassed (1919)

John Singer Sargent’s unusually large canvas has a more explicit but equally damning narrative. Mustard gas attacks were used in the Western Front in August 1918, just three months before the end of the war. Here a group of blind and injured soldiers from an attack are led to medical aid in the Corps dressing station. Just visible in the distance, behind the wounded soldiers, a football match is in progress.

Sargent’s classical training equipped him well to undertake history and other narrative painting, although he seldom did either, preferring landscapes for pleasure and portraits to pay the bills. His time as a War Artist encouraged his narrative work, and he showed himself to be as skilled with such stories as in other genres.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Guernica (1937)

Because of copyright restrictions, I am unable to show an image of Picasso’s painting, which can be seen here. This street mural in Santiago de Chile is the closest that I can offer, I am afraid.

On 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the German Air Force’s Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria destroyed the Spanish Basque town of Guernica, killing hundreds, maybe over 1500, of its civilian population. Although apparently part of a military campaign, the bombing is seen as a singularly vicious attack on civilians to provoke terror and submission. Picasso was commissioned by the Spanish Republican government to paint a large mural in January 1937, before the attack took place, and completed this in June 1937. It was first exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris.

Picasso maintained that it is not up to the painter to define the symbols, and so left it up to the viewer to interpret what he painted here. Unfortunately he did not follow the previously established conventions of narrative painting, and there are numerous interpretations of the puzzle which he has left us.

Its dominant elements are not aircraft, bombs, or widespread material destruction, but a bull and a horse, which are apparently to be interpreted symbolically, in the context of Spanish culture. They, and other recognisable objects in this monochrome painting, such as the light hanging above it, and many fragmented and contorted body parts, have been interpreted in various ways, some of which are detailed in this excellent Wikipedia article.

Despite this lack of direction or consensus on the meaning of elements within the painting, or the narrative of the painting as a whole, it is generally accepted as being the leading example of narrative painting of the twentieth century, one of the most important paintings of ‘modern art’, and a key image in the expression of revulsion against war.

Paul Nash (1892–1946), Battle of Britain (1941)

From the end of June 1940 for four months, the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) and the British Royal Air Force fought a succession of intense air battles over the UK, mainly the south and east coastal areas. This startling distant view incorporates many elements of air warfare, including vapour trails (contrails), smoke marking the spin and crash of a downed aircraft, formation flight, and defensive airships. Below this action are the low hills, estuary, and a winding river typical of much of the English south coast.

Paul Nash increases the distance from this air war by emphasising the forms and patterns made in the sky, and by making his view from high above the ground. This does not make it more abstract, but detaches the story of the battle from the people involved.

Paul Nash (1892–1946), Defence of Albion (1942)

Painting from another aerial location, Nash shows a Sunderland ‘flying boat’ operating in rough seas off the Portland, Dorset, coast; cues for the location are given by the large blocks of limestone from the quarries in the distance. Among the duties of these aircraft were anti-submarine patrols, and part of a German U-boat is shown in the right foreground to emphasise this (in an unreal composite).

Again Nash distances the viewer from any human elements by concentrating on the machinery of war.

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Shipbuilding on the Clyde: Bending the Keel Plate (detail) (1943)

Stanley Spencer spent much of his time during the Second World War studying, sketching, and painting civilian work in the shipbuilding yards of the Clyde, near Glasgow, Scotland. This resulted in a huge installation of paintings, showing the stages of construction of warships there, and the many crafts and skills exercised by the people who laboured on them. Here four men are manoeuvring a suspended steel sheet to form part of the keel, whilst others watch, or work on related tasks.

He uses their body language to show the effort and teamwork involved, creating a rare tribute to the civilian work involved in making the machines of war. Together these paintings constitute a modern and industrial form of narrative panorama.

Tom Lea III (1907-2001), The 2000 Yard Stare (1944)

The American war in the Pacific included a succession of intense and bloody amphibious assaults on small islands. One of the most controversial was that of the tiny island of Peleliu by the US 1st Marine Division. Over a period of two months, 1794 of its men were killed, although the island appears to have had little strategic value.

Tom Lea here relies almost entirely on the horrifying, staring facial expression of the Marine in the foreground, who has clearly not slept for weeks, and is brown from the sun and accumulated dirt. Behind him the forest has been all but destroyed, and a harsh rock ridge rises to the fighter planes above. The ridge appears stained with the blood of the casualties.

This painting became famous when it was published in the widely-read news magazine LIFE.

Conclusions

Those who have painted depictions of war have taken differing approaches to their narrative. As we have seen elsewhere, those which have followed Alberti’s ‘rules’ have generally succeeded in showing clear and effective human stories, which have made great works of art. Some of these have been significant influences over society’s attitudes to war.

Attempting to build narrative from the machines of war, far distant from the people involved, has resulted in strange and detached stories which, lacking the human element, feel cold and unreal.

Picasso’s peculiar symbolic narrative has driven a consensus of opinion about war, but its story remains unresolved and controversial. As tools of narrative, his symbols appear to obscure rather than enlighten; as a result his painting can only tell a personal story to each individual viewer. Instead of resolving problems in narrative painting, it poses even more.

Much of the twentieth century was a difficult period for narrative painting – well, for painting as a whole. Although there were still many fine artists who painted superb works, they were viewed as tired and jaded compared to the avant garde of abstract expressionism, colour fields, and the other fads which may become largely forgotten in the fullness of time.

Emerging in the last few decades was an understanding that any art form which obsessed with internal self-scrutiny and ignored its public needed rejuvenation. With this came some excellent narrative painting. I will consider just a few examples from three major artists.

Whilst it is wonderful that all three are very much alive, this poses problems over copyright and my ability to show images of their paintings here. If you are not clear about those issues, this article goes into more detail. I am delighted that Stuart Pearson Wright has generously provided images of his two paintings, and hope that Paula Rego and Peter Doig may follow suit: if they do I will update their entries here.

Paula Rego (b 1935) The Maids (1987)

Christine and Léa Papin were two maids, born locally, who worked for a family living in Le Mans, France. Quiet and retiring, one day it was discovered that they had murdered the wife and daughter of the family. The women’s bodies were discovered beaten and mutilated, and the two maids admitted their crime. There was extensive psychological speculation as to the motives for the murders.

Although the French playwright Jean Genet wrote Les Bonnes (The Maids) (1947) with a plot remarkably similar to those murders, he denied basing his play on their story. Genet portrays his maids as engaging in sado-masochistic rituals when their mistress is away, leading to the climax of ceremonially killing her.

Paula Rego (b 1935), The Maids (1987), acrylic on canvas-backed paper, 213 x 244 cm, The Saatchi Collection, London. Image at The Saatchi Gallery

Rego sets her painting inside a lady’s dressing room, with a simple pink dressing table at the left, two chairs, and a low round table at the right. Further to the right of the low table, at the right edge, the door of a wardrobe is ajar; hanging on the inside of the door is a grey towelling dressing gown or bathrobe.

Arranged in this room are four people, in pairs. Sat in front of the dressing table is a white short-haired person who could be a hirsute woman or a man, as evidenced by a faint moustache. They are wearing a close-fitting checked jacket and dark green above-knee skirt, with nylons or tights, and medium-height women’s dark high-heel shoes. Their head is bent down, eyes closed, and they are holding their hands together on their lap.

Behind that person is a darker woman dressed in maid’s uniform, with long black hair tied back. She has a small white collar, her uniform dress is plain black, and she wears a pale pink pinafore over it. Her eyes are closed, her lips pursed, and her expression tensed but otherwise neutral. Her right hand is held at the back of the head and nape of the neck of the person at the dressing table, and her left hand rests at the top of her own left hip. Her feet are wide apart, and she is wearing dark low-heeled working shoes.

Behind that maid, sat on a higher chair, is a white younger woman, wearing a short-sleeved red blouse and full mid-brown skirt. She is facing away, her face buried against the chest of another maid. The young woman’s arms and hands are held out and up as if in surrender, and she has thick blonde hair which is tied back.

The second maid stands in front of the younger woman. She is wearing a maid’s uniform, with a white fabric tiara, white collar, dark green dress, and a white pinafore. Her eyes are closed, and her chin rests on the young woman’s blonde hair. Her facial expression appears neutral. Her left hand holds the young woman’s right wrist, and her right hand grasps the young woman’s left side just below the armpit.

The dressing table has a rectangular mirror, a table-lamp and shade, and three small items typical of such a table. The low table has an open book and a long-handled dusting mop. In the foreground at the left edge are two small brown cases. At the right edge of the foreground is a small boar, its mouth open and revealing teeth. There are mid-blue drapes at the left, behind the dressing table, and above a distant wardrobe at the right. There are also odd shadows suggestive of a tree, which are cast on the wall midway between the two maids.

Knowing the reference to Genet’s play (or the original murders) allows the viewer to associate the cues in the painting with the original narrative. The person at the dressing table will then be identified as the murdered wife, and the younger woman as the daughter. Facial expressions do not appear particularly helpful, and body language seems to establish a strangeness which could be a precursor to darker events. However, the scene is timed well before the maids became violent, and plays on uncertainty and menace to lead the viewer in to later events.

Paula Rego (b 1935) Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995)

The fairy tale of Snow White is familiar throughout Europe, and Rego has made a series of paintings showing different episodes within it.

Snow White’s mother, the Good Queen, dies and Snow White’s stepmother turns out to be evil and vain. The stepmother orders a huntsman to take Snow White out into the forest and kill her, but instead he abandons her to fate. She finds the cottage of the seven dwarves, who look after her.

The wicked stepmother discovers that Snow White is still alive, and tries to kill her with a poisoned comb, which fails. The stepmother then makes a poisoned apple, which she tricks Snow White into eating. She is put into suspended animation, but the dwarves assume that she is dead, and put her in a glass coffin. She is awakened by a prince, who invites the wicked stepmother to their wedding. The stepmother is forced to step into red-hot iron shoes and dance until she drops dead.

A simplified version of this narrative was used in the Walt Disney animated movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), which is the basis for Rego’s series of paintings. These apparently centre on underlying sexual rivalry between the wicked stepmother and Snow White.

Paula Rego (b 1935), Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995), pastel on paper, mounted on aluminium, 170 x 150 cm, The Saatchi Collection, London. Image at The Saatchi Gallery

A middle-aged woman, dressed in Disney Snow White clothes, lies collapsed, her legs still on a large dark brown armchair, her back and head sprawled on the floor. Her face (which is almost upside down to the viewer) has a furrowed brow and an agonised expression, with swelling inside her right cheek as if her mouth still contained food (the poisoned apple). Her right hand clutches the base of her neck, her left hand grasps her skirt behind the left thigh. Her feet face up, the left crossed behind her right knee. The toes on her right foot are tensed in a rictus. Her hair is dark brown, with a fine scarlet ribbon.

The armchair is old and worn. Over its left arm is a small filled quilt covered with fabric with a pink rose decoration. The back of the chair has an animal fur rug draped over it.

Rego uses a character more widely recognisable, perhaps even a stereotype derived from the movie. She follows Alberti’s rules methodically, with the expected facial expression and body language indicative that Snow White has just eaten the poisoned apple, and has now collapsed in the state of suspended animation.

The recasting of Snow White from Disney’s pure and innocent young woman to Rego’s middle-aged woman with worn feet and slightly hairy legs results in an incongruity, and strangeness, which appears to be part of Rego’s revised narrative. It has been suggested that this reflects on sexuality, and the ageing of women, although the painting itself does not give direct cues to that.

Paula Rego – References

You can also see a compilation of some of Paula Rego’s remarkable paintings at WikiArt

Bradley F (2002) Paula Rego, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 85437 388 5.

Peter Doig (b 1959) Echo Lake (1998)

The movie Friday the 13th (1980) is a cult ‘slasher’ horror film in which a group of teenagers, who are trying to re-open an abandoned campground, are murdered one by one. In the climax of the movie, one of the teenagers, Alice, is pursued by the malevolent Mrs Voorhees. The two engage in a violent fight, which ends with Alice decapitating Mrs Voohees with a machete.

Alice then boards an open canoe and floats to the middle of a lake. The police arrive on the bank, at which time the decomposing body of another of the teenagers starts to attack Alice in the canoe. Alice is dragged under the water, only to awaken in hospital, having been rescued by the police from the lake.

Peter Doig (b 1959), Echo Lake (1998), oil on canvas, 230.5 x 360.5 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. Image at the Tate Gallery.

Peter Doig’s panoramic canvas shows the scene from Alice’s viewpoint in the canoe, at night. The lower half of the canvas is the surface of the lake, which is mirror-like and reflects the bank and sky behind. Prominent on that bank, just to the right of the centre, is a policeman, both hands apparently cupped at the side of his face as if he is calling out. He stands right at the edge of the water, looking directly towards the viewer, wearing a white shirt with dark tie, and black trousers.

Behind him, and in the midline of the painting, is his patrol car, headlights still lit, where he parked it, on the bank. At the left is a streetlight (or other pole) which floods the strip of bank with light. Behind that are dark trees, distant lights of buildings. The trees rise until meeting the black sky. At the right there are some trees lit in eerie and twisted shapes.

There is no facial expression, and only very limited body language. Anyone knowing the movie is likely to recognise its cues to the climax, but otherwise they would be very hard to decipher. The composition, content, and colours all evoke a dark strangeness and sense of foreboding. Something sinister seems to be happening, but it is not clear what (apart from the movie references).

Peter Doig (b 1959) Canoe-Lake (1997-8)

This painting is based on still images from the same movie.

Peter Doig (b 1959), Canoe-Lake (1997-8), oil on linen, 200 x 300 cm, Private collection. Image at The Saatchi Gallery.

This painting appears to show the view of the policeman in the previous work. Crossing the centre of the painting, and almost as broad as it, is a green open canoe containing an apparently collapsed woman, who is green and yellow in the eerie light. Her right arm hands over the side of the canoe, the hand touching the water and causing circles of ripples. She is slumped forward, only her head and right shoulder visible within the canoe. Her eyes are black points, staring.

The flat mirror-like surface of the lake fills most of the middle half of the painting in a horizontal band. Its surface is yellow and pale green. Behind is the edge of the lake, with dense trees, and a hut almost hidden by them. The trees at the edge of the lake are lit brightly in the same yellow-green light. The lower band (less than a quarter) of the painting is black, apparently of fence palings closest to the viewer.

With almost no evidence of facial expression and limited body language, the cues provided only make sense in the context of a knowledge of the source movie. Otherwise the painting evokes a similar sense of numb forboding and horror.

Peter Doig – References

Searle A, Scott K, Grenier C (2007) Peter Doig, Phaidon Press. ISBN 978 0 7148 4504 3.
Doig P et al. (2013) No Foreign Lands, Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978 3 7757 3723 4.

Stuart Pearson Wright (b 1975) Woman Surprised by a Werewolf (2008)

The movie An American Werewolf in London (1981) tells the comedy horror story of two young American men who are on a backpacking holiday in England, when they are attacked by a werewolf (or lycanthrope, part man and part wolf). One of them dies, the other, David, is taken to a London hospital, where he has visions of his dead friend who tells him that he (David) is a werewolf and will transform with the next full moon.

When David leaves hospital he stays with a pretty young nurse from the hospital, in her London flat, and makes love to her. His dead friend appears to him again, warning that his transformation is imminent, and David later becomes a werewolf and kills half a dozen people in London. David attempts to get himself arrested, then to cut his wrists, but he transforms again and starts killing people. He is eventually cornered by police, and his girlfriend tells him that she still loves him. When he lunges forward, he is shot, and dies in human form in front of his grieving girlfriend.

It is night, lit starkly by a full moon which has risen high, directly in front of the viewer. An old stony track runs through a barren leafless wood, from the foreground to the centre background, where it transforms into a small waterfall pouring into a stream. The trees are old, gnarled, and twisted, in places writhing across the breadth of the track.

In the right foreground, at the edge of the track, is a werewolf, balancing on a small rock. Its jaws are open, showing its teeth, and it is sexually aroused. It holds out its front legs (arms) as if to grasp with its claws. On the opposite edge of the track, also poised on a rock, is a naked and buxom young woman with dark shoulder-length hair. Her mouth is wide open as if she is screaming, but her face shows a mixed expression of fear and lust.

She appears to be running away, to the left edge of the painting, but her head is turned towards the werewolf, her shoulders rotated to her left, and her arms and hands are held out as if to fend the werewolf off.

This painting was inspired by the movie An American Werewolf in London, and an episode in the artist’s life in which he was with a girlfriend exploring the countryside, and stumbled across young lambs which had been killed by predators in a wood. This discovery coincided with a sexual awakening, which he felt was represented by the combination of wolf and man in the werewolf. He intended “to explore that uncharted place where the mystery and sublime of the romantic landscape meets the high camp and melodrama of Hammer horror.” This is the first in a proposed four-part narrative.

Although the artist does not mention it, there are some similarities in treatment with the paintings of Paul Delvaux (1897-1994); unfortunately as they are still in copyright, they are also hard to find online.

Wright follows Alberti in full, using facial expression and body language to great effect. Although the specific reference to that movie may be obscure to many viewers, the werewolf is easily recognised, and cues other similar narratives and ideas. This painting therefore has obvious and clear narrative which is eloquently expressed.

Stuart Pearson Wright (b 1975) The Yellow Rose of Texas (2008)

The Yellow Rose of Texas of the title is almost certainly a reference to the traditional folk song, although there was also a movie and a legend of the same name.

The song tells the desire of an African-American singer (who refers to himself as “darkey”) to return to a “yellow girl”, who was born of African-American and white parents, and is thus bi-racial. The lyrics have been changed more recently to replace the racially-specific references. This song became popular with Confederate soldiers in the Texas Brigade of the American Civil War, and in 1864 was used as that army’s marching song.

Wright’s painting shows a white man (who may be a self-portrait?) wearing ‘country’ clothing, apparently singing and playing an acoustic guitar; behind him is a white woman with black hair in ‘western’ clothing, also singing. They are in the left foreground. Behind them a rough track leads past a crude hut on a hillside. Above the hut is a dense evergreen forest. Behind the singers and on the left is a mixed forest. In the distance is a very high, rocky mountain which is covered with snow and ice.

