England's Michelangelo
Andrew Lambirth
B.F. Watts: Portraits Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society National Portrait Gallery, until 9 January 2005
Thereputation of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) has not fared well for the past 80 years or so. He was much admired during his lifetime (his friend and fellow-artist Lord Leighton even dubbed him 'England's Michelangelo'), and his allegories of repentance and hope were still popular during the first world war, but his stock has slumped since then. Perhaps he was dangerously overrated while alive (the fate of so many artists, whose posthumous fall is then all the more evident — think of Graham Sutherland, whose vogue is only now returning more than 20 years after his death); certainly Watts was a shrewd self-promoter, who not only left substantial holdings of his own work to national museums (including the NPG), but also allowed a gallery to be founded in his name near Godalming in Surrey. How sincere was this typically industrious product of the Victorian Age?
It is perhaps too easy to ridicule the man who liked to be called 'Signor' by his close friends and who recklessly courted comparison with the Old Masters. In fact, it's very good to have the chance now to see more than 50 of Watts's prime portraits, many of them borrowed from private collections. Even if the NPG's exhibition opens somewhat equivocally with an unbearably affected portrait of Mary Augusta, Lady Holland, Watts's principal early patron. Although closely based compositionally on Rubcns's 'Chapeau de Paille' and Reynolds's `Nelly O'Brien', the mood of this painting is far less pleasing. Despite the 'Riviera' hat and the Tuscan hill setting, the overall impression is sentimental if not downright coy. Infinitely preferable are the three other portraits of Lady Holland in the next hay of the installation, particularly the more formal but sensitive profile of her with a wreath of country blossoms in her hair, from c.1843-4. At this point a cabinet of drawings is introduced to remind us what a skilful and effective draughtsman Watts was. The newly discovered pencil portrait of Mary Augusta rather eclipses the painted versions in its revealing intimacy and directness. It makes a striking contrast with the oddly cartoon-like image of the puffed-out pouter-pigeon figure of 'Count' Cottrell nearby, looking like something imagined by Edward Lear.
The exhibition does not claim to be comprehensive — there is none of Watts's portrait sculpture, nor is there work from his earliest years — but within its parameters it gives a good idea of the artist's strengths and weaknesses. I found particularly appealing the 'neoclassic' period of his work, when it is evident that Watts had been looking at Ingres, and painted with a clarity and deftness which also illuminates character. Look at the powerful profile of the exiled politician and man of letters Francois Guizot (1848). Or the more obviously neoclassical portraits of Prince Jerome Bonaparte and Dorothea, Princess Lieven, painted in Paris in 1856. Both are three-quarter-length depictions, typical of Ingres. Yet even in their dark and slightly glum naturalism, there is a touch of the lightness — indeed the softness and delicacy of modelling — that was to characterise the best of Watts's later portraits. There is none of the harsh Pre-Raphaelite incisiveness of detail which can occasionally be found in his work — as in the portrait, so full of props it is nearly a 'subject' picture, 'Jane Elizabeth ("Jeanie") Nassau Senior' (1857-8).
It is rather the absence of defining outlines which paradoxically accounts for Watts's accuracy of depiction. He can suggest personality and depth of character in the very lack of edge and contour. Look at his second portrait of Tennyson, the socalled 'Moonlight Portrait' of 1859. This was a widely acclaimed likeness, said to capture 'the soul of the man' and 'his introspective eye'. It is a subtle, almost dull painting, largely carried out in brown and black, the features fading away into shadow. Yet it has an unquestionable magnetism. Here are the sophisticated qualities of picture-making, the true portraitist's alchemy, which led Henry James to account Watts 'the first portrait painter in England'. And for these skills did Wilde write to Watts in early 1881 offering the artist his latest poem as 'a very poor mark of homage to one whose pictures are great poems'.
The range of work in this show is revealing. Watts can be supremely sensitive in his portrayal of women (the effectiveness of their portraits probably depended on how well he knew them, and to what degree he idolised or idealised them), but sometimes the face is ruthlessly subordinated to another pictorial interest. In the case of 'Lady Margaret Beaumont and her Daughter' (c.1860-2), it is the drapery which assumes pre-eminence. In an attempt apparently to outpaint Gainsborough, Watts has focused his attention on the stuff of the lady's gown, expounding its full beauty through strangely blurred but masterly brushwork. The balance is more even in the glorious fulllength depiction of Helen Rose Huth, rendered unashamedly in Watts's Grand Manner, which embodies the essence of feminine grace, echoed and enhanced by the wonderfully decorative rhododendrons in the background. Watts's famously unsuccessful marriage to the teenage Ellen Terry resulted in some ravishing paintings, notably 'Choosing' — one of the most famous works in the NPG — in which the young girl vacillates between the charms of showy, scentless camellias and the humble scented violet. His first and only visit to Venice in 1853 had renewed Watts's interest in strong colour (see the use of orange against blue in 'Alice Prinsep' of 1860), and his late style plays upon his interest in Titian no less than a lifetime's distilled understanding of character does. Tennyson appears once more, in crimson academic robes and enhaloed by laurel. There's a sweetly seductive portrait of Lillie Langtry in daring greens, and an elegiac account of Lina Duff Gordon in a dress made from kincob cloth (Indian silk and gold thread). The paint is scraped back against the texture of the canvas, yet the effect is rich, luminous and lastingly beautiful. The old man had evidently learnt something that never quite appears in his showy self-portraits. Also at the NPG, in Room 26, you can see a selection of Watts's portraits from his 'Hall of Fame' series. However, the majority of these 'Eminent Victorians' are hung in the NPG's outpost at Bodelwyddan Castle, near St Asaph in North Wales, where they are on permanent display. Other exhibitions to mark the Watts centenary may be found in the Tennant Room of the Royal Academy (until 2 January), where there's a focus display of some 30 of his drawings from the RA's collection (donated by the ever-generous Watts, who was a student at the RA Schools in the 1830s). Admission is free, but viewing hours are restricted — ring 020 7300 8000 for details. And at Tate Britain, until July 2005, there's a show of Watts's Symbolic paintings, and some of his sculptures, again built around a gift of the artist. These are largely concerned with the contrasting vices and spiritual qualities of the Victorian age, and give voice to the other side of Watts the contemplative portrait ry with a benev olent Here is the visionary mission to remind us of the consola tions of the spiritual life. Sadly, many of these images lack staying power, and it is back to the portraits that we must turn to assess his contemporary relevance.
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