Chapter 2

One of the striking incidents in the life of Watts was his offer to decorate Euston Railway Station with frescoes entitled "The Progress of Cosmos." "Chaos" we have in the Tate Gallery, full of suggestiveness and interest. We see a deep blue sky above the distant mountains, gloriously calm and everlasting; in the middle distance to the left is a nebulous haze of light, while in the foreground the rocks are bursting open and the flames rush through. Figures of men, possessed by the energy and agony of creation, are seen wrestling with the elements of fire and earth. One of these figures, having done his work, floats away from the glow of the fire across the transparent water, while others of his creative family have quite passed the struggling stage of movement and are reclining permanent and gigantic to the right of the picture. The same idea is repeated in the chain of draped women who are emerging from the watery deep; at first they are swept along in isolation, then they fly in closer company, next they dance and finally walk in orderly procession. But Chaos, for all this, is a unity; of all material forms it is the most ancient form; Cosmos however is the long-drawn tale beginning with the day when "The Spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters." Cosmos might have been Watts' synthetic pictorial philosophy; Herbert Spencer with his pen, and he with his brush, as it were, should labour side by side. But this was not to be; the Directors of the North-Western Railway declined the artist's generous offer, and he had to get his "Cosmos" painted by degrees. On the whole, perhaps, we should be thankful that the railway company liberated Watts from this self-imposed task. We remember that Dante in his exile set out to write "Il Convivio," a Banquet of so many courses that one might tremble at the prospect of sitting down to it; the four treatises we have are interesting, though dry as dust; but if Dante had finished his Banquet, he might never have had time for his "Divine Comedy"; so perhaps, after all, we shall be well content to be without Watts' "Cosmos," remembering what we have gained thereby. Besides, the continuous and spontaneous self-revelation of an artist or a poet is sometimes truer than a rigid predetermined plan.

A few words from the pen of the artist, appearing by way of preface to a book, "A Plain Handicraft," may here be quoted to indicate the strong views Watts took on the "Condition-of-England Question." His interest in art was not centred in painting, or sculpture, or himself, or his fellow artists. He believed in the sacred mission of art as applied to profane things. We see how closely he adheres to the point of view made so famous by Ruskin. Both Watts and Ruskin, one feels, belong rather to the days of Pericles, when everything was best in the state because the citizens gave themselves up to it and to each other. Writing of the necessity and utility of reviving Plain Handicrafts among the mass of the people, the painter of "Mammon" says:

"... When the object is to vitalise and develop faculties--the especial inheritance of the human race, but strangely dormant in our time among the largest section of the community--the claim becomes one that cannot be ignored. Looking at the subject from a point of view commanding a wide horizon, it seems to be nothing less than a social demand, rising into a religious duty, to make every endeavour in the direction of supplying all possible compensating consolation for the routine of daily work, become so mechanical and dreary. When home is without charm, and country without attaching bonds, the existence of a nation is rudely shaken; dull discontent leading to sullen discontent, may readily become active animosity. There will not be men interested in the maintenance of law and order, who feel that law and order bring them no perceptible formal advantage. In the race for wealth, it has been forgotten that wealth alone can offer neither dignity nor permanent safety; no dignity, if the man of the population is degraded by dull toil and disgraceful competition; no safety, if large numbers drag on a discontented existence, while the more active and intelligent leave our shores.

"Whether or not our material wealth is to be increased or diminished, it is certain that a more general well-being and contentment must be striven for. A happy nation will be a wealthy nation, wealthy in the best sense, in the assurance that its children can be depended upon in case of need, wealth above the fortune of war, and safety above the reach of fortune. The rush of interest in the direction of what are understood as worldly advantages, has trampled out the sense of pleasure in the beautiful, and the need of its presence as an element essential to the satisfaction of daily life, which must have been unconsciously felt in ages less absorbed in acquiring wealth for itself alone. In olden times our art congresses would have been as needless as congresses to impress on the general mind the advantages of money-making would be in these." (_Plain Handicraft_, 1892.)

