EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Volume 27, Number 2 Autumn, 1993 THE AWAKENING CONSCIENCE IN BRIDESHEAD REVISITED By Elaine E. Whitaker (University of Alabama at Birmingham) Crucial to understanding the emotions which underlie Julia Flyte's renunciation of Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited is "Ruskin's description" of "a picture of Holman Hunt's cal.led 'The Awakened Conscience'" (290). Julia, who has not seen the picture, concludes from Ryder's reading of Ruskin, "You're perfectly right. That's exactly what I did feel" (290). That these feelings were aroused by her brother Bridey's statement that Julia was "living in sin" (285, 287) has never been in dispute. However, both the title of Hunt's painting and the location of Ruskin's criticism require further explication. Although Waugh, his editors, and his critics have consistently referred to The Awakened Conscience, the title Holman Hunt assigned to this work was not The Awakened Conscience but rather The Awakening Conscience. Waugh's apparent error links Hunt's painting to its Victorian predecessors, The A wakened Conscience by Richard Redgrave and The Awakened Conscience by Thomas Brooks.' Because Waugh was not a casual observer of these Victorian painters, he should not have been prone to such an error. On the contrary, Waugh indicates his interest not only by the allusion in Brides head but also by his prior claim that "The A wakened Conscience ... is, perhaps, the noblest painting by any Englishman."' Thus, Waugh's alteration of Hunt's title deserves investigation. The painting which Waugh praises but mistitles depicts a young woman who has risen from her lover's lap, though her lover continues to hold her with one arm and to touch the keys of a piano with his free hand. Among the several features of the composition which label the relationship adulterous and emphasize the young woman's shocked awareness is the painting-within-the-painting, which portrays a repentant adulteress whose posture echoes that of the young woman. Additionally, the motifs on the picture's frame include "marigolds and bells, symbols of sorrow and warning" (Wood 137). Inscribed on the base of the frame is the following quotation from Proverbs: "As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather,/so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart." For the catalogue of the Royal Academy's 1854 exhibition, Hunt furnished two additional quotations-one from Ecclesiasticus, the other from Isaiah (Landow 50-51, based on Frederick George Stevens, William Holman Hunt and His Works). Taken together, these visual and verbal signals emphasize the response of the Victorian adulteress when confronted with her situation. It is this response-as it is described by John Ruskin-which Waugh uses in Brideshead Revisited. Of the young woman in Hunt's painting, Ruskin writes: [S]he has started up in agony .... ! suppose that no one possessing the slightest knowledge of expression could remain untouched by the countenance of the lost girl, rent from its beauty into sudden horror; the lips half open, indistinct in their purple quivering; the teeth set hard; the eyes filled with the fearful light of futurity, and with tears of ancient days. (The Times 7.6) Ruskin justifies his letter to The Times because viewers of The Awakening Conscience "gaze at it in a blank wonder, and leave it hopelessly" (7.6). Thus, despite the extensive apparatus supplied by Hunt, observers were befuddled. Since Ruskin's review appeared in The Times, the reader of Brides head may also be befuddled by Charles Ryder's reference to a book: "I had seen a copy of Pre­ Raphaelitism in the library some days before; I found it again and read her Ruskin's description." (290) William T. Going has previously called attention to the apparent error in Ryder's reference.' Indeed, Ruskin's letter to The Times does not appear in Ruskin's Pre-Raphaelitism but rather in Holman Hunt's memoirs, Pre-Raphae/itism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Because of their influence on him, Hunt reprints within his memoirs complete texts of each of Ruskin's letters concerning the Pre-Raphaelites.4 Hunt published his memoirs in 1905, a date which makes their inclusion in the library at Brideshead plausible. Furthermore, a copy of Hunt's Pre-Raphaelitism in the library harmonizes with the chapel"redecorated in the arts-and-crafts style of the last decade of the nineteenth century" (38) as Julia's father's wedding gift to her mother (39). Finally, Waugh would likely have associated his knowledge of Hunt's memoirs with marriage, as Hunt had twice married into the Waugh family (Cole; Stannard 1.15). Awareness that these marriages had gone poorly reinforces the perception of doom which pervades Brideshead. Ironically, Hunt-who had lost his wife to death in route