Art on the line EXHIBITION REVIEW – Pre-Raphaelites and Other Masters Marianne Camus Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France [email protected] This is going to be a very personal review. Wyatt Family, by today’s standards almost Pre-Raphaelites and Other Masters, the naive in their early Pre-Raphaelite meticu- exhibition at the Royal Academy of the lous and slightly stiff rendering of reality, to Andrew Lloyd Webber collection, attracted James Jacques Tissot’s sophisticated bril- me, along with many others on the afternoon liance, as in L’Orpheline or The Return from I went, as an opportunity to see for real so the Boating Trip. They go from the mystical, many Victorian paintings normally seen only of at least dream-like quality typical of in reproductions of varying quality. For if one Edward Burne-Jones to the overtly titillating cannot deny, on reaching the final rooms, the subtext in Lawrence Alma Tadema’s or John beauty of Alfred Munnings’ horses or the William Godward’s representations of pseu- charm of Stanley Spencer’s vision of life, do-harem creatures. The pictures also go there is no doubt that it is the Pre- from the glamour of Albert Moore’s Red Raphaelites who are the real stars of this Berries or John Atkinson Grimshaw’s Dolce show. Domum to the ordinary domesticity of Kate Actually, the first impression, as one Hayllar’s A Thing of Beauty and Edith enters the exhibition, is almost one of disbe- Hayllar’s A Summer Shower. These two, by lief at the sheer number of works gathered the way, being, in their quiet understated here. I must say straight away, though, that I manner, amongst the most charming and do not agree with Lindsay Duguid’s com- effective paintings on show. ment, in Times Literary Supplement, 21 But beneath the diversity, one can soon November 2003, that it is a ‘crowded jumble’. see some unifying lines of force running Or if it is, it is very much in the spirit of the through the exhibition, the first one, of course, Victorians and their fondness for clutter. I am being the narrative aspect of many of these not sure that a presentation along the lines of paintings. Some stray remarks overheard as our more sober visual taste would be as rep- I went through the rooms would indeed tend resentative of the cultural and artistic to indicate that the Victorian taste for story exuberance of the times. It is true, however, telling is still very much alive. To my mind, that the enormous variety makes the viewer, though, the anecdotal dimension of much and the reviewer, a little dizzy at first. For the Victorian painting is one of its limitations. pictures range from John Everett Millais’ Pictures are almost systematically anchored James Wyatt and his Grand Daughter Mary in myth (John William Waterhouse’s Pandora Wyatt (figure 1) and Four Children of the or The Awakening of Adonis), old legends ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (3) 1 ART ON THE LINE Figure 1 Sir John Everett Millais, James Wyatt and his Grand Daughter Mary Wyatt, 1849, oil on canvas, 35.5 x 45 cm, © Collection Lord Lloyd-Webber (Arthur Hughes’ The Knight of the Sun or for example, with its almost monochrome fig- Gale’s The Wounded Knight, to cite only two ures and their strictly stylised draperies of many), or the narratives of contemporary falling in variations of the triangle which life (Michael Frederick Halliday’s The Blind answer the three golden circles of the trum- Basket-Maker with his First Child or The pets. There is a glimpse there of what will Measure for the Wedding Ring). This tends to later become cubist painting, but I cannot obscure the painting as such. What, all too help feeling that this move away from narra- often, is brought to light are the less pleasant tion was frozen by the perceived and characteristics of the period, its sentimental- overpowering necessity to tell a story. ism and self-righteousness. The absolutely The same can be said about one of the ludicrous is, in my opinion, reached with strong points of many of the paintings on William Holman Hunt’s The Shadow of show, the beauty of the colours. The depth Death, which represents an apparently and luminosity of Burne-Jones’ blues and ecstatic Christ, doing what? dancing? pray- reds are a sheer pleasure to the eye. I am ing? or – as his shadow on the wall behind thinking of the blues in Night and Vesper, seems to show – rehearsing his crucifixion? and the accumulated and saturated reds of More serious perhaps is the way in which The Annunciation, or their contrast with dark this narrative bias probably prevented gen- tones in The Adoration of the Kings. But