In G.F. Watts, however, we have an instance of a man who, although he sees and is attracted by abstract principles of ethics, does not perceive the manner of their final application; he is not really scientific. It might be thought that the painter of "Greed and Toil," "The Sempstress," "Mammon," "The Dweller of the Innermost," and "Love Triumphant," would be able to indicate, in that sphere of social activity called "practical politics," how these principles could find their expression and realisation. It is interesting, however, to know, and to have it authoritatively from his own pen, that Watts at least could not discern either the time or the application of these ethical principles to the affairs of the great world; for in 1901 there appeared from his hand a quasi-philosophical defence of the South African War, entitled "Our Race as Pioneers." He said:

"Inevitable social and political measures claim obedience, which may be at variance with the spiritual and ethical conscience; but there comes in the question of necessity, apparent laws that contest with pure right and wrong; ... and as we must live, nothing remains but commerce; and commerce cannot be carried on without competition, and pushing the limits of our interests. The result of competition can only be conflict--war, unless some other outlet can be found. Commerce will not supply this; its very activity, which is its health and life, will produce the ambition, envy, and jarring interests that will be fatal to peace.... The principle, _Movement_, must have its outlet, its safety valve. This has always been war.... The goddess Trade, the modern Pandora, has in her box all the evils that afflict mankind.... How can Commerce, as understood by the principles of trade, abolish war?"

"The simple principles of right and wrong are easily defined," and perhaps easily painted; "but the complexity of human affairs and legitimate interests, conducing to the activity demanded by the great law, _Movement_, makes some elasticity necessary, even where there is the most honest desire to be just."

Thus, from his own words, we see how the painter transcends the politician; he is a stimulator, he gives hints, not instructions; he is commanding, imperative, but he does not show how, nor stay to devise ways and means. He even perceives, as he thinks, that though the commands of his pictures, "Faith," "Conscience," and "Love Triumphant," be given, yet they cannot be obeyed fully because of "Evolution" and "Destiny," or as he calls it "Movement."

To his intimate friends Watts, who was so introspective, often complained of "the duality of my nature." In the midst of affairs, financial or worldly, on questions of criticism, personal conduct and the like, the great artist was variable and uncertain. Though humble and self-deprecatory to an extreme degree, he made mistakes from which he could escape only with great difficulty; and he suffered much from depression and melancholy. This man, however, never appears in the pictures; when once in his studio, alone facing his canvas, Watts is final, absolute, an undisturbed and undistracted unity, conscious of that overwhelming "rightness" known to a Hebrew prophet. Whatever Time or Death may have in store for him or any man, there riding swiftly above them is Judgment the Absolute One; whatever theories may be spun from the perplexed mind of the magazine writer about Expansion and Necessity, there sits the terrible "Mammon" pilloried for all time. Indeed, he said his pictures were "for all time"; they were from the mind and hand of the seer, who, rising from his personality, transcended it; and as the personality of dual nature gradually fades away into the forgotten past, the Messenger emerges ever more and more clearly, leaving his graphic testimonies spread out upon a hundred canvases. It might be said as a final estimate that the value and sincerity of Watts' work becomes intensified a hundred-fold when we remember that its grandeur and dignity, its unity and its calm, was the work of a man who seldom, if ever, attained internal peace. Like some who speak wiser than they know, so Watts gave himself as an instrument to inspirations of which he was not able, through adverse circumstances, to make full use. Thus was the Man divided from the Messenger.

III

A REVIEW OF WATTS' WORK

Failing the "Progress of the Cosmos," we have from the mind and brush of Watts a great number of paintings, which may be grouped according to their character. Such divisions must not be regarded as rigid or official, for often enough a picture may belong to several groups at the same time. For the purpose of our survey, however, we divide them as follows:

1. Monumental or Historical Paintings and Frescoes. 2. Humanitarian or Social Paintings. 3. Portraits, private and public. 4. Biblical Paintings. 5. Mythical Paintings. 6. "Pessimistic" Paintings. 7. The Great Realities. 8. The Love Series. 9. The Death Series. 10. Landscapes. 11. Unclassified Paintings. 12. Paintings of Warriors.

"Caractacus" was the first of the monumental paintings; by them Watts appears as a citizen and a patriot, whose insular enthusiasm extends backward to the time when the British chief Caractacus fought and was subdued by the Romans. He enters also into the spirit of the resistance offered to the Danes by King Alfred. George and the Dragon are included by him in the historical though mythical events of our race. Undoubtedly the most remarkable of Watts' monumental paintings is the fresco entitled "Justice; a Hemicycle of Lawgivers," painted for the Benchers' Hall in Lincoln's Inn. It is 45 x 40 feet. Here Watts, taking the conventional and theoretical attitude, identifies law-making with justice, and in his fresco we see thirty-three figures, representing Moses, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Confucius, Lycurgus and his fellow-Greeks, Numa Pompilius and other Romans. Here figures also Justinian, the maker of the great Code; Mahomet, King Alfred, and even Attila the Hun. The painting represents the close of this phase of Watts' work; he received a gift of £500 and a gold cup in memory of its achievement. In England, at least, no one has ever attempted or accomplished anything in fresco of so great dimensions. Watts' monumental genius drove him to sculpture on the grand scale also. "Hugh Lupus" for the Duke of Westminster, and "Physical Energy," upon which he laboured at intervals during twenty-five years of his life, are his great triumphs in this direction. It is not the first time that an artist deficient in health and strength has made physical energy into a demigod. Men often, perhaps always, idealise what they have not. It was the wish of the sculptor to place a cast of "Physical Energy" on the grave of Cecil Rhodes on the Matoppo Hills in South Africa, indicating how Watts found it possible (by idealising what he wished to idealise), to include within the scope and patronage of his art, the activities, aims, and interests of modern Colonial Enterprise.

