Art! Art! Art!Where to see the world's masterpieces

Art! Art! Art! › Works

George Frederic Watts

1817–1904 · academic art, Symbolism

George Frederic Watts was a British painter, born in London in 1817, whose work bridges academic art and Symbolism. He is best known for solemn allegories such as Hope and for portraits of the leading figures of his age. This gallery brings together his myths, literary subjects and portraits, with notes on what to look for in front of them.

Life and work

George Frederic Watts was born in London in 1817 and died in Compton in 1904. He worked across two major currents of his century. One was the academic tradition, grounded in drawing, history painting and the study of classical and Renaissance art. The other was Symbolism, which used figures and myths to carry ideas rather than simply tell stories. In his lifetime he was among the most admired artists in Britain. He was known as much for his ambitions as for his pictures, because he wanted painting to address large moral and spiritual themes for a broad public.

Two strands run through the works in this gallery. The first is portraiture. Watts painted many of the leading writers, artists and public figures of his day, aiming to capture their character rather than their rank. His portraits of George Meredith and Dante Gabriel Rossetti belong to this project. The second strand is allegory and literature. He drew on the Bible (The Good Samaritan), classical myth (Orpheus and Eurydice, The Judgement of Paris, Fata Morgana), Dante (Paolo and Francesca), Arthurian legend (Sir Galahad) and folk tale (Red Riding Hood). His late allegories, Hope above all, became widely reproduced. They did much to shape how later viewers link Victorian painting with Symbolism.

Hope at Tate Britain: an image built from absence

Hope shows a blindfolded woman seated on a globe, bent over a lyre whose strings are almost all broken. She leans in to hear the sound of the one string that remains. Look at how little is described. The world is a dim sphere, the sky is a blue-green haze, and the figure's outlines soften into the atmosphere. Watts gives the idea of hope a fragile, uncertain form rather than a triumphant one. Stand back first to read the overall shape, then move closer to see the thin, scumbled paint.

The portraits: character over costume

In the portraits of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and George Meredith, Watts strips away almost everything except the head. Dark, plain backgrounds and sober clothing push the face forward. Notice how the features emerge from shadow with loose, searching brushwork rather than polished finish. That approach fits his aim of recording the inner character of notable contemporaries. Compare this restraint with the glowing colour and swirling figures of Paolo and Francesca or Orpheus and Eurydice. Seeing them together shows how one painter moved between close observation and imaginative allegory.

Where to see the paintings

Tate Britain
Hope

Works may be off view or on loan. See each painting’s page for museum details.

Sources