‘The Up-springing Stem of the Neck’ in G. F. Watts’s Paintings

Abstract

The neck was used by G. F. Watts as an autonomous limb in which he encapsulated his ideals of beauty. This article demonstrates how Watts’s artistic fetish for the neck was a reflection of Victorian ideals, whilst simultaneously projecting his message about beauty. The article considers the spheres of influence that contributed to Watts’s admiration, then how he used the neck in practice: as a tool for expression and focal point for the body-centred composition. The neck became an intermedial conduit across mediums which enabled Watts to disperse his standard of beauty through a single body part.

Keywords:

• Watts
• neck
• fetish
• beauty
• physiognomy
• anatomy
• contrapposto
• composition

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to Dr Chloe Ward, Dr Beatrice Bertram, Emma Goode and Dr Erin Bramwell who were constant sources of advice. This research would not have come to fruition without the initial encouragement of Dr Nicholas Tromans. Thanks must be extended to Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village, who were not only my employers at the time of the research, but facilitated unrestricted access to the collection, archive and images.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. G.F. Watts (1894), 24.

2. Chesterton (1904), 29; C. M. Bond (1987).

3. For body parts as a source of expression see Hartley (2001), Arscott (1999) and Tromans (2014). For previous references to the neck see Bills & Bryant (2008), 161; Ward (2016), 82.

4. See Østermark-Johansen (2002), 455–82 and Faulkner (2009), who predominantly focus on the bronze.

5. Flint (2000), 207, 213, 216–17.

6. Haley (1978), 54.

7. Ibid. For readings of Watts’s use of the body as a reflection of mid- and late-Victorian society, see the writings of Prettejohn, Smith and Tromans. For a Watts-centric interpretation see the writings of Bills, Bryant and Gould.

8. Freud (1977), 351–408.

9. Von Krafft-Ebing (1894), 10.

10. Warner (2006), 27.

11. For discussion see Ward, ‘England’s Michelangelo in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The G. F. Watts Exhibition, 1884–1885ʹ (2016), 72.

12. Blunt (1975), 155; M.S. Watts (1912) vol II, 235 and vol III, between 227–8.

13. Barrington (1906) vol II, 274. Feb 17, 1881, letter T C Horsfall.

14. Smith (2001), 7.

15. Haley (1978), 47–8.

16. Powell (1973), 55.

17. For discussion see Mighall (1998), 62–77. For the ‘New Woman’ see Ledger (1997).

18. Huxtable (2014), 184; Azzarello (2008), xi; 136.

19. Ellis (1897), 233.

20. Illustrated in Bills & Bryant (2008), 134–5.

21. A Last Confession in Rossetti (1870): 69, 81; First Fire manuscript (1871); The Song of Bower in Rossetti (1870), 246; The Masque of Queen Bersabe in Swinburne (1866): 262.

22. Song of Solomon 7:4 (Bible: English Standard Version).

23. Praise of my Lady in Morris (1875), 244.

24. Buchanan (1872), 44.

25. Haweis (1883), 281.

26. ‘Art of Dress,’ Quarterly Review. Vol. 79. London, 1847: 367–76.

27. Du Maurier in Blunt (1975), 99.

28. G.F. Watts (1894), 24.

29. The Venus de Milo, illustrated to accompany Watts’s essay ‘Women’s Dress’ in Aglaia (1894), was often used as a reference for the healthy ideal form. Artists were presented with agency in fashion owing to their knowledge of the human body and its representation throughout history. See Addison & Underwood (2015), 50.

30. The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899) in Bills & Bryant, (2008), 111–12.

31. Watts Gallery collection COMWG2007.210. Ward (2016), 5–6.

32. Mary Magdalene: Watts Gallery COMWG2007.976 and 1024; sculpture: COMWG2007.930, 932, 1030.2 and 1079.

33. Gutch (1968), 694; as commented to John St Loe Strachey in 1895 in Bills & Bryant (2008), 20– 1. Twists and bends in the neck are visible in certain parts of the Parthenon sculptures, British Museum 1816.6-10.323 and 1816,0610.46.a (West Frieze 1.1).

34. Bignamini & Postle (1991), 24.

35. M.S. Watts (1912) vol III, 211; Anon. (1895): 80.

36. Watts Gallery Archive MSW/1/2, 1887, Saturday–Sunday, January 8–9; Friday, May 6; M.S. Watts (1912) vol III, 211, 6, 207.