_Humanitarian Paintings_.--The earliest of these, "The Wounded Heron," asks our pity for the injured bird, and forbids us to join in the enthusiasm of the huntsman who hurries for his suffering prize. The same thought is expressed in the beautiful "Shuddering Angel," who is covering his face with his hands at the sight of the mangled plumage scattered on the altar of fashion. In the large canvases, "A Patient Life of Unrequited Toil," and "Midday Rest," we have paintings of horses, both of them designed to teach us consideration for the "friend of man." "The Sempstress" sings us Tom Hood's "Song of the Shirt."

"The Good Samaritan" (see Plate VII.) properly belongs to this series. It was presented by the artist to the citizens of Manchester, as an expression of his admiration of Thomas Wright, the prison philanthropist, whose work was at that time (1852) creating a sensation in the north of England. If we compare this painting with other Biblical subjects executed at a later date, we see how much Watts' work has gained since then. The almost smooth texture and the dark shadows of the Manchester picture have given way to ruggedness and transparency. Still, "The Good Samaritan" is simple and excellent in purpose and composition.

A little known painting entitled "Cruel Vengeance," seems to be a forecast of "Mammon"; a creature with human form and vulture's head presses under his hand a figure like the maiden whose head rests on Mammon's knee. In "Greed and Labour" the seer's eye pierces through the relations between the worker and his master; Labour is a fine strong figure loaded with the implements of his toil, with no feeling of subjection in his manly face; on the other hand, the miser creeping behind him, clutching the money bags, represents that Greed who, as Mammon, is seen sitting on his throne of death. "Mammon" is, however, the greatest of the three, containing in itself the ideas and forms of the other two. It is a terrible picture of the god to whom many bow the knee--"dedicated to his worshippers." His leaden face shows a consciousness of power, but not happiness arising from power; his dull eyes see nothing, though his mind's eye sees one thing clearly--the money bags on his lap. The two frail creatures of youth and maiden, "types of humanity" as Watts said, are crushed by his heavy limbs, while behind a fire burns continuously, perhaps also within his massive breast.

_Portraits_.--In portraiture, as in other forms of art, Watts had distinct and peculiar views. He gradually came to the opinion, which he adopted as his first rule in portraiture, that it was his duty, not merely to copy the external features of the sitter, but to give what might be called an intellectual copy. He declared it to be possible and necessary for the sitter and painter to attain a unity of feeling and a sympathy, by which he (the painter) was inspired. Watts' earlier portraits, while being far from characterless, are not instances of the application of this principle. There is in them a slight tendency to eighteenth-century ideal portraiture, which so often took the sitter (and the observer too) back to times and attitudes, backgrounds and thunderstorms, that never were and never will be.

Watts, however, was slightly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite school. He might, had he wished, have been their portrait painter--and indeed, the picture of the comely Mrs. Hughes, a kind, motherly creature, with a background of distant fields, minutely painted, is quite on the lines of Pre-Raphaelite realism.