to the Holy land-received his copy of Ruskin's letter in Jerusalem, where Waugh ultimately deposits Julia. Artistically, Brideshead Revisited gains from the references discussed above. For example, Waugh's use ofthe title The Awakened Conscience rather than The Awakening Conscience conveys -2- the finality of Julia's return to the religious values of her upbringing. Though Ryder calls these values merely "preconditioning from childhood" and "all bosh" (290), Julia's position has already congealed. Thus, her wish to marry Ryder will be supplanted by her renunciation of him. Just as Holman Hunt's lover-pianist remains unaware of his companion's conversion, Waugh's lover­ narrator-himself a painter of the sort envisioned by Ruskin5-does not anticipate either his own religious conversion or the strength of Julia's resolve. Finally, Ruskin's description of The Awakening Conscience rather than the painting itself must be the standard of reference for Julia's emotions because the facial expression in the painting was revised subsequent to its original exhibition. According to Hunt, "the woman's head in its present condition is not exactly what it was when Ruskin described the picture.''' It is fitting that Waugh refers his readers to Ruskin's letter in the context where it includes Hunt's telling footnote. When revisited, Brideshead too is not "exactly what it was.'' Notes 'For Holman Hunt's painting, which has been reproduced frequently, see Wood, plate 143, p. 137. For a close view of the young woman's face, the portion of the canvas relevant to Julia's response, see Landow, plate 25, p. 52. For a reproduction of Red grave's painting, see Casteras and Parkinson, plate 99, p. 134. Wood views Redgrave's 1849 painting as "a forerunner of Holman Hunt's elaborate moral fable" (138); the compositions, however, differ significantly. As Hunt painted The Awakening Conscience during 1853, completing it in January of 1854, Thomas Brooks' painting, displayed at the Royal Academy in 1853, could arguably have influenced Hunt's thinking, even though the paintings differ in subject matter. 'PRB: An Essay on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood 1847-1854, 25. However, Waugh's observations on the Pre-Raphaelites are disparaged as "inexcusably inaccurate" (xii) by Fleming. 3 Going writes that "Waugh's memory appears to have failed him here: the passage is not in Ruskin's pamphlet Pre-Raphaelitism (1852). Perhaps Waugh means for the Brideshead library to contain a copy of an anthology (1876), which reprinted the letter with Ruskin's permission" (p. 93, n. 8). The present note provides an alternative explanation. 41.418-19. That Waugh had read Hunt's Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is evident from his citation of it in Rossetti: His Life and Works (e.g., 37). Elsewhere, Waugh concludes that Hunt would not have continued to paint without the influence of Ruskin's two letters to The Times (PRB 22-23). Ruskin's influence on Hunt as it relates to both art and religion is helpfully summarized by Landow (6-7). 'In his Pre-Raphaelitism, John Ruskin calls the "true duty" of the painter "the faithful representation of all objects of historical interest, or of natural beauty existent at the period" (quoted from The Crown of Wild Olive [244, italics his]). Charles Ryder's fulfillment of Ruskin's "true duty" is evident in his characterization of himself as "an architectural painter" with three books of English subjects to his credit (226-27). '1.418, n. 1. Hunt attributes the changes to the dissatisfaction of the owners, who felt "that the expression of the girl was painful" (1.418, n. 1). Nor was Hunt satisfied with the revision, as he claims that he was forced to return the painting to the owners before he wished to do so. Works Cited Casteras, Susan P., and Ronald Parkinson, eds. Richard Redgrave 1804-1888. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1988. Cole, Mark. "A Haunting Portrait by William Holman Hunt." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art 77 (December 1990):354-63. Fleming, G. H. Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1967. Going, William T. "Pre-Raphaelitism in Brideshead Revisited." The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 7 (May 1987):90-93. Hunt, W. Holman. Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. 2 vols. New York and London: MacMillan, 1905. 1.415-19. Landow, George P. William Holman Hunt and Typological Symbolism. New York and London: Yale UP, 1979. Ruskin, John. Letter to the Editor. The Times [London]. 25 May 1854. 7.6. -. The Crown of Wild Olive. Boston: Dana Estes, 1913. Stannard, Martin. Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903-1939. New York and London: W. W. Norton, 1986. Waugh, Evelyn. Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder. Boston: Little, Brown, 1945.