37. See Bungarten (2005), 236–40; Fuseli (1765), 12.

38. Bungarten (2005), 236–40.

39. Addison & Underwood (2015), 52–4; Watts Gallery Archive MSW/8/4.

40. M.S. Watts (1912) vol III, 8 and 222. For further discussion see Addison & Underwood (2015), 47–73.

41. See M.S. Watts (1912) vol I, 238; Gould (2004), 24; Bills & Bryant (2008), 176–7 (with illustration).

42. Prettejohn (2001), 54–5; Smith (2001), 201.

43. Barrington (1905), 66–7, 87.

44. M.S. Watts (1912) vol I, 141.

45. Tromans (2007), 75; Hartley (2001), 62.

46. Ruskin in Arscott (1999), 142–3; Tromans (2007), 78–9 – see the argument of Anthony Carlisle.

47. See Hartley (2001), 198 n. 11.

48. Bell (1844), 62–3; Anon (1895): 80.

49. Bell (1844), 92, 168.

50. M.S. Watts (1912) vol. III, 134.

51. Arscott (1999), 136.

52. Wornum (1850), 117–18.

53. M.S. Watts (1912) vol. III, 222–4.

54. Watts Gallery Archive, Mary Watts Diaries, 1 October 1891; for example COMWG2007.989, COMWG2008.153.

55. Ward (2016), 18; Montagu (1994), 126, 134–41.

56. Hartley (2001), 80–91, 1–12; Le Brun’s writings are translated and analysed in Montagu (1994), 1–12.

57. M.S. Watts (1912) vol. I: 245; vol. II: 175; vol. III: 101; G.F. Watts (1855) Letters to Jeanie Senior, Watts Gallery Archive.

58. Anon. (1869) ‘Sculpture at the Royal Academy,’ The Pall Mall Gazette.

59. Bills & Bryant (2008), 198; G.F. Watts (1847), NPG Heinz Archive GFW/1/14/55.895; G.F. Watts (1912) vol. I: 137.

60. M.S. Watts (1912) vol. I, 239.

61. Trodd et al. (1999), 62, 174.

62. Beer (2000), 103.

63. Chesterton (1904), 62.

64. Watts Gallery Archive, Mary Watts Diaries, 27 October 1887.

65. M.S. Watts (1912) vol. III, 22–3; Watts Gallery Archive, Mary Watts Diaries, 1 October 1891.

66. Satan Calling up his Legions (c.1849–50, art market 2000) reproduced and discussed in Bills & Bryant (2008), 110–12. For Blake see: British Museum 1859,0625.1; 1868,0822.3951; Tate N05195.

67. Nigro (2014), 56–7.

68. Leonardo da Vinci, Treatise on Painting cited in Østermark-Johansen (2002), 461.

69. Østermark-Johansen (2002), 461.

70. Váša (2007), 460-64. Citing translation of Lomazzo, A tracte containing the artes of curious paintinge, caruinge & buildinge, Oxford 1598, 17.

71. Leighton House Museum, LHO/D/0707.

72. Mary Bartley. Watts Gallery COMWG.180.

73. M.S. Watts (1912), vol. II, 45; British Museum, 1906,0707.21. Indiscriminate use of male models for female subjects is evocative of Michelangelo’s studies of the human form.

74. Blunt (1975), 191; Gould (2004), 89.

75. Rossetti (1903), 403, Sunday 18 July 1869; Rossetti & Swinburne (1868), 36; Gutch (1968), 69; Anon. (1868): 110. For further discussion on Watts’s combination of elements of the both the male and female form see Faulkner (2009).

76. Faulkner (2009), 18–19.

77. G.F. Watts, Miscellaneous Jottings, Notebook 15: 2, Watts Gallery Archive.

78. Darwin (1896), 418–19.

79. M.S. Watts (1912), vol. I, 203; vol. II, 142.

80. Beer (2000), 5, 104.

81. Brown & Trodd (2004), 71.

82. Váša (2007), 464.

83. She Shall Be Called Woman, c. 1875-92; Eve Tempted, exhibited 1884; Eve Repentant, c. 1865–97 (Tate, N01642-4).

84. M.S. Watts (1912), vol. II, 140–41.

85. M.S. Watts (1912), vol. III, 43; see Silver (1999), 18.

86. See drapery of female clothing British Museum West pediment O (1816,0610.105) and East frieze IV, 26 (1816,0610.18).

87. See Bungarten (2005).

88. M.S. Watts (1912), vol. III, 9; vol. I, 317.

89. Gutch (1968), 698.

90. Powell (1973), 67; Bungarten (2005), 240.

91. Barrington (1905), 50; M.S. Watts (1912), vol. III, 9. See COMWG.134.

92. Brown & Trodd (2004), 71.

93. Burgess (2007), 261.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rhian Addison

Rhian Addison is an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award student with the University of York and Tate Britain. Her research focuses on landscape artists’ studios in London, between 1780 and 1850. Rhian was most recently Curator (Historic Fine Art) at the Whitworth, University of Manchester, curating ‘Cozens and Cozens’ and ‘South Asian Modernists 1953–63ʹ. Rhian is formerly Assistant Curator at Watts Gallery – Artists’ Village where she worked on the recreation of G F Watts’s studio, project managed the temporary exhibition programme, and curated exhibitions of Victorian photography and Aesthetic dress. Rhian completed her AMA with the Museum Association in 2016. Rhian’s publications include Auctioning L.S. Lowry: Oil Painting Sales 1990–2012 (2013, Piano Nobile Fine Art) and Liberating Fashion: Aesthetic Dress in Victorian Portraits (2015, Watts Gallery).