Somewhat of the same character is the portrait of Mrs. Nassau Senior, who, with one knee on a sofa, is shown tending flowers, her rippling golden hair falling over her shoulders. A full-length portrait of Miss Mary Kirkpatrick Brunton, dated 1842, also belongs to the old style. Watts had a passion for human loveliness, and in his day some of the great beauties sat to him. The "Jersey Lily" (Mrs. Langtry) with her simple headdress and downcast eye, appeared at the Academy of 1879. "Miss Rachel Gurney" is a wonderful portrait of a flaming soul imprisoned in a graceful form and graceless dress. Miss Gurney is shown standing, turning slightly to the right with the head again turned over the right shoulder, while the whole effect of energy seems to be concentrated in the flashing eyes. Watts was able to interpret equally well personalities of a very different character, and perhaps the canvas representing Miss Edith Villiers is one of the most successful of his spiritual portraits. Miss Dorothy Dene, whose complexion Watts was one of the first to transfer to canvas, Miss Mary Anderson, and Miss Dorothy Maccallum, were all triumphantly depicted. He will be known, however, as the citizen portrait-painter of the nineteenth century, who preserved for us not merely the form, but the spirit of some of the greatest men of his day. Lord Tennyson sat three times. In 1859 the poet was shown in the prime of life, his hair and beard ruffled, his look determined. In 1864 we had another canvas--"the moonlight portrait"; the face is that of Merlin, meditative, thoughtful. As you look at it the features stand out with great clearness, the distance of the laurels behind his head can be estimated almost precisely, while seen through them is the gleam of the moon upon the distant water. The 1890 portrait, in scholastic robes, with grizzled beard, and hair diminished, is Tennyson the mystic, and reminds us of his "Ancient Sage"--

"... for more than once when I Sat all alone, revolving in myself The word that is the symbol of myself, The Mortal limit of the self was loosed And passed into the Nameless, as a cloud Melts into heaven."

The portrait of John L. Motley, the American Minister to England in 1869, and author of "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," is one of the most successful paintings of handsome men; Watts here depicts perfectly the "spiritual body" of strength, purity, and appeal; the eyes are deepest blue, and the hair the richest brown. In this case the artist has, as he was so prone, fallen into symbolism even in portraiture, for we can trace in the background a faint picture of an old-time fighting ship.

Another classic portrait, so different to that by Whistler, is of Thomas Carlyle. The sage of Chelsea sits ruffled and untidy, with his hands resting on the head of a stick, and his features full of power. He seems protesting against the few hours' idleness, and anxious to get back to the strenuous life. The sitter was good enough to say that the portrait was of "a mad labourer"--not an unfair criticism of a very good portrait.

_The Biblical Paintings_ are, as before said, in partial fulfilment of the frustrated scheme of "Cosmos." "Eve Repentant," in an attitude so typical of grief, is perhaps the most beautiful; it is one of a trilogy, the others being "She shall be called Woman," and "Eve Tempted." It is singular that in these three canvases the painter avoids the attempt to draw the face of the mother of the race. In the first the face is upturned, covered in shadow; in the second it is hid from view by the leaves of the forbidden tree, while in the third Eve turns her back and hides her weeping face with her arms. This habit of Watts to obscure the face is observed in "The Shuddering Angel," Judgment in "Time, Death, and Judgment," in "Love and Death," "Sic Transit," "Great Possessions," and some others. Often indeed a picture speaks as much of what is not seen as of what is seen.

Incidents from the Gospels are represented by "The Prodigal," where the outcast is seen crouching on the ground, his face fixed on vacuity, almost in the act of coming to himself. "For he had Great Possessions," is, however, the greatest and simplest of all. There the young man who went away sorrowful with bowed head, scarcely knowing what he has lost, is used by Watts as one of his most powerful criticisms of modern life. Although the incident is a definite isolated one, yet the costume, figure, chain of office, and jewelled fingers, clutching and releasing, are of no time or land in particular.

It is not a little remarkable that Watts, who had breathed so deeply the air of Italy, and had almost lived in company of Titian and Raphael, should never have attempted the figure of Christ or His apostles. This was, however, not without reason. His pictures were not only "for all time," but apart from time altogether. His only specific reference to Christianity is his beautiful canvas, "The Spirit of Christianity," in which he rebuked the Churches for their dissensions. A parental figure floats upon a cloud while four children nestle at her feet. The earth below is shrouded in darkness and gloom, despite the steeple tower raising its head above a distant village. The rebuke was immediately stimulated by the refusal of a certain church to employ Watts when the officials found he was not of their faith. In this picture Watts approached nearest to the Italian Madonnas both in form and colour.

_The Mythical Paintings_ are, in the main, earlier than the Biblical series, but even here the same note of teaching is struck, and our human sympathies are drawn out towards the figure depicted. In one, "Echo" comes to find her lover transformed into a flower; in another, "Psyche," through disobedience, has lost her love. She gazes regretfully at a feather fallen from Cupid's wing; it is a pink feather, such as might be taken from the plumage of the little Lord of Love who vainly opposes Death in his approach to the beloved one. In "Psyche," Watts has made the pale body expressive of abject loss; there is no physical effort, except in the well-expanded feet, and no other thought but lost love.