{"id":3766,"date":"2022-02-17T14:11:51","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T14:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/?p=3766"},"modified":"2022-02-17T14:11:58","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T14:11:58","slug":"george-frederick-watts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/victorian\/famous-people\/george-frederick-watts\/","title":{"rendered":"George Frederick Watts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

‘To the discenment of truth and beauty, to the arousing of man’s imagination, to the widening of the span of this celestial region, should Art be mainly dedicated, for this most truly is its mission.’ – G. F. Watts, 1888.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

watts-2391482<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

George Frederick Watts RA (1817-1904) was a very important Victorian artist, whose work appeals in a similar way to that of the\u00a0Classicists\u00a0such as\u00a0Leighton<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Albert Moore, or that of some of the\u00a0Pre-Raphaelites. Watts in fact knew most of the Pre-Raphaelites<\/a>, and was an important influence on the younger ones. He was also a close friend and ally of Leighton. However, he was part of no School or group, and went his own way, producing mainly allegorical pictures of great strength and mystery. He has been called ‘the Victorian Michaelangelo’. This comes out strongly in pictures such as\u00a0The Infancy of Jupiter\u00a0(1896).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watts’s first noticed work was\u00a0Caratacus Led in Triumph through the Streets of Rome, which won a prize of 300 guineas and was exhibited in Westminster Hall in 1842. Among his many important later paintings are\u00a0Hope,\u00a0Time, Death and Judgement\u00a0and\u00a0The Minotaur. He was also a\u00a0sculptor, something that is reflected in the modelling of some of his paintings. Watts did a very little illustrative work, including making three drawings for Dalziel’s\u00a0Bible Gallery, and around 1840, and then later, making some drawings of cricket, remarkably unexpected in style, which were reproduced as illustrations in the\u00a0English Illustrated Magazine\u00a0in the 1890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watts was most philanthropic, and gave away many of his paintings. An interesting example is a version of Love and Life, described by The Magazine of Art as ‘without question one of the most beautiful canvases he has ever executed’, which Watts sent to the Chicago exhibition of 1893, and then presented as a gift to the American nation as his contribution to a permanent gallery. The painting was accepted by Special Act of Congress, but in the president\u2019s absence, not allowed entrance to the White House on the grounds of it being obscene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Works by Watts may be seen in many important British galleries. The\u00a0Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool\u00a0has a particularly strong collection, including the\u00a0Riders on Horses\u00a0series,\u00a0Love and Life\u00a0and others in that series,\u00a0Ariadne in Naxos\u00a0and various sketches.\u00a0The Lady Lever Gallery\u00a0has\u00a0And She Shall be Created Woman, a small version of the picture in the\u00a0Tate Gallery, where\u00a0Eve Tempted\u00a0and\u00a0Hope\u00a0may also be found, along with\u00a0Clytie\u00a0and\u00a0Love Triumphant.\u00a0Fata Morgana\u00a0is in the\u00a0Leicester\u00a0Art Gallery. The Aberdeen Art Gallery has a version of\u00a0Eve Tempted\u00a0and\u00a0Orpheus and Eurydice, which it received via the Kepplestone Bequest. Portraits by Watts may be seen in the\u00a0V & A\u00a0and the\u00a0National Portrait Gallery. An excellent church decoration by Watts is that at\u00a0St James the Less, near the Tate Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watts’s paintings are also found abroad, sometimes due to gifts by the artist. Time, Death and Judgement, an important work, is at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘To the discenment of truth and beauty, to the arousing of man’s imagination, to the widening of the span of this celestial region, should Art be mainly dedicated, for this most truly is its mission.’ – G. F. Watts, 1888. George Frederick Watts RA (1817-1904) was a very important Victorian artist, whose work appeals in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3768,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions\/3768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/englishhistory.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}