The singers’ faces express only the act of singing. The woman holds the shoulders of the man in front of her. Otherwise there is no body language.

Initially it might appear that this painting could have had some deeper narrative, perhaps relating to the feelings expressed in the song, or to its original racial setting. However the two figures are clearly not intended to be the characters in the song, and the landscape background is not that of Texas: the mountains shown must be in the Rockies, thus far from Texas. Instead it appears to be a painting about the ‘country and western’ singing of traditional American folk songs, perhaps also evocative of the artist’s romantic relationship at the time. This is narrative in itself, but quite a different story.

Stuart Pearson Wright – Reference

Stuart Pearson Wright’s website is here.I am extremely grateful to the artist for so generously providing the above images, and ask that you respect his copyright.

Conclusions

Not only is narrative painting alive and flourishing, but at least some of those who practise it now use Alberti’s rules and other proven techniques to convey powerful stories.

The most obvious difference from narrative painting prior to 1860 are the references. These are no longer to classical myths, religion, or the printed word more generally, but predominantly to movies. In some ways this may appear more limiting, because of the rich visual content of source movies (as against texts of the past). However, these three artists, and many others, have shown us their own visual readings of their sources, which often contain additional narrative material.

In little more than a century, narrative painting has been transformed from the moribund and shunned, to the innovative and exciting.

General Reference

Godfrey T (2009) Painting Today, Phaidon Press. ISBN 978 0 7148 4631 6.

I have already mentioned Poussin’s ‘péripéties’, which he used to condense the causes of an event, its consequences and moral implications, into his narrative paintings.

You may have been as blurry in your mind as to what these ‘péripéties’ are, as I was. This article should, I hope, give you a much clearer idea as to their importance in narrative, particularly that in paintings.

A change in circumstances or fortune

The original word, peripeteia, is the Greek περιπέτεια, translated into French as péripétie, and sometimes anglicised as peripety (good for crosswords and Scrabble). It means a sudden change of fortune or reverse of circumstances, as appears in the narrative of many classic tragedies.

Aristotle, in his Poetics, still an excellent source on narrative, considered that peripeteia is most effective in drama, particularly tragedies, and when accompanied by discovery (anagnorisis), in which a character in the narrative learns something of which they were previously ignorant.

There are many classical examples, of which I will mention but two.

In Sophocles’ play Oedipus Rex, the hero Oedipus only learns about his parentage towards the end of the play, when it is told to him by the Messenger. The latter intends to comfort Oedipus by assuring him that he was the son of Polybus, who raised him, but instead Oedipus realises that he had murdered his biological father Laius, and married his mother, Jocasta. This transforms him from being the mighty and arrogant king of Thebes to being a broken man.

The second example is of the conversion to Christianity of Paul when he was on the road to Damascus, and is again accompanied by (religious) discovery.

Importance in narrative painting

Because conventional narrative paintings depict a moment in time, the difficulty which they face in terms of narrative is providing sufficient cues to previous and subsequent events. More often than not, they leave it to the viewer to associate the well-known text narrative to which the painting refers. But in narratives which feature peripeteia, by depicting the moment of changing fortune, the artist is able to link in both the before and the after.

One of my best examples is inevitably Poussin’s Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630), which shows the exact moment that Armida’s intention changes from murder, with her drawn dagger still held in her right hand, to romance, with her left hand caressing Rinaldo.

Although Poussin is usually cited as a master of peripeteia, and that painting certainly is a supremely effective portrayal of it, he also missed the target quite commonly. His other surviving paintings of Tasso’s epic poem:

• The Companions of Rinaldo (c 1633-4)
• Rinaldo and Armida (c 1635)
• Tancred and Erminia (c 1634)
• Tancred and Erminia (c 1631)
• The Abduction of Rinaldo (1637)

do not hit that same sweet spot. Nevertheless, Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered is a rich source of peripeteia, and it has been suggested that Poussin’s understanding of its role in narrative comes from Tasso’s writing.

Looking back at other depictions of the same scene (detailed and illustrated here), only three show the moment of peripeteia:

• Lorenzo Lippi’s workshop’s Armida and the Sleeping Rinaldo (c 1647-50)
• Sebastiano Conca’s Rinaldo and Armida (c 1725)
• Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Rinaldo and Armida (c 1760-65).

Perhaps those three, plus Poussin, were the only artists who were sufficiently conversant with Aristotle’s writings.

The notably gory examples which I gave of Judith in the act of cutting off Holofernes’ head are also vivid moments of peripeteia for both the participants.

Not all narratives, of course, make for good depictions of peripeteia. The executions by firing squad tackled by Goya, Manet, and Gérôme have their moment of peripeteia long before then, yet directly depicting the real reversal of fortune in those instances would have resulted in weak and obscure images. But when peripeteia is paintable, it usually results in the most effective narrative.

Other notable examples

Looking back at the narrative paintings which I have discussed so far in this series, the following strike me as particularly powerful examples.

Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus (1827) shows the moment of the fall of the last great Assyrian king, a clear reversal of fortune in which his past opulence and imminent destruction are both painted eloquently.

Turner’s The Parting of Hero and Leander (1837) shows Leander just about to drown, ending his earthly relationship with Hero in their joint deaths.

Gérôme’s paintings are here quite exceptional, in that most of his best narrative works are set at exactly the moment of peripeteia.

In Phryné before the Areopagus (1861), he shows the instant of peripeteia, denouement, and revelation.

Cleopatra before Caesar (1866) shows the moment that the queen of Egypt stands up from her cover, the roll of carpet, and looks forward to their forthcoming relationship.

Gérôme’s Pollice Verso (1872) not only captures the moment of peripeteia, but shows us how it can be iconified in a simple gesture.

His Androcles (c 1902) shows the hero extracting the thorn from the lion’s paw, the first of Androcles’ two peripeteia.

Although I have drawn attention to the difficulties faced by narrative painting in the 1800s, it is interesting that other artists of that century were also aware of the importance of peripeteia.

Cézanne’s The Judgment of Paris (1862-4) shows us the moment that Paris presents the golden apple to the victor, sealing the fate of the Trojans, and the history of the Mediterranean in early classical times.

For all my suspicions that Renoir’s version, The Judgment of Paris (c 1908-10), was just an excuse to paint three voluptuous nudes, he too chooses the moment of peripeteia.

Another exemplary painting in this respect is Waterhouse’s Tristan and Isolde (1916), which shows the couple falling in love as they drink from the potion, and setting up their future tragic relationship.

Paula Rego (b 1935), Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995), pastel on paper, mounted on aluminium, 170 x 150 cm, The Saatchi Collection, London. Image at The Saatchi Gallery

Finally, Paula Rego picks the moment of peripeteia in the story of Snow White, in her Snow White Swallows the Poisoned Apple (1995), even if she re-interprets its associations and meaning.

Such is peripeteia: not by any means the only way to tell an effective story in a painting, but a well-established and very powerful one.

Most of the narratives used by the paintings which I have shown so far are fairly conventional. Drawn from classical myth, epic poetry, fairy and folk tales, religion, plays, and most recently movies, they are obvious choices for depiction in paintings.

This article looks at paintings by one artist, Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), who specialised in a very different form of narrative: that of the development of science and technology during the ‘enlightenment’ and early phase of the industrial revolution. He was not alone in painting such works – Philip de Loutherbourg, Turner, the Impressionists, and others showed contemporary technology too – but I think he is unique in producing so many paintings of them.

Joseph Wright was also a successful portraitist, and a fine painter of landscapes. But from quite early in his career, he became captivated with the exciting changes which were happening during the 1700s in science, technology, and the arts.

Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight (1765) was Wright’s first exhibited painting, and shows three men studying a miniature replica of the Borghese gladiator sculpture as a canonical classical work of art. The two younger men are Wright himself on the right, and Peter Perez Burdett, a Derby man who was a cartographer and progressive spirit.

At this time it was considered, even among the enlightened, that only men were able to undertake this sort of aesthetic exercise, and that women and children were simply incapable of doing so. It has also been proposed that Wright’s frequent use of such deep chiaroscuro was not just stylistic, but reflected the influence of John Locke’s metaphor of the mind as a darkened room into which the eye lets in images to be reflected upon and stored.

The following year, Wright exhibited one of his most enduring images of the period, A Philosopher Giving that Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp is Put in Place of the Sun (1766). The orrery, a miniature planetarium showing the movements of the planets and their moons, was an impressive high-end Grand Orrery, an expensive device which would undoubtedly have captivated the minds of those able to gaze at it.

There are numerous cues here to different narratives: to Locke’s educational theories with their emphasis on geography, understanding of astronomy, and Newton’s gravitation and mechanics. It has been proposed that the philosopher (in the red gown) is modelled on Newton’s likeness, and the figure at the left taking notes is the ever-present Peter Perez Burdett.

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768) is another famous work by Wright which epitomises the culture of the enlightenment. Here the philosopher (red gown again) is seen at the climax of his lecture on pneumatics, inspired by the radical chemist Joseph Priestley. A precious white cockatoo has been taken from its cage, at the left of the table, and placed inside the large glass jar at the top. A vacuum pump has then been used to evacuate the air from within the jar, and the cockatoo has collapsed near death.

