Having given in the preceding pages the briefest possible outline of the
life of Watts as a man amongst men, we are now able to come to closer
quarters. He was essentially a messenger--a teacher, delivering to the
world, in such a manner that his genius and temperament made possible,
ideas which had found their place in his mind. He would have been the
first to admit that without these ideas he would be less than nothing.
If it were possible to bring together all the external acts of the
painter's life, his journeyings to and fro, his making and his losing
friends, we should have insufficient data to enable us to understand
Watts' message; his great ambitions, his constant failures, his intimate
experiences, his reflections and determinations--known to none but
himself--surely these, the internal life of Watts, are the real sources
of his message? True, he was in the midst of the nineteenth century,
breathing its atmosphere, familiar with the ideals of its great men,
doubting, questioning, and hoping with the rest. To him, as to many a
contemporary stoic, the world was in a certain sense an alien ground,
and mortal life was to be stoically endured and made the best of. It is
impossible to believe, however, that this inspiring and prophetic
painter reproduced and handed on merely that which his time and society
gave him. His day and his associates truly gave him much; the past and
his heredity made their contributions; but we must believe that the
purest gold was fired in the crucible of his inner experience, his joys
and his sufferings. In him was accomplished that great discovery which
the philosophers have called Pessimism; he not only saw in other men (as
depicted in his memorable canvas of 1849), but he experienced in himself
the transitory life's illusions. To Watts, the serious man of fifty
years, Love and Death, Faith and Hope, Aspiration, Suffering, and
Remorse, were not, as to the eighteenth-century rhymester, merely Greek
ladies draped in flowing raiment; to him they were realities, intensely
focussed in himself. Watts was giving of himself, of his knowledge and
observation of what Love is and does, and how Death appears so
variously; and who but a man who knew the melancholy of despair could
paint that picture "Hope"?
Immediately after the central crisis of his personal life appeared the
canvas entitled "Fata Morgana," illustrative of a knight in vain pursuit
of a phantom maiden; and before long there was from his brush the
pictured story of a lost love, "Orpheus and Eurydice," one of the
saddest of all myths, but, one feels, no old myth to him.
By a more careful analysis of the artist's work we hope to learn the
teaching Watts set himself to give, and to ascertain the means that he
adopted; but one point needs to be made clear at this stage, namely,
that although Watts was a great teacher, yet he was not a revolutionary.
The ideals he held up were not new or strange, but old, well-tried, one
might almost say conventional. They represent the ideals which, in the
friction and turmoil of ages, have emerged as definite, clear, final.
They are not disputed or dubious notions, but accepted truisms forgotten
and neglected, waiting for the day when men shall live by them.
Furthermore, Watts was not in any sense a mystic--neither personally or
as an artist. "The Dweller in the Innermost" is not the transcendental
self known to a few rare souls, but is merely conscience, known to all.
The biblical paintings have no secret meaning assigned to them. The
inhabitants of Eden, the hero of the Deluge, the Hebrew patriarchs,
Samson and Satan--all these are the familiar figures of the
evangelical's Bible. "Eve Repentant" is the woman Eve, the mother of the
race; "Jacob and Esau" are the brothers come to reconciliation; "Jonah"
is the prophet denouncing the Nineveh of his day and the Babylon of
this. The teaching--and there is teaching in every one of them--is plain
and ethical. So also, with the Greek myths; they teach plainly--they
hold no esoteric interpretations. Watts is no Neo-Platonist weaving
mystical doctrines from the ancient hero tales; he is rather a stoic, a
moralist, a teacher of earthly things.
But we must be careful to guard against the impression of Watts as a
lofty philosopher consciously issuing proclamations by means of his art.
Really he was not aware of being a philosopher at all; he was simply an
artist, an exquisitely delicate and sensitive medium, who, when once
before his canvas, suddenly filled with his idea, was compelled to say
his word. If there be any synthesis about his finished work--and no one
can deny this--it was not because Watts gave days and nights and years
to "thinking things out." His paintings are, as he used to call them,
"anthems," brought forth by the intuitive man, the musician. This was
the fundamental Watts. Whatever unity there be, is due rather to unity
of inspiration than to strength or definiteness of character and
accomplishment, and this was sometimes referred to by Watts as a golden
thread passing through his life--a thread of good intention--which he
felt would guide him through the labyrinth of distractions, mistakes,
irritations, ill health, and failures.
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.
[Illustration: PLATE IV.--THOMAS CARLYLE
(At the South Kensington Museum)
This canvas was painted in 1868, and is the earlier of the two
portraits of the famous historian painted by Watts. It formed
part of the Foster Bequest. It is interesting to compare this
with the painting in the National Portrait Gallery.]
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.
[Illustration: PLATE V.--LOVE AND LIFE
(At the Tate Gallery)
Love, strong in his immortal youth, leads Life, a slight
female figure, along the steep uphill path; with his broad
wings he shelters her, that the winds of heaven may not visit
her too roughly. Violets spring where Love has trod, and as
they ascend to the mountain top the air becomes more and more
golden. The implication is that, without the aid of Divine
Love, fragile Human Life could not have power to ascend the
steep path upward. First exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in
1885. Companion picture to "Love and Death," and "Love
Triumphant."]