Watts (1817-1904) | Page 8

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