Wright shows the moment of peripeteia, as the philosopher is about to open the tap at the top of the jar and restore the air to the bird, hopefully resulting in its revivification, and transformation of the anguish and horror being expressed by the two girls at the table.

Wright also developed the theme of improvements in access to art education, and encouragement of drawing and painting skills. Academy by Lamplight (1769) was the first of a pair of paintings devoted to this, and making pointed commentary about the newly-founded Royal Academy. Here students at different stages of their artistic development are gathered round a full-scale reproduction of the Hellenistic sculpture Nymph with a Shell (the original was and is in the Louvre, Paris). Wright clearly saw this more egalitarian scenario preferable to the establishment of the Royal Academy under its first president, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

His A Philosopher by Lamp Light (1769) was still more pointed a reference to the Royal Academy, being a reworking of a Salvator Rosa style painting, perhaps warning the new members of the Academy of the transience of earthly glory.

Today’s concept of alchemy as a mixture of magic and charlatanism was not established in Wright’s day. His The Alchymist, in Search of the Philosopher’s Stone, Discovers Phosphorus, and Prays for the Successful Conclusion of his Operation, as was the Custom of the Ancient Chymical Astrologers (1771-95) – which summarises its narrative in the title! – is far more sympathetic.

Wright created this image from a variety of sources, including drawings provided by Peter Perez Burdett from his new chemical laboratory in Liverpool, and classical engravings. It is appropriate in depicting the purification of phosphorous, which was seen as a productive and positive outcome from the ancient pursuit of alchemy.

An Iron Forge (1772) is one of a series of paintings which were both commercially successful, and accurate portrayals of the small-scale technological advances of the day. It shows a group of workers forging a white-hot iron casting, using a tilt-hammer powered by a water-wheel. Also present is the wife and children of the iron-founder, stressing the family nature of these small forges at the time.

Wright travelled to Italy in 1773 to paint landscapes, going on to visit Naples late the following year. Although he undoubtedly saw some volcanic effects at the time, Vesuvius had last undergone a major eruption in 1767, so much of his Vesuvius from Portici (c 1774-6) must have been painted from his imagination and studies. This was done not so much from a desire for the spectacular, but from scientific curiosity. On his return to England in 1775, he painted at least thirty views of Vesuvius erupting. He exploited the Burkean sublime very well, and they were critically acclaimed.

When in Rome, Wright took the opportunity to match the greatest effect of nature, in the volcano, with that of the art of man, in The Girandola, or Firework Display at Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome (1779). Firework displays took place several times a year, from the roof of the Castel Sant’Angelo, during Holy Week and on the eve of the festival of Saints Peter and Paul. This painting was purchased with a companion of Vesuvius by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia.

Later in his career, Wright painted more traditional narratives too. The first is based on the the classic story of Dibutades, the maid of Corinth, who ‘invented’ painting. The daughter of a potter, her boyfriend was due to leave the city. In order to remember him, she traced the outline of his shadow on a wall, when he was sleeping. Once he had gone, she was left with his silhouette, and her father then filled it with clay, which he fired in his kiln, making the first relief sculpture.

This tale had recently been retold in Wright’s friend William Hayley’s poem An Essay on Painting (1778):
The line she trac’d with fond precision true,
And, drawing, doated on the form she drew …
Thus from the power, inspiring LOVE, we trace
The modell’d image, and the pencil’d face!

Wright’s The Corinthian Maid (c 1782-5) was painted for a commission by Josiah Wedgewood, affluent and successful founder of the local Wedgewood pottery.

Its physical companion shared the theme of wifely fidelity, in showing the wife of Odysseus/Ulysses, Penelope. In the many years that her husband was away on the Odyssey, she told potential suitors that she could not remarry until she had completed weaving a shroud for Odysseus’ father. Although they saw her weaving intently by day, she then unravelled her work each night.

Penelope Unravelling her Web by Lamp-light (1785) shows Penelope watching over her sick child, while Odysseus’ statue watches her carefully unravelling her day’s work.

Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet (published 1597) would have been familiar to the learned classes of the day. It reaches a climax when Juliet is discovered apparently dead, but in fact comatose from a potion which she took to avoid her arranged marriage. Her body is placed in the family crypt, but the messenger intended to inform Romeo of Juliet’s plan failed to reach Romeo.

Instead, he learns of Juliet’s apparent death from his servant, buys poison, and goes to the crypt in which Juliet is laid out. Meeting her fiancé, the two men fight, and Romeo kills her fiancé before taking poison himself. When Juliet awakens from her coma, she sees Romeo dead, and stabs herself with his dagger.

In Romeo and Juliet. The Tomb Scene (1790), Wright shows Juliet, still white from her coma and dressed in funeral attire, when she has just discovered Romeo’s dead body, and before she commits suicide with his dagger: the theatrical climax. However the artist hides both their faces from view, leaving Juliet’s body language to tell us of her anguish, and the cue of the cup from which he drank poison.

Summary

Joseph Wright has been largely forgotten, but his enlightenment narratives remain extremely innovative. He used traditional tools, with facial expression, body language, and extensive cues, to create coherent narratives which refer not just to their immediate scientific and cultural stories, but to the much bigger picture of changing ideas and values.

References

The Joseph Wright Gallery, Derby.

Daniels S (undated) Joseph Wright, British Artists, The Tate Gallery. ISBN 978 1 854 37284 0.

The great majority of narrative paintings refer to well-known oral or text narratives, but a few do not. British painters of the late Victorian period not only made a speciality of painting narratives which were not known to the viewer, but created a sub-genre of problem pictures, whose whole purpose was to encourage speculation as to their narrative.

Precursors of these problem pictures started to appear around 1850, but they became most popular and problematic over the period 1895 to 1914, particularly those of John Collier. These became popular topics of discussion among the chattering classes, and their debate and possible narratives were even covered in the press of the day.

This article traces their origin, and provides a few examples by the master of problem pictures, John Collier – whose Sleeping Beauty I discussed earlier.

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), The Awakening Conscience (1851-53)

Probably the best-known precursor to the problem picture, and one of the earliest, Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience (1851-53) shows a domestic conflict. Originally, the woman’s face was even more anguished, but shock among critics encouraged Hunt to moderate her facial expression to that now seen.

Careful examination of the painting reveals many cues to a more controversial narrative, of a ‘kept’ mistress and her lover in disagreement. There is no wedding ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, which is a focal point of the picture. The room itself is furnished gaudily and in poor taste, and contains evidence of the woman’s wasted hours waiting for her lover: the cat under the table (which symbolically is shown toying with a bird), the clock inside a glass on top of the piano, the unfinished tapestry, and so on.

That said, what is the underlying narrative? Is this just the regret of the ‘kept’ mistress, and her desire for a more regular relationship and family?

Additional details of this painting are on Wikipedia.

William Frederick Yeames (1835–1918), And when did you last see your Father? (1878)

Yeames’ And when did you last see your Father? is set in the English Civil War, as indicated by the Puritan dress of conical hats and plain clothes. This contrasts with the opulent silks of the mother and chidren, who are clearly Royalists. The young boy is being questioned, presumably as given in the title, for him to reveal the whereabouts of his Cavalier father – an act which is bringing great anguish to his sisters and mother.

Setting most of the cues to the narrative in the dress and disposition of the participants makes it a greater problem, although here with sufficient interpretative information the problem is readily soluble.

William Quiller Orchardson (1832-1910), Hard Hit (1879)

Orchardson’s Hard Hit is more difficult to solve. The fashionably-dressed young man about to open the door on the left is walking away from a group of older villains, who have stopped at nothing (including perhaps cheating) to beat him repeatedly at cards, and have relieved him of his wealth.

This is told well using classic Alberti techniques such as facial expressions, but most importantly here by body language and direction of gaze. Orchardson’s model provided the inspiration, when he arrived dejected at the studio one day and revealed that he had been ‘hard hit’ himself the previous night.

William Quiller Orchardson (1832-1910), The First Cloud (1887)

His The First Cloud is the last of a series of three paintings about unhappy marriage, specifically a young, pretty bride who marries an older man for his wealth. With their faces largely concealed, the narrative relies on their body language and physical distance. When it was first exhibited, the following lines from Tennyson were quoted:
It is the little rift within the lute
That by-and-by will make the music mute.

John Collier (1850–1934)

By the 1890s, Collier was looking for something beyond the portraits which had made him successful, and exploring different ways of making history painting more relevant to the social issues of life at that time.

The Garden of Armida (1899) was an early attempt to show a traditional historical subject, that of Rinaldo in Armida’s garden from Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (see this article) in a contemporary setting and dress. In doing so, he posed the problem as to whether the viewer was to see some more modern narrative beyond Tasso’s original. It was not well received, and Collier decided to try more direct problem pictures instead.

The Prodigal Daughter (1903) was far more successful, and remains one of Collier’s best-known works. An elderly middle-class couple are seen in their parlour in the evening, surprised by the interruption of their prodigal daughter, who stands at the door.

This immediately sparked debate over the role of women in the modern world, the nature and scope of their family responsibilities, and changing class boundaries. Collier went to great lengths to capture the expressed emotions, in terms of the daughter’s facial expression, and the contrasting body language. The daughter is seen as a ‘fallen woman’, thus part of a popular mythology of the time. But far from appearing fallen and repentant, she stands tall, proud, and wears a rich dress.

The resulting discussion spilled over from art gossip columns into more general editorial and comment sections of the press.

A few years later, his Mariage de Convenance (1907) was another painting which received extensive media coverage. In contrast with Orchardson’s early more obvious treatment of the problem of marriages of convenience (which were often also arranged marriages), Collier poses a real problem.

The mother, dressed in the black implicit of widowhood, stands haughty, her right arm resting on the mantlepiece. Her daughter cowers on the floor, her arms and head resting on a settee, in obvious distress. Perhaps the daughter has been (or is to be) married into money to bring financial security to the family, now that the father is dead?

Collier himself offered a slightly simpler version of that, when finally tackled by the press, which omitted reference to the father’s death.

By the time that Collier showed his next problem picture, The Sentence of Death (1908), they had become established as a familiar feature of the annual Royal Academy exhibition. This painting at first disappointed the critics, but quickly became very popular. Sadly the original work has not lasted well, and I rely on a reproduction made at the time.

At a time when disease and death were prominent in everyday life, this painting might seem quite ordinary. A young middle-aged man stares blankly at the viewer, having just been told by his doctor that he is dying. The doctor appears disengaged, and is reading from a book, looking only generally in the direction of his doomed patient.

Unusually for Collier’s problem pictures, and for paintings showing medical matters in general, the patient is male. This led to speculation as to the expected male response to such news, and questions as to what condition might be bringing about his death. There was even debate about interpretations of the doctor-patient relationship.

The First World War changed Britain, and British art, dramatically. One of Collier’s last problem pictures was Sacred and Profane Love (1919), which drew attention to women’s problems again. On the left, sacred love is shown in a modestly if not dowdily dressed plain young woman, and on the right, profane love as a ‘flapper’ with bright, low-cut dress revealing her ankles, flourishing a feather in her left hand. The suitor is shown reflected in the mirror above, a smart young army officer.

Although not as enigmatic as his earlier works, Collier remained very topical, achieving his narrative using dress and composition, rather than facial expression.

The remaining problem paintings by Collier are an even greater problem in that I have been unable to find any further details of them, or of the artist’s intended narratives.

In The Laboratory (1895), there is clearly a narrative between the old alchemist and a young woman, who is trying to take an object from the man’s right hand. This may be a reference to a text narrative which Collier was exploring prior to his real problem pictures.

The Sinner (1904) is most probably another problem picture, as it shows a woman, possibly dressed in widow’s weeds, making an emotionally-charged confession. This begs much further speculation.

Fire (date not known) shows a young woman, sat up in bed, afraid by the bright warm light of a fire, presumably one which is in the same building and putting her into danger. It is not clear why she is not doing anything to try to escape, though.

The Minx (date not known) shows a femme fatale holding what might be a mirror in front of her. Unfortunately the condition of the painting is not good, and its narrative now more obscured that it was.

Conclusions

This unusual and short-lived sub-genre exploited the ambiguities that arise in narrative paintings to elicit debate and speculation. As Fletcher points out, its themes were the problems of the day, particularly those of women, their roles, and sexuality. Although other good narrative painters have achieved similar depth in their works, Collier seems to have been unique in his development of such problem pictures.

Reference

Fletcher PM (2003) Narrating Modernity, the British Problem Picture 1895-1914, Ashgate. ISBN 978 0 754 63568 0.

Among all the other things that were going on in narrative painting in the 1800s – as seen in the works of Delacroix, Moreau, Gérôme and others – there were the remarkable paintings of Honoré Daumier (1808-1879).

Daumier was an established caricaturist, print-maker, and even sculptor, whose oil paintings were something else, something strongly pre-Impressionist in their painterliness, gestures and marks. Yet for all that looseness, many of his oil paintings were strongly narrative.

At the time, he was best known for his biting political and anti-establishment caricatures, which were most savage in their portrayal of lawyers and judges. His lithographs show his drawing skills, and his frequent reliance on facial expression.

The French Republic was proclaimed on 24 February 1848. Within a month, a competition was launched to produce the “painted face of the Republic”. Daumier entered this oil sketch, which came eleventh out of more than 700 entries, but was never worked up into a more finished painting.

Based on an earlier sketch of his from about 1844 entitled Charity or Caritas, the goddess of clemency, it shows a mother nursing children and holding the French tricolour flag. In this, she sums up the ideal of a strong republic, in her fertility, serenity, and glory, as a development of the female figure dominating Delacroix’s most famous Liberty Leading the People (1830).

It was in the 1860s that Daumier painted many of his narrative oil paintings. Among the best-known is The Drama (1860), which was chosen by Martin Meisel (1983) as a “brilliant” example of narrative painting.

Unusually, the narrative is shown in a stage scene viewed from within (and including) the audience. On stage, a man lies dead, while a woman faces away, showing theatrical body language indicating her distress. Between them a second man points with his left arm down at the corpse, and with his right arm at the woman. But their facial expressions are not seen. In contrast, members of the audience show exaggerated facial expressions of shock at the scene in front of them.

I do not know whether Daumier intended to separate the classical elements of narrative painting laid down by Alberti, but as a play within a painting, this deceptively simple image presents a debate between those elements which appears timely in view of the changes which were taking place in narrative painting at that time. It is also worth noting that the play, a tragedy, has reached a moment of peripeteia.

Meisel wrote:
The figures are faceless and ideal, for it is not their individual passion that counts, but the ensemble. Their facelessness and ideality are appropriate because we are given just the form of the situation, not the specifics of the play.” “It is the audience, one notes, that is marked with individual passions, set into physiognomic masks and – where the reflected light of the stage reveals it – vivid in diversity and character.” (op cit p 8.)

Daumier’s Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) (c 1860-2) is also based on theatre, but in a very different way. Referring to a still-popular Molière play of the same name (1673), it shows Argan, the hypochondriac hero of the play, suffering his imaginary illness in his armchair, his physician feeling his pulse at the right wrist, and the physician’s assistant poised behind, wielding a large enema syringe.

The facial expression of each of the figures is carefully crafted, with rich brushstrokes left visible. Argan appears ill, drawn, and worried; the physician wears an expressionless mask beneath tousled almost Medusan hair, and his assistant is gaunt and grimly eager to engage. By Argan’s left elbow, on a small table next to the armchair, a clutch of medicine bottles stands ready.

Although Daumier’s oil paintings became increasingly gestural and sometimes hard to read as a result, his watercolours were more plainly drawn, if their narratives often seem more tricky. This shows a group of mountebanks, theatrical performers, musicians, and clowns who drew large crowds – a theme which he often returned to.

Their facial expressions and gestures are theatrically exaggerated, but the narrative less apparent. The crocodile suggests it may be one of the Pulcinello or Punch and Judy shows which were popular among street performers in several European countries, including France, and North America from the 1700s onwards.

No less than thirty of Daumier’s oil paintings show scenes from Cervantes’ epic Don Quixote (1605, 1615), tracing the adventures of a man who, under the influence of chivalric romances, sets out on his own hilariously misguided knightly quest. Here Alonso Quixada, alias Don Quixote de la Mancha, and Sancho Panza, his squire, come across a dead mule (Book I chapter 23) while crossing the Sierra Morena.

In the book, the dead mule is described as being still in its full harness and saddle, which Daumier here omits. Quixote, much of Panza’s mount, and the dead mule are shown in sketched outlines, just sufficient by way of marks to enable their identification. There are no faces, and body language is minimal. As Daumier’s eyesight faded into complete blindness by 1873, his narratives were also supported by the most minimal painted marks.

Conclusions

Daumier took narrative painting in yet another direction. Using his great skills in caricature, he examined the classical approach of Alberti, used sophisticated theatrical settings, and his technique became almost purely gestural. Although none of these was able to resolve the problems faced by narrative painting at the time, they offer points of departure which can still be valuable.

References

The Daumier Register, online catalogue raisonné, and copious information.

Meisel M (1983) Realizations. Narrative, Pictorial, and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England, Princeton UP. ISBN 978 0 6916 1293 5.

This series has, quite accidentally, come to highlight the problems which came to dominate if not overwhelm narrative painting during the 1800s, and how they somehow seem to have become resolved by the late 1900s.

The problems fell into two groups: what narratives should be used, and what techniques should be used to represent them.

As I hope has been clear, during the 1800s and early 1900s, a wide range of narratives were used, including traditional myths, religion, and history, and more contemporary stories of all kinds. At the end of the period, problem pictures even invited viewers to engage in speculation and debate.

Although classical Greek and Roman myths and religious stories continue to be used to this day, those based on moral and social issues of the time became more popular. Narratives have also been derived from a wider range of sources, including the theatre, and most recently movies.

The issue of how to paint narratives was much harder to settle, and still remains controversial. This divides again into two problems: what rhetorical tropes to use (if any), and how realist the painting had to be.

Symbol and allegory

The use of symbols and their assembly into allegory had long been popular, but added another level of reading which was expected of the viewer.

Even when painted in very clear terms, works like Bellini’s Allegory of Winged Fortune (1490) look weird and are hardly good reading for most viewers. There is also the problem of misinterpretation. In this case, for example, the following symbolic devices could be read:

• the blindfold represents Fortune’s salient characteristic, her blindness in dispensing good fortune and misfortune;
• ill fate is normally associated with a peacock tail, wings, and lion’s paws;
• the two pitchers represent the dispensation of good and bad fortune;
• abundant and long hair at the front of the head, and little at the back, symbolises Kairos, the moment of opportunity, which can be seized by the hair when approaching, but once passed cannot.

Other viewers may miss some of those allusions, or interpret them completely differently. When you then try to express more complex topics or narrative in allegory, the end result can be bizarrely cryptic, as seen in Lotto’s Allegory of Prudence and Wisdom (1505) below.

Despite the lessons which should have been learned about the use of allegory and symbols in narrative, a few artists persisted, and Moreau finally took it to phantasmagoric excess, in paintings such as his Jupiter and Semele (1895). I cannot help thinking that such canvases were never intended to be seen by the crowds that attended the more popular exhibitions of art in Salons, expositions, and public galleries.

One solution to the problem of symbols in narrative paintings was that claimed by Picasso: that it was not up to the artist to determine how to interpret the symbols, but a matter for the viewer/reader.

In this particular case, the clear reference to the horrific destruction by bombing of the Spanish Basque town of Guernica channels readings in a limited range of directions. Where an external narrative is not directly referenced, or may even be obscure or absent, the range of readings opens up, and many viewers find it hard to discover any coherent narrative at all. This is exemplified in much of the painting in the middle decades of the twentieth century, such as Kandinsky’s Gentle Accent (1934), below. Is it ‘just’ an abstract, or is it rich in symbols which are intended to convey narrative?

This problem of reading images came to a head, though, with photographs. During the twentieth century, these became far more accessible and popular than paintings, even (or perhaps more particularly) when they were in monochrome. Not only did it become very cheap, quick, and easy to take your own photographs, but photojournalism reached mass markets in weekly news magazines.

At first, the public appeared content to be steered into reading photographs in the way that editors (and sometimes photographers) intended. Images such as Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother (1936) were seen by tens of millions of people around the world.

Read in connection with its dry and ‘factual’ official caption
Destitute pea pickers in California. Mother of seven children. Age thirty-two. Nipomo, California.
it is so convincing and conclusive that, as popularly held, ‘the camera cannot lie’. But even this image has become controversial, with other images from the same series implying rather different readings, and some scholars claiming that its subject, Florence Thompson, was not a farmworker at all, but a ‘Dust Bowl migrant’ with quite a different narrative.

In the last few decades, the widespread availability of techniques for photomanipulation, particularly digitally using apps such as Adobe Photoshop, have if anything negated the old adage, and encouraged scepticism in readings. Many viewers now appear to consider the photoreal to be potentially as fictional as the painterly.

Realism

Where narrative paintings depend on subtleties such as facial expression, and relatively small cues which may be scattered over different passages, the simple solution to conveying narrative had been meticulously detailed realism, of the kind used by Gérôme. It is easy to demonstrate how quickly the necessary details can be lost by manipulating an image such as Poussin’s Rinaldo and Armida (c 1630) using Adobe Photoshop CS6 to produce appearances of ‘brushwork’.

But with a skilled brush, Waterhouse and Gérôme himself in a small study showed that painterliness was not necessarily contraindicated in narrative.

Others, including the pioneers Delacroix and Daumier, had also painted narratives eloquently despite their use of visible brushstrokes, even quite basic mark-making.

But this did not work as a general rule. Where the narrative to which the painting referred was well-known and the cues relatively clear, it could hold good, as in Cézanne’s example.

However, anything which relied on subtle details, such as the thumbs-down gesture in Gérôme’s splendid and authentically-detailed Pollice Verso (1872), would fail unless it employed a meticulously detailed realism. It is also worth noting that this was painted within just three years of the Cézanne above, which make fascinating comparison.

Once such ‘Salon’ paintings fell from favour, many narratives could simply not be expressed in paintings. As realism became more acceptable again in the middle of the twentieth century, so the way was open for the likes of Paul Delvaux, and ultimately the new generations represented by Paula Rego, Peter Doig, and Stuart Pearson Wright.

Today’s more liberal attitudes to realist, painterly, and gestural styles now invite the artist to use whatever is best suited to the narrative, rather than being bound to what is deemed acceptable – just as novelists, playwrights, and other artists have been enjoying for a lot longer.

A remaining puzzle

I find it mystifying that, despite their classical training and unsurpassed technical skill, the more traditional masters John Singer Sargent, Joaquín Sorolla, and Anders Zorn, almost completely avoided making any narrative works. (There are some exceptions to this, such as Sargent’s murals, but they are remarkably few in number and atypical for their work.) Each paid the bills from their lucrative portraiture commissions, and preferred to obtain their pleasure from landscapes and genre scenes rather than anything remotely narrative.

Perhaps that is more a reflection of the state of narrative painting at the turn of the century.

Sometimes you use a term over which you think there is longstanding general agreement, only to discover that others have used it with very different meaning. This is a particular danger in fields in which the literature is very weak, as it is in narrative painting. This article re-examines what is understood by a narrative painting, and narrative in paintings.

Although there are ongoing disputes as to the exact definition of narrative, I think that it is fair to say that it consists of the expression in some form or forms of a story, which itself is a sequence of events. The sequence of events requires that there are at least two, and more usually at least three (Aristotle’s beginning, middle, and end, which have served us so well). The sequence almost always occurs over time: I am not sure that many of us would recognise two momentary events occurring simultaneously at different locations as forming a narrative, but I am confident that at least one person has experimented with that in writing.

Events themselves involve some kind of action: a static presence alone, without at least implicit action, can hardly be narrative.

Although I have claimed that a painting of an apparently static landscape can have rich implicit narrative, and stand by that, such cases are marginal at best when considering narrative paintings. Similarly, allegory can be rich in rhetoric and symbols, but if it remains static and does not tell a story, it is not narrative.

The literature

Sacheverell Sitwell (1937) in his survey of British narrative painting offers the definition that narrative painting is “the painting of anecdote. It is the chosen moment in some related incident, and looking more closely into its details we must see hints or suggestions of the before and after of the story.” However in the next line he states that Frith’s Derby Day (1856) is “a perfect example of this genre of painting”, and later adds Frith’s The Railway Station (1862), populated landscapes by Cotman and Turner, and Samuel Palmer’s The Shearers (c 1833-5) to this list.

Inevitably when you read his discussion of each of those paintings, he does not reveal the action taking place at the moment of the painting, nor any hints or suggestions as to what action might have taken place before or after the moment of that painting.

Older accounts of paintings made in Victorian Britain are no better. Lister (1966) defines a “Victorian narrative picture” as concerning “a story, idea or anecdote” which usually “had a moral importance, sometimes it was comic, often it was a puzzle” and “more often still it was extremely pathetic”. Although some of those elements are clearly intended to narrow his choice of paintings, his inclusion of ideas and anecdotes as alternatives to a story is odd, and appears unjustified.

Notable among the paintings which he includes as being examples of Victorian narrative works are street scenes, landscapes, Frith’s Derby Day (1856) and The Railway Station (1862), examples of Ford Madox Brown’s ‘baa-lambs’ paintings, and John Singer Sargent’s beautiful double portrait Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1887).

Anecdote was derived from the Greek word ἀνέκδοτα (anecdota), meaning unpublished, and the Oxford English Dictionary gives a general meaning of secret, private, or hitherto unpublished narratives or details of history, and an art-specific meaning of the narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, told as being in itself interesting or striking.

Julia Thomas (2000) is far more careful in what she considers to be narrative painting over the same period, but does not venture any further with a definition than “story-telling”. She also includes Frith’s Derby Day (1856) and The Railway Station (1862) without identifying any temporal sequence of events shown in those works.

In her otherwise excellent introductory account of narrative painting, Anabel Thomas (1994) does not attempt to define it. Erika Langmuir (2003) devotes a whole section to its definition, where she writes:
a narrative relates a sequence of particular events unfolding through a given period of time, and involving real or fictional individuals.
Both of these educational guides adopt a conventional approach, with Langmuir even discussing the issue of the artist’s intent.

The paintings in question

William Powell Frith’s (1819–1909) Derby Day (1856) is shown here in the form of an earlier and very similar study. Like many of Frith’s social panoramas, there is a lot of action disseminated throughout the crowd which he assembles on the canvas. However, there is no evidence or cues of preceding or subsequent linked events which might form a narrative as such. We know from the title of the painting in general terms that this crowd gathered for the Derby horse race, and we know that they will eventually disperse. But those are vague generalities, not specific events linked in time to form a story.

This version of Frith’s The Railway Station (1862) was engraved by Francis Holl in 1866 and has been finished with hand colouring. In concept, it is very similar to his Derby Day, but here shows a view of a crowded and busy Paddington railway station in London. It has the same problem establishing a narrative.

Take, for example, the incident happening at the extreme right, where a man dressed in brown clothes is apparently in the process of being arrested whilst trying to board a train. We do not know what event has preceded or precipitated his arrest, nor do we have any inkling as to whether he will try to run off, or be taken into custody. It is a single event, not a temporal series of two or more events linked together.

Frith painted other panoramas like these, including his rustic An English Merrymaking a Hundred Years Ago (1847). Here he offered a quotation from John Milton’s l’Allegro in explanation:
When the merry bells ring round,
And jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the checquered shade,
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holiday.
There is not a shred of narrative to be seen, unless we care to invent it in our own minds.

Frith’s The Crossing Sweeper (here an 1893 copy of the 1858 original) looks as if there could be narrative constructed around it, but was one of a very large number of similar genre paintings, in this case linked to various similar characters in Dickens’ novels about London. But no specific character in Dickens appears to be referenced, so it lacks the support of narrative text.

The problems with Ford Madox Brown’s (1821–1893) Pretty Baa-Lambs (1851/9) are even more apparent. A sickly-sweet over-sentimental pastoral, there can be few figurative paintings which have less narrative content. Perhaps I am missing something obvious.

Samuel Palmer’s (1805-1881) The Shearers (c 1833-5) is a beautiful pastoral painting which might contain some symbolic references, although they remain obscure despite several expert attempts to read them. However, it lacks any coherent references to preceding or subsequent events, and once again fails to connect with a story sequence.

John Singer Sargent’s (1856-1925) Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6) is an impressionist double portrait of two young girls, which has been discussed in detail on Wikipedia and the Tate Gallery. Neither proposes any accompanying narrative.

If you were to accept Frith’s The Railway Station (1862) as a narrative painting, then it would seem hard not to include those of Claude Monet (1840–1926) painted in front of the motif at the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris: works such as his Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877).

Equally if you are able to discover narrative in other pastorals and landscapes, surely Monet’s Grainstacks: Snow Effect (1891) is a narrative within a narrative series. That would in turn make the Impressionists devoted narrative painters, and rewrite the history of art.

Conclusions

In addition to being few in number, published studies on narrative painting are not consistent in the definitions that they give, and frequently include works which are inconsistent with their own definitions.

It can be difficult to know whether some paintings are narrative, particularly when there is little or no evidence of the artist’s intent. However, the examples quoted above appear quite clear cut. If the text accompanying a painting fails to reveal or suggest narrative as is generally understood, then the author has failed to support their claim, which must be rejected.

References

Langmuir E (2003) Narrative, Pocket Guide, The National Gallery Company. ISBN 978 1 8570 9257 8.
Lister R (1966) Victorian Narrative Paintings, Clarkson N Potter. No ISBN.
Sitwell S (1937) Narrative Pictures. A Survey of English Genre and its Painters, B T Batsford. No ISBN.
Thomas A (1994) Illustrated Dictionary of Narrative Painting, John Murray. ISBN 978 0 7195 5289 2.
Thomas J (2000) Victorian Narrative Painting, Tate Publishing. ISBN 978 1 8543 7318 2.

Winslow Homer had visited England primarily to study the watercolours of JMW Turner, and to understand his colour theories and their implementation. By mid March 1881, he had completed that phase, and now needed to go somewhere to paint in seclusion, to put what he had learned into practice.

He had seen some of the illustrations of JD Watson showing the distant fishing community of Cullercoats, and – as much by chance as by design – travelled there in late March 1881. He then spent until early November 1882 painting the fishermen and their fishlasses or fishwives.

Life in Cullercoats, like that in the hundreds of similar fishing communities around the coast of Britain at the time, had a natural rhythm. When the conditions were favourable, the men and boys would take their small open boats, cobles, out to sea to fish. Once they had a full catch, or the weather forced them back, they returned, to the relief of the women and their families.

When their men were away, the fishlasses and fishwives would continue with their supporting tasks of knitting and repairing clothing, repairing nets and gear, but that workload was relatively light. Their constant thoughts were with their men, and when they would return. In the days before radio, the only way in which they could know when the boats were coming back was to watch for them.

In the summer, and in fine weather, watching from the tops of the low cliffs around Cullercoats was a pleasant pastime for the children.

The women took turns to act as lookout, who had to keep a close watch on the horizon. In his Fisherman’s Family (The Lookout) (1881), Homer also shows the smoke rising from a steamship on the horizon.

Watching was not just the task of the lookout. The women and younger children spent a lot of their time watching and waiting, taking shelter at the foot of the cliffs when there was a cool wind blowing.

Watching was recognised as being such an important task that the Coastguard started to pay lookouts and providing them with telescopes. That work was often undertaken by older men who could no longer go to sea.

When the weather was deteriorating, the watching became more important, and increasingly anxious. There was always the hope that the boats would return before the wind and waves got up.

Once the boats started to return to harbour, each fishwife had to watch for the return of those carrying her husband, sons, and relatives.

Storms were inevitably the biggest fear. Even though the loss of whole boats was mercifully very unusual, severe weather often took individual members of crew. It also made accidents more common, and the resulting injuries could stop a man from going to sea, leaving his family destitute and starving.

Homer’s many paintings of women watching for the safe return of their men go deeper too. We become the watchers, looking for that next hope in our lives, hoping that we will weather the storm and come home safely.

Although titled Girl with Red Stockings, this fishwife has put her empty baskets down to look at a ship being wrecked in front of her, to the left of the painting. The ship still has all its sails set, and appears to be in the process of being driven ashore in an easterly gale. Such shipwrecks were not uncommon, particularly among sailing vessels, which were at the mercy of the wind. Once driven inshore by an easterly wind and sea, there was little that the crew could do to avoid running aground, and their ship breaking up.

Homer’s Watching the Tempest shows the men in the process of preparing to launch the lifeboat. A large crowd has gathered along the top of the cliff on the left of the painting.

This may have been painted in response to a real-life wreck which Homer witnessed at Cullercoats. In the early morning of 21 October 1881, the 1000 ton barque, the Iron Crown, was driven aground in a storm. In the next hours, the ship’s crew were rescued, following which the derelict broke up. Homer later painted a watercolour showing the rescue, probably constructed from sketches, witness accounts, and photographs. The moment which he shows is the second and final pass of the lifeboat, required to rescue the last member of the crew on board.

However, on that occasion the rescue was performed by the Tynemouth lifeboat, not that at Cullercoats, so Watching the Tempest may refer to a different incident.

Each of these paintings carries its own simple story, but taken as a group they tell of the incessant routine of life in the fishing community: separation, watching, shore life paused in expectation, fear, worry, hopefully resolved in the safe return.

Once the boats and their crew did come ashore, the women then turned their hands to unloading the catch and preparing it for sale. Then there were the men to care for, their nets and gear to get ready for the next cycle, back out to sea, watching…

References

National Gallery of Art virtual exhibition from 2005.

Tedeschi M and others (2008) Watercolors by Winslow Homer. The Color of Light, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 11945 9.

Most who have written about Winslow Homer’s paintings from Cullercoats have noted that a large proportion show the fishlasses and fishwives of the community, and that in those few which show both men and women, the sexes appear segregated.

These result from the course of life in such fishing communities. As much of the time as possible, the men and boys old enough to go to sea would be at sea, catching fish to earn money to keep their families. Fishing was a time-consuming business: the fish were seldom just there for the taking, and long days could be spent in search of a catch. Locating fish was not easy, and took acquired knowledge, experience, and often cunning.

So most of the time that Homer was living in Cullercoats, he was surrounded by the women and their children, and their men were away at sea.

Although watching for the return of the boats was one key role expected of the women, they also had many more demanding supporting tasks to perform.

Some had specific roles: Homer’s Daughter of the Coast Guard (1881) shows a young woman with a fog siren, which she used to provide an acoustic guide from the shore when visibility was poor, to aid navigation of the boats. Lighthouses usually had fixed foghorns, which could be heard over many miles, but such portable sirens were used to guide vessels into small harbours, such as that at Cullercoats.

Fog was a serious problem for the fishermen. The north east coast is prone to thick fog, and it was usually grounds for the cobles to remain in harbour. When caught out in fog, navigation became almost impossible, with only a compass, experience, and the sound of foghorns and sirens like this to help guide them back to port. With little wind to move their boats, the men usually had to resort to rowing in such conditions.

Local fishing used both lines and nets, and the women were responsible for maintaining and preparing them for the men. In A Fishergirl Baiting Lines (1881) a young fishlass is shown baiting the lines, ready for their use. Her hat suggests that this was being done in the yard outside one of the cottages.

Fishergirls Coiling Tackle (Fisherman’s Daughters) (1881) shows three girls, presumably from one family. The youngest is still able to watch her sisters and clutch her doll; the other two sisters are both at work preparing lines, which were carefully coiled in the shallow wickerwork baskets, ready for use.

Behind them is the very gesturally-painted cream ghost of a net, which was probably drying in the sun. At the right, hanging by a door, is a pair of waders, used to keep the feet and legs dry, either when working in the coble, or when wading out to one. The door has scratched marks recording some relevant figures. At the left is a pair of black chickens, the bright red cockscomb of one clearly visible, pecking in the dirt.

Nets, lines, and other fishing gear had to be carried to and from the boats by the women.

Fishlasses and fishwives did some of their own fishing too, although it may not have been particularly productive. Here one is armed with a shrimping net, for catching small crustaceans and fish in rock pools. They also harvested shellfish, which Homer showed in another watercolour.

Wherever the catch, it was left to the women to carry the fish and prepare them for sale.

Some parts of the coast were also suitable for lobster pots, which again would have been maintained and prepared by the women.

Some of the most arduous work involved transferring a catch from the boat into these large wickerwork baskets, then carrying them in teams to the village, where the women could prepare the fish for market.

In the next article, I will look in more detail at those times when the whole community worked together, when the boats came in.

References

National Gallery of Art virtual exhibition from 2005.

Tedeschi M and others (2008) Watercolors by Winslow Homer. The Color of Light, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 11945 9.

This short series has been looking at Winslow Homer’s paintings from Cullercoats.

Life in fishing communities was centred on when the boats came in: the return of the men and boys, hopefully with large and valuable catches which could be sold to pay the bills and feed the family. Just as the women were responsible for watching for the return of the boats, so they knew that they had arduous work to do when they did come in.

The phrase when your boat comes in has entered English as an expression for a time of success and (hopefully rich) reward. It has also been passed down in a traditional song from the north-east of England, the first verse of which runs:
Dance to your Daddy, my little laddie
Dance to your Daddy, my little man
Thou shalt have a fish and thou shalt have a fin
Thou shalt have a codlin when the boat comes in
Thou shalt have haddock baked in a pan
Dance to your Daddy, my little man.

You can hear the song sung here, although that version has variant lyrics which were used as the theme for a British TV series of the same name.

Homer’s Fisher Girls on the Beach, Cullercoats (1881) shows the arrival in progress, the earliest of the cobles being surrounded by their families, but the two fishwives in the foreground still waiting for their boat to come in. Although the boats were usually kept in and around the small harbour, when conditions allowed they would normally be sailed onto the beach, to allow better access to remove the catch and carry out maintenance.

By the time that the last vessels were arriving, the whole beach was bustling with the fishermen and fishwives hard at work. The catch had first to be transferred from each boat into the large wickerwork baskets, then the baskets carried by teams of women from the beach up into the village to be prepared for sale.

Four Fishwives on the Beach (1881) appears to have been one of Winslow Homer’s studies, probably painted en plein air using four models. Although he had a couple of wooden manikins dressed in miniature costumes, he seems to have worked as much as possible from life.

His Four Fishwives (1881) shows a finished version, worked into a moodier background, with sunlight illuminating the four women.

On the Sands (1881) is another quick atmospheric sketch started using pencil and completed in watercolour.

Most of these paintings continued to focus on the women, his most readily available models, but The Return, Tynemouth (1881) is a quick plein air sketch of two of the fishermen, with their brightly coloured oilskins, and carrying some of their gear.

In fine weather the beach became the centre of the community, allowing Homer to paint portraits showing family life – again almost entirely of the fishlasses and fishwives.

The Summer Cloud appears to be out of commission, perhaps awaiting repairs. Its registration number, painted by the name, indicates that it was registered in North Shields, which was the nearest major port to Cullercoats, at the mouth of the river Tyne. It is also likely that fish caught by local fishermen would have been taken by cart for sale at the large fresh fish market in North Shields, just over 2 miles away. This served the nearby industrial city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

The last painting in this group is one of Homer’s most enigmatic. Known as Tynemouth Priory, England (1881), the priory of the title is seen in silhouette on the horizon at the far right, hardly a dominant passage in the painting. Its motif is a boat, presumably from Cullercoats, hauling in its net. But the boat has no sail, so could only have been propelled by oars, which are nowhere to be seen. Stranger still is the apparent woman (with a bright red jacket and tied back hair) at the helm of the boat.

The next article in this series will look at Homer’s paintings after he left Cullercoats, and the influence which this experience and its images had on him.

References

National Gallery of Art virtual exhibition from 2005.

Tedeschi M and others (2008) Watercolors by Winslow Homer. The Color of Light, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 11945 9.

This short series has been looking at Winslow Homer’s paintings from Cullercoats. I have shown how he pictured the fishlasses and fishwives watching for the return of the boats, working ashore, and the bustling activity when their boats came in.

Puzzles

By all accounts, life in Cullercoats changed greatly during the summer, when itinerant musicians and street entertainers toured through the village, and miners from the nearby coalfields visited it as a beach resort. Despite being in the community for two complete summers, Homer showed not even a brief glimpse of that. Instead he concentrated on the fishing community, and its womenfolk in particular.

Every moment that these women and girls are pictured, they are active: here on the cliffs in the summer they are gathering yellow flowers, perhaps to sell to visitors.

Some accounts of Homer’s paintings dwell on the segregation of the sexes which appears in many of them. Apparently drawn further south down the coast from Cullercoats, his sketch Fishing off Scarborough (1882) shows two fishwives at sea with two men.

Although his production of sketches and watercolour paintings appears to have been quite intense and sustained, Homer also painted a few works in oils whilst at Cullercoats. His Hark! The Lark! (1882) was shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1882, but does not seem to have had much impact. It lacks the remarkable freshness and spontaneity of his watercolours, resembling the rustic Realism of Jean-François Millet, perhaps.

It raises the question, though, of how much he travelled away from Cullercoats during the 19 months in which he lived there. Some have claimed that he journeyed significantly further north, perhaps even to Scotland, and as far afield as Wales. In the absence of either paintings or documentary evidence, these appear unlikely.

His production during that time also changed considerably. As most of his sketches and paintings are signed and dated by year, I have looked at the dates attributed to them for the paintings which I have shown here. Twenty-four, almost three-quarters, are dated 1881, and only eight in 1882. The great majority of his paintings included in the references were also dated 1881. Does this mean that he painted fewer in 1882, that many of those painted that year have been lost or destroyed, or that private collectors have amassed his work from that year disproportionately?

Some have pondered Homer’s relationship with his models, although all the evidence is that it was entirely professional. Winslow Homer’s lifestyle was so upright and sober that several potential biographers apparently declined the opportunity to write books about him because of the difficulty they would have in retaining the reader’s interest.

One model, a redheaded girl of 15 years age at the time, has been identified as Maggie Jefferson (later marrying to become Mrs Maggie Storey, and having 17 children), who lived on Bank Top near Homer’s studio. She was often paid the shilling which he gave his models for a sitting. It was a lot of money to them in 1881, and made him a generous donor to the budgets of many Cullercoats families.

Looking through his many gorgeous paintings, there are other faces and figures who start to become familiar too. My own curiosity has been aroused over a young woman, probably slightly older than Maggie Jefferson, with more blonde hair, who is often seen wearing red stockings. The composite image below shows details of what may be the same model from the following paintings:

• A Fishergirl Baiting Lines (1881), which is her most detailed portrait,
• Girl with Red Stockings (1882),
• The Gale (1883-93),
• Three Fisher Girls, Tynemouth (1881),
• Tynemouth Sands (1882-3),
• The Life Line (1884), which I show and discuss below.

Achievements

Winslow Homer was already making the shift from painting in opaque watercolour before he went to Cullercoats, and was adept at the techniques used by Turner and other masters to get the best from them. He had switched to Winsor & Newton’s paints on Whatman paper, considered to be the finest of the day. His studies of Turner’s and other work in London, and his understanding of colour perception, helped him create a succession of superb paintings, with remarkable spontaneity and richness of gesture, masterful composition and use of colour. Individually many are among the greatest watercolours of all time, and viewed as a group they must be almost unique.

He sent paintings home in advance, always mindful of the need to make his market. Initial reception in the US was lukewarm at best. A few critics were positive, but most were dismissive: Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer is often quoted as stating that they were “neither individual nor attractive.”

Superficially, Homer’s response was to turn back and paint more American themes and scenes. In doing so, he transferred what he had learned at Cullercoats, and often revisited its people and their lives.

Early success came with The Life Line (1884), a work in oils which was ostensibly inspired by the rescue of a young woman from shipwreck off Atlantic City, New Jersey, in the summer of 1883. But look carefully at that provocative, almost erotically-charged woman, and is she not one of the fishlasses from Cullercoats, complete with flashes of red in her shawl and legs? This sold almost immediately it went on show, for $2,500, and marked the start of Homer’s commercial success.

There followed a series from the even harsher conditions fishing off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, including The Fog Warning (Halibut Fishing) (1885), again in oils. For these Homer went out with the herring fleet in 1884, which must have stirred fond memories of the fishermen of Cullercoats.

Watercolours such as Sharks (The Derelict) (1885) showed that his time at Cullercoats had brought about lasting change, which ensured his well-deserved reputation as one of America’s greatest painters.

In the next and last article in this series, I will try to assemble the large-scale narrative from a selection of the very best of Homer’s paintings of Cullercoats.

References

National Gallery of Art virtual exhibition from 2005.

Cikovsky, Jr, N, Kelly F et al. (1995) Winslow Homer, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 3000 6555 8.
Griffin RC (2006) Winslow Homer, An American Vision, Phaidon Press. ISBN 978 0 7148 3992 9.
Tedeschi M and others (2008) Watercolors by Winslow Homer. The Color of Light, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 11945 9.