The Victorians: British Painting In The Reign Of Queen Victoria

By Stephen May

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In "The Victorians: British Painting In The Reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901," the most important survey of Victorian painting ever mounted in the United States, curators sought to dispel stereotypes of cloying sentimentality and moral rigidity which have often caused this art to be dismissed by critics. Thanks to a grand display of 70 canvases by 34 artists, gleaned from 38 owners, to a large extent they have succeeded. On view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington until May 11, "The Victorians," as Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., the show's co-curator observes, is "narrative, literary, moralizing...all the things we've been taught in this century art shouldn't be." Moreover, he notes that it has been difficult for Americans to evaluate these works because most are in English collections. But in putting the exhibition together, Cikovsky, the National Gallery's curator of American and British painting, said he found the work of the Victorian era to be "excitingly and impressively inclusive...rich in truth, passion, compassion and profound humanity."

Calling it "the most daring exhibition I've done at the Gallery, " Cikovsky predicted that it would be "eye opening." Indeed it is.

The art is "anything but" maudlin and retrograde says the National Gallery's director, Earl A. Powell III. He adds that the frames, many original, are "remarkable in their own right."

Already the cradle of the industrial revolution, Britain during Queen Victoria's spectacular six-decade reign became the most advanced and powerful nation on earth. In an energetic, gritty, pragmatic world of technological change and burgeoning international commerce, England's old aristocracy lost much of its social and political preeminence to urban, self-made men of business.

Painting, which played a central role in Victorian cultural life, reflected the complexities, turmoil and contradictions of the era. As "The Victorians" documents, some artists sought to reflect in their work the realities of modern life -- the optimistic materialism of a nation on the rise, the emphasis on fact and science, the ethical imperatives of work and duty, and religious and moral dilemmas posed by rapid social upheaval. Other painters retreated from confronting the issues of the day, taking refuge in beautiful realms of their own creation, filled with nostalgia for the past.

From the formidable J.M.W. Turner, still going strong into the 1840s, through the Pre-Raphaelites, the Aesthetic movement and those longing for antiquity and the Middle Ages, Victorian painters responded to the ideas and attitudes, tensions and debates which griped Britain in a momentous period. Throughout, the quality of their art, as the exhibition underscores, was special.

The show opens with a striking selection of the varied styles and subjects that artists dealt with in England in the 1830s through 1850s, at the outset of Victoria's reign. Mirroring the hopes, fears and aspirations of a nation self-consciously entering a new era, the paintings range from late, romantic but foreboding canvases by the aging Turner, to a classic homage to the young queen and her family, to Edwin Landseer's indelible image of Prince Albert's greyhound to a sprawling picture by William Powell Firth which seems to embrace all facets of Victorian society.

Rebelling against the domination of British art by the Royal Academy, which trained artists to pursue ideal beauty in the grand manner of the Italian Renaissance, in 1848 a group of young painters founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Convinced that the art created before Raphael was more authentic because it was not idealized in the Renaissance manner, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti promoted an innovative, highly factual and painstakingly detailed style of painting more in keeping with the scientific, materialistic view which came to characterize the Victorian age. "Pre-Raphaelitism has but one principle," proclaimed critic John Ruskin, the group's champion, "that of absolute, uncompromising truth in all that it does, obtained by working everything, down to the most minute detail, from nature and from nature only."

The intense effort, technical skills and moral concerns of the Brotherhood's work -- reflected in meticulous observation, sharp bright details and elaborate symbolism -- was in keeping with Victorian esteem for diligence and hard work. The moral virtues of labor, vigorously promulgated by social critic Thomas Carlyle, suggested that the worth of a work of art was in proportion to the amount of effort involved in its creation.

This philosophy was embodied in a centerpiece of this section of the exhibition, Ford Madox Brown's "Work," 1852, which portrayed a cross-section of contemporary British society from ditch diggers to intellectuals. Inspired by the sight of laborers excavating the street near his London home, Brown painted a celebration and allegory of work which suggested that to develop a well-ordered society, the brain power of men like Carlyle must complement the hard work of noble, manual laborers.

By the 1860s, however, the optimism which characterized the early Victorian years began to fade in the face of commercial challenges from Germany and the United States. "Material prosperity has become our real god," painter George Frederic Watts observed, "but we are surprised to find that the worship of this visible deity does not make us happy."

Charles Dickens captured much of this spirit in his novels of the hard life, while painters such as Samuel Lukes Fildes and Hubert von Herkomer expressed their growing disillusionment in highly dramatic images of disaster and harsh times, especially the sufferings of the indigent, elderly and children. A roomful of these gritty, emotional paintings -- which would make great illustrations for Dickens novels -- serves as a reminder of the squalor, overcrowding, pollution and ill-health which were the lot of many Victorians.

Other artists of the 1860s sought refuge from the dreariness of modern life in creating idyllic visions of the past. In particular, they embraced the Middle Ages as a period of beauty, passions, heroism and spirituality. Drawing on Arthurian legends and Dante's poetry, painters such as Edward Burne-Jones, Rossetti and Watts produced dreamy, otherworldly compositions designed to elevate the soul. "The more materialistic science becomes, the more angels I shall paint," said Burne-Jones.

In the 1850s and 60s, more progressive painters like expatriates John Singer Sargent, James Tissot and James McNeill Whistler moved away from the factualism, narratives and moralizing of the Pre-Raphaelites and utilized French training to focus on the pleasures of the contemporary scene. Their beautifully executed canvases drew on traditions of French realism and the high-keyed palette and atmospheric evocations of the Impressionists. Their bravura brushwork and decorative approach enhanced the outdoor feeling of their work.

For later Victorians, the art and culture of ancient Greece represented the pinnacle of beauty, a lost paradise of physical and intellectual perfection far removed from the petty anxieties of contemporary life. Artists such as Frederic Leighton, Albert Moore and Lawrence Alma-Tadema specialized in depicting languorous, expressionless women, draped in classic gowns, asleep or lost in reverie.

After studying in Europe, Leighton (1830-1896) returned to England in 1859, becoming a leader of the aesthetic movement and the nation's preeminent painter of works based on classical history and myth. His "Flaming June," a highlight of this show, is perhaps the most celebrated of all the sleeping Victorian beauties. Leighton's London house is now a museum.

Regressive as many of these late Victorian images appear today, there is no denying the compelling beauty of the luscious colors, elaborate decorative patterns and exquisite handling of paint these artists used to create their visions of loveliness and harmony. "Flaming June," with its stunning colors and knockout pose, is a ravishingly beautiful coda to the National Gallery's impressive display of Victorian artistic achievement.

This is not necessarily an easy exhibition for Americans to absorb. Some advance homework about the history of the Victorian age, and an understanding of the art currents running through it, will add immeasurably to a full appreciation of the accomplishments of these gifted painters.

Drawn from a diverse group of mostly English public and private collections, including the Tate Gallery and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, "The Victorians" is on view through May 11.

The handsome, fully-illustrated catalogue, with informative essays, commentary on individual works and artists' biographies, was written by exhibition co-curator Malcolm Warner, curator of paintings at the Yale Center for British Art, with the assistance of Anne Helm Reich and Charles Brock. It is well done.