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.
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--LOVE TRIUMPHANT
(At the Tate Gallery)
Time and Death having travelled together through the ages,
have run their course and are at length overthrown. Love alone
arises on immortal wings, triumphantly, with outspread arms to
the eternal skies.