uine artists from progressing. I am thinking Burne-Jones is only one among many. There here in particular of some of Burne-Jones’ are few oils by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in this late works, The Challenge in the Wilderness, collection, but A Vision of Fiammetta (figure 2 ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (3) PRE-RAPHAELITES AND OTHER MASTERS: CAMUS 2) gives a fair example of the painter’s jewel- a hallmark of the items of decorative art col- like colours. The royal purple of the skirt in lected by Andrew Lloyd Webber, the carpets, April Love by Hughes, the sensuous apricot, and above all William de Morgan’s stunning pale yellows and greens of Alma Tadema, ceramics in the reds and blues that appear in the subtle juxtaposition, by Waterhouse, of retrospect as one of the characteristics of the soft reddish purple, olive green, dark dull period. But with one difference, namely, that blue, leaf brown and burnished gold in The unlike the paintings which, despite the Danaides, without forgetting the sumptuous wealth of talent, remain determinedly russet/gold/orange of the woman’s skirt in Victorian and insular, the objects of decora- Millais’ The Proscribed Royalist, all con- tive art often give the feeling, through their tribute to the enchantment one feels on design, that they belong to a European moving from one picture to the next. But movement, to what will later be called Art somehow, the colour never breaks free, Nouveau. Some pieces are actually very enclosed as it is in the narrative. close to the École de Nancy in inspiration. This richness and depth of colour is also Another common feature that I would like to mention may be felt as politically incorrect. But I must admit that to my woman’s eyes, used to the constant deconstruction, not to say disintegration, of the female body in twentieth-century art, the obvious love of women in these paint- ings was quite striking, however stereotyped or lewd the expression of it might be in some of them. I will not dwell on those, but rather give place of honour to Rossetti’s coloured chalk portraits. The softly and elegantly curving lines of neck, wrists and hands, drapery and hair all reveal, in these busts or heads, the artist’s love of the female Figure 2 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, A Vision of Fiametta, 1878, oil on canvas, 146 x 88.9 cm. © Collection Lord Lloyd- Webber ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (3) 3 ART ON THE LINE body. It is as if the caress of chalk on paper landscape and townscape paintings. The translated the sensuousness of Rossetti’s narrative aspect is here cut to the minimum, eye. A sensuousness which is, however, not so that, in the Lane pictures for example, one as fancy driven as has often been said. The feels that the golden or silvery light is simply clearly different feelings produced by these washing over you. But Grimshaw’s mastery portraits, despite similarity of treatment, indi- of light in all its forms is best seen in paint- cate a basic respect for the sitter’s ings like Liverpool, On Hampstead Hill or personality. The best proof of this being the Cornhill, in which the dimness of a wet superb portrait of Christina Rossetti, whose moonlight, the warm points of artificial light spiritualised sensuality he renders perfectly and the reflections of both on damp pave- in an unusually austere-looking work. On ments and streets make this self-taught pale blue paper the poet’s table and book are painter a northern cousin of the early roughly outlined, as is the bulky, rather Impressionists. shapeless gown that she is wearing. But The great number and diversity of works from this uncompromising bluish greyish on display mean that this review is neces- mass rise the quiet but rounded curves of sarily incomplete and probably unfair in what eyebrows and mouth, all in, again, quiet but it has chosen to distinguish, but I hope it has at the same time warm tints, curves and tints helped, even if a little, to dispel some of the somehow contrasting with and completing prejudices about nineteenth-century British the lines and colour of the heavy dark hair painting and to look at it for what it is, art, and demurely gathered at the nape of the neck. not simply Victorian artefacts. But I will leave this somewhat dangerous ground to conclude with something totally The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection was on different, with what was to me the real reve- show at the Royal Academy, London from 20 lation of the exhibition, Grimshaw’s September – 12 December 2003. 4 ART ON THE LINE 2004/1 (3).