'Gazing, but not copying': the creation of G.F. Watts's Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Landing of the Danes

Apollo, Nov, 2003 by Janet McLean, Richard Pelter, Rupert Shepherd

The construction of the new, Neo-Gothic Palace of Westminster following the disastrous fire of 1834 was welcomed as a potential source of patronage for painters and sculptors. (1) State patronage of the fine arts in Britain was nominal in comparison with the generosity exhibited on the continent, while private patronage was despaired of at home and ridiculed abroad for its fascination with portraiture, whether family, equestrian or canine. Artists' hopes were invested in the Fine Arts Commission assembled in 1841 under the chairmanship of Prince Albert, and charged with overseeing the new Palace's decoration. (2) The Commission's announcements of competitions in historical painting in 1843, 1844, 1845 and 1847 were welcomed with enthusiasm by both artists and the art press, reflecting the Commission's own perception of its agenda as much broader than the decoration of the new Palace. It was hoped that initiatives undertaken at the Palace would cultivate an interest in historical or 'high art' and have a domino effect, elevating national standards of art practice, patronage, public taste and even morality.

The first competition came with perfect timing for the twenty-five year-old George Frederic Watts, who was beginning to make a living from portraiture in the 1840s. (3) Although a talented portraitist, Watts believed that his artistic gifts could be applied to a higher moral purpose--ideals that were also articulated by the Fine Arts Commission. This belief in the social responsibility of the artist was the central principle that shaped the remainder of Watts's long and productive career. Consequently, he entered the 1843 competition, which called for fresco cartoons of subjects chosen from English history or from the works of Spenser, Shakespeare or Milton, with a cartoon of Caractacus led in triumph through the streets of Rome. (4)

Caractacus won one of the main prizes of 300 [pounds sterling] for its young painter, who used the money to travel to Italy--unsurprisingly, given the blatant influence of Raphael's tapestry cartoons (then at Hampton Court) upon it. (5) Although he only planned to make a short trip, Watts stayed in Florence for three and a half years, taking up with Lord Holland, the British minister in Florence, and his wife. (6) Upon Lord Holland's departure from his post in Florence in 1846, Watts spent much of his time at the Hollands' former villa at Careggi, subsequently let to Lady Duff Gordon and her daughters Georgiana and Alice. (7) In italy, Watts continued to paint, for example experimenting with fresco in a depiction of The drowning of the doctor (after the death of Lorenzo de' Medici) on the walls of the villa at Careggi. (8) Despite later claiming to Julia Cartwright that his stay in Italy was spent 'going little to galleries', and not making copies in oils of old masters, Watts both looked at, and made water-colour copies and notes of, