1817-1904
1817.     Born in London, February 23.
1827.     Begins to frequent the studio of William Behnes.
1835.     Enters Royal Academy Schools.
1837.     Working in his own studio. ‘Wounded Heron’ and two portraits in Royal Academy exhibition.
1842.     Success in Parliament House competition: ‘Caractacus’ cartoon.
1843-7.     Living with Lord and Lady Holland at Florence.
1847.     Success in second competition: ‘Alfred’ cartoon.
1848.     Early allegorical pictures.
1850.     Friendship with the Prinseps. Little Holland House.
1851.     National series of portraits begun.
1852.     Begins Lincoln’s Inn Hall fresco: finished 1859.
1856.     With Sir Charles Newton to Halicarnassus.
1865.     Correspondence with Charles Rickards of Manchester.
1867.     Elected A.R.A. and R.A. in same year. Portraits. Carlyle. W. Morris.
1872.     New home at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. ‘The Briary.’ Little Holland House sold.
1877.     Grosvenor Gallery opened. 1881. Watts exhibition there (200 pictures).
1882.     D.C.L., Oxford; LL.D., Cambridge.
1886.     November; marries Miss Fraser Tytler. Winter in Egypt.
1890.     New home at Limnerslease, Compton.
1895.     National Portrait Gallery opened.
1896.     New Gallery exhibition (155 pictures).
1897.     Gift of pictures to new Tate Gallery.
1902.     Order of Merit.
1904.     Death at Compton, July 1.
George Frederick Watts
Artist

The great age of British art was past before Queen Victoria began her long and memorable reign. Reynolds and Gainsborough had died in the last years of the eighteenth century, Romney and Hoppner in the first decade of the nineteenth; Lawrence, the last of the Georgian portrait-painters, did not live beyond 1830. Of the landscapists Crome died in 1821 and Constable in 1837. Turner, the one survivor of the Giants, had done three-quarters of his work before 1837 and can hardly be reckoned as a Victorian worthy.

In the reign of Queen Victoria many thousands of trivial anecdotic pictures were bought and sold, were reproduced in Art Annuals and Christmas Numbers and won the favour of rich amateurs and provincial aldermen — so much so that Victorian art has been a favourite target for the shafts of critics formed in the school of Whistler and the later Impressionists. But however just some of their strictures may be, it is foolish to condemn an age wholesale or to shut our eyes to the great achievements of those artists who, rising above the general level, dignified the calling of the painter just when the painters were most rare. These men formed no single movement progressing in a uniform direction. The study of pure landscape is best seen in the water-colour draughtsmen, Cotman, Cox, and de Wint; of landscape as a setting for the life of the people, in Fred Walker and George Mason. Among figure-painters the ‘Pre-Raphaelites’, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and Millais, with their forerunner Madox Brown, are the first to win attention by their earnestness, their romantic imagination, and their intense feeling for beauty: in these qualities Burne-Jones carried on their work and retained the allegiance of a cultured few to the very end of the century. Two solitary figures are more difficult to class, Alfred Stevens and Watts. Each learnt fruitful lessons from prolonged study of the great art of the past; yet each preserves a marked originality in his work. More than any other artists of their age they realized the unity of art and the dependence of one branch upon another. Painting should go hand in hand with sculpture, and both minister to architecture. So the world might hope once more to see public buildings nobly planned and no less nobly decorated, as in the past it saw the completion of the Parthenon and the churches of mediaeval Italy. It was unfortunate that they received so little encouragement from the public, and that their example had so narrow an influence. St. Paul’s can show its Wellington monument, Lincoln’s Inn its fresco; but year after year subject-pictures continued to be painted on an ambitious scale, which after a few months’ exhibition on the walls of Burlington House passed to their tomb in provincial museums, or reappeared as ghosts in the sale-room only to fetch a derisory price and to illustrate the fickle vagaries in the public taste.

In the early life of George Frederick Watts, who was born in a quiet street in West Marylebone, there are few incidents to narrate, there is little brightness to enliven the tale. His father, a maker of musical instruments, was poor; his mother died early; his home-life was overshadowed by his own ill-health and the uncertain moods of other members of the family. His education was casual and consisted mostly of reading books under the guidance of his father, who had little solid learning, but refined tastes and an inventive disposition. In his Sundays at home, where the Sabbatarian rule limited his reading, he became familiar with the stories of the Old Testament; he discovered for himself the Waverley Novels and Pope’s translation of the Iliad; and he began from early years to use his pencil with the eager and persistent enthusiasm which marks the artist born.

For a rich artistic nature it was a starved life, but he made the most of such chances as came in his way. He was barely ten years old when he found his way to the studio of a sculptor named William Behnes, a man of Hanoverian extraction, an indifferent sculptor but possessed of a real talent for drawing; and from his more intellectual brother, Charles Behnes, he learnt to widen his interest in literature. In this halting and irregular process of education he received help, some years later, from another friend of foreign birth, Nicholas Wanostrocht, a Belgian, who under the assumed name of ‘Felix’ became a leading authority on the game of cricket. Wanostrocht was a cultivated man of very wide tastes, and it was largely through his encouragement that Watts gave to the study of the French and Italian languages, and to music, what little time he could spare from his professional work. London was to render him greater services than this. Thanks to his visits to the British Museum, he had, while still in his teens, come under a mightier spell. Though few Englishmen had yet learnt to value their treasures, the Elgin Marbles had been resting there for twenty years. But now, two years before Queen Victoria’s accession, there might be seen, standing rapt in admiration before the works of Phidias, a boy of slender figure with high forehead, delicately moulded features, and disordered hair, one who, as we can see from the earliest portrait which Mrs. Watts has preserved in her biography, had something of the unearthly beauty of the young Shelley. He was physically frail, marked off from ordinary men by a grace that won its way quickly to the hearts of all who were susceptible to spiritual charm. Untaught though he was, he had the eye to see for himself the grandeur of these relics of Greece, and throughout his life they remained one of the guiding influences in his development, one of the standards which he set up before himself, though all too conscious that he could not hope to reach that height. We see their influence in his treatment of drapery, of horses, of the human figure, in his idealization of types, in the flowing lines of his compositions, and in the grouping of his masses. Compared to the hours which he spent in the British Museum, the lessons in the Royal Academy schools seem unimportant. He attended classes there for some months in 1835, but the teaching was poor and its results disappointing. William Hilton, R.A., who then occupied the post of Keeper, gave him some kind words of encouragement, but in general he came and went unnoticed, and he soon returned to his solitary self-training in his own studio. If we know little of his teaching in art, we know still less of his personal life during the time when he was laying the foundations of his success by study and self-discipline. Early rising was an art which he acquired early, and maintained throughout life; long after he felt the spur of necessity, even after the age of 80, he could rise at four when there was work to be done; and, living as he did on the simplest diet, he often achieved his best results at an hour when other men were still finishing their slumbers. His shyness and sensitiveness, combined with precarious health and weak physique, would seem to equip him but poorly in the struggle for life; but his steady persistence, his high conception of duty, his faith in his art, joined to that power which he had of winning friends among the noblest men and women of his day, were to carry him triumphantly through to the end.

The career of Watts as a public man began in 1843 when he had reached the age of 26. The British Government, not often guilty of fostering art or literature, may claim at least the credit for having drawn him out of his seclusion at the very moment when his genius was ripening to bear fruit. In 1834 the Palace of Westminster, so long the home of the Houses of Parliament, had been burnt to the ground. The present buildings were begun by Sir Charles Barry in 1840, and, with a view to decorating them with wall-paintings, the Board of Works wisely offered prizes for cartoons, hoping thereby to attract the best talent of the country. In June 1843 they had to judge between 140 designs by various competitors, and to award prizes varying in value from ￡300 to ￡100. Of the three first prizes one fell to Watts, hitherto unknown beyond the narrow circle of his friends, for a design displaying ‘Caractacus led in triumph through the streets of Rome’. This cartoon, however, was not employed for its original purpose: it fell into the hands of an enterprising, if inartistic, dealer, who cut it up and sold such fragments as he judged to be of value in the state of the picture market at the time. What was far more important was the encouragement given to the artist by such a success at a critical time of his life, and the opportunity which the money furnished him to travel abroad and enrich his experiences before his style was formed. He had long wished to visit Italy; and, after spending a few weeks in France, he made his leisurely way (at a pace incredible to us to-day) to Florence and its picture galleries. On the steamer between Marseilles and Leghorn he was fortunate in making friends with a Colonel Ellice and his wife, and a few weeks later they introduced him to Lord Holland, the British Minister at Florence.

The story goes that Watts went to be the guest of Lord and Lady Holland for four days and remained there for four years — a story which is a tribute to the discernment of the latter and not a satire upon Watts, who was the last man in the world to take advantage of hospitality or to thrust himself into other people’s houses. No doubt it is not to be taken too literally, but at least it is so far true that he very quickly became intimate with his host and hostess and found a home where he could pursue his art under ideal conditions. The value and the danger of patronage have been often discussed. Democracy may provide a discipline for artists and men of letters which is often salutary in testing the sincerity of their devotion to art and literature; but, in such a stern school, men of genius may easily founder and miss their way.

However that may be, Watts found just the haven which was needed for a nature like his. So far he had known but little appreciation, and had lived with few who were his peers. Now he was cheered by the favour of men and women who had known the best and whose favour was well worth the winning. But he kept his independence of spirit. He lived in a palace, but his diet was as sparing as that of a hermit. He feasted his eyes on the great works of the Renaissance, but he preserved his originality, and continued to work, with fervour and enhanced enthusiasm, on the lines which he had already marked out for himself. He did not copy with the hand, but he drank in new lessons with the eyes and dreamed new dreams with the spirit.

The Hollands had two houses, one in the centre of the city, the other, the Villa Medicea di Careggi, lying on the edge of the hills some two or three miles to the north. This latter had been a favourite residence of the first Cosimo; here Lorenzo had died, turning his face to the wall, unshriven by Savonarola; and here Watts decorated an open loggia in fresco, to bear witness to its latest connexion with the patronage of Art. Between the two houses he passed laborious but tranquil days, studying, planning, training his hand to mastery, but enjoying in his leisure all that such a home could give him of varied entertainment. Music and dancing, literature and good company, all had their charms for him, though none of them could beguile him into neglecting his work. Fortune had tried him with her frowns and with her smiles; under temptations of both sorts he remained but more faithful to his calling.

His health gave cause for anxiety from time to time, but he delighted in the sunshine and the genial climate of the South, and in general he was well enough to enjoy what Florence could give him of beautiful form and colour, and even to travel farther afield. One year he pushed as far as Naples, stopping on the way for a hurried glance at Rome. On this memorable day the Sistine chapel and its paintings were kept to the last; and Watts, high though his expectations were, was overwhelmed at what he saw. ‘Michelangelo’, he said, ‘stands for Italy, as Shakespeare does for England.’ So the four years went by till in 1847 this halcyon period came to an end. The Royal Commission of Fine Arts was offering prizes for fresco-painting, and Watts felt that he must put his growing powers to the test and utilize what he had learnt. This time he chose for his subject ‘Alfred inciting the English to resist the Danes by sea’. He was busy at work in the early months of 1847 making many sketches in pencil for the figures, and by April he was on his way home, bringing with him the ‘Alfred’ almost finished and five other canvases in various stages of completion. The picture was placed in Westminster Hall for competition in June, and soon after he was announced to be the winner of one of the three ￡500 prizes. When the Commissioners decided to purchase his picture for the nation, he refused to take more than ￡200 for it, though he might easily have obtained a far higher price. This is one of the earliest instances in which he displayed that signal generosity which marked his whole career.

During the next three years his life was rather desultory. He was hoping to return to Italy and did not find it easy to settle down in London. He changed his studio two or three times. He planned various works, but felt chilled at the absence of any clear encouragement from new patrons or from the general public. His success in 1847 had not been followed by any commissions for the sort of work he loved: interest in the decoration of public buildings was still spasmodic and too rare.

He made the acquaintance of Mr. Ruskin; but, friendly though they were in their personal relations, they did not see eye to eye in artistic matters. Ruskin seemed to lay too much emphasis on points of secondary importance, and to fail in judging the work of Michelangelo and the greatest masters. So Watts thought, and many years later, in conversation with Jowett, declared, chary though he was of criticizing his friends. To-day there is little doubt whose judgement was the truer, even had Ruskin not weakened his position by so often contradicting himself. Besides Ruskin, Watts was beginning to make other friends, and was a member of the Cosmopolitan Club, which counted among its members Sir Robert Morier, Sir Henry Layard, FitzGerald, Palgrave, and Spedding. The large painting of the ‘Story from Boccaccio’, which now hangs in the Watts room of the Tate Gallery, hung for many years on the walls of this club and was presented to the nation in 1902. How frequently Watts attended the club or other social gatherings at this time we do not know. His name figures little in the biographies and memoirs of Londoners, and he himself would not have wished the record of his daily life to be preserved. His modesty in all personal matters is uncontested, and even if his subsequent offer of his pictures to the nation smacks somewhat of presumption, his motive was something other than conceit. His portraits were an historical record of the worthiest men of his own time: his allegories were of value, so he felt, not for their technical accomplishments, but for the high moral lessons which they tried to convey. The artist himself was at ease only in retirement and privacy. Yet complete isolation was not good for him. Ill-health still dogged his steps, and the dejection which came over him in the years 1849 and 1850 is to be seen in the gloomiest pictures which he ever painted. Their titles and subjects alike recall the more tragic poems of Thomas Hood. But the eclipse was not to last for long, and in 1850 Watts owed his recovery to a happy chance encounter with friends who were to give him a new haven of refuge and gladden his life for thirty years to come.

A high Indian official, James Pattle, had been the father of five daughters who were famous for their beauty, and from their tastes and character were particularly fitted to be the friends of artists and poets. If Lady Somers was the most beautiful of the sisters and Mrs. Cameron the most artistic, their elder sister Mrs. Prinsep proved to be Watts’s surest friend. Her husband, Thoby Prinsep, was a member of the India Council in Whitehall, a large-hearted man, full of knowledge and full of kindliness. Mrs. Prinsep herself was mistress of the domestic arts in no common degree, from skilful cookery to the holding of a literary salon. She and her husband realized what friendship could do for a nature like that of Watts, and they provided him with an ideal home, where he was nursed back to health, relieved of care, and cheered by constant sympathy and affection. It was Watts who discovered this home for them in a quiet corner of London, that has not yet lost all its charm. Behind Holland House and adjoining its park was a smaller property with a rambling old-fashioned house, built in the days when London was still far away. At Little Holland House the Prinseps lived for a quarter of a century. Here the sisters came and went freely with their children who were growing up around them. Here were gatherings of their friends, among whom Tennyson, Thackeray, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones might be met from time to time; and here Watts remained a constant inmate, giving regular hours to his work, enjoying their society in his leisure, a special favourite with the children, who admitted him to their confidence and called him by pet names. There was no lionizing, no striving after brilliance; all work that was genuine and of high intention received due honour, and Watts could hope here to carry to fruition the noble visions which he had seen since the days of his youth.

These visions had little to do with the exhibitions of Burlington House, the winning of titles, or the acquisition of worldly wealth. Watts cherished the old Greek conception of willing service to the community. And he was alive to the special needs of an age when men were struggling for gain, and when ‘progress’ was measured by material riches. To him, if to few others, it seemed tragic that, in the wonderful development of industrial Britain, art, which had spoken so eloquently to citizens of Periclean Athens and to Florence in the Medicean age, should remain without expression or sign of life. For a moment our Government had seemed to hear the call, and the stimulus of the Westminster competitions had been of value; but the interest died away all too quickly, and the attention of the general public was never fully roused. If the latter could be won, Watts was only too willing to give the time and the knowledge which he had acquired. The building of the great railway stations in London seemed to offer a chance, and Watts approached the directors of the North Western Company with a humble petition. All that he asked for was wall space and the payment of his expenses in material. Had his request been granted, Euston might have enjoyed pre-eminence among railway stations, and passengers for the north might have passed through, or waited in, a National Gallery of their own. But the Railway Director’s mind is slow to move; inventions leave him cold, and imagination is not to be weighed in the scale against dividends and quick returns. The Company declined the offer on the ground of expense, while their architect is said to have been seriously alarmed at the idea of any one tampering with his building.

Another proposal met with a heartier response. The men of law proved more generous than the men of commerce. The new Hall at Lincoln’s Inn was being built by Mr. Philip Hardwick, in the Tudor style. Benchers and architect alike cordially welcomed Watts’s offer to decorate a blank wall with fresco. The work could only be carried on during the legal vacations, and it proved a long business owing to the difficulties of the process and to the interruptions caused by the artist’s ill-health. Watts planned it in 1852, began work in 1853, and did not put the finishing touch till 1859. The subject was a group of famous lawgivers, in which the chief figures were Moses, Mahomet, Justinian, Charlemagne, and Alfred, and it stands to-day as the chief witness to his powers as a designer on a grand scale.

Before this he had already dedicated to national service his gift of portrait-painting. The head of Lord John Russell, painted in 1851, is one of the earliest portraits known to have been painted with this intention, though it is impossible to fix with accuracy the date when such a scheme took shape. In 1899, with the same patriotic intention, he was at work on a painting of Cecil Rhodes. In this half-century of activity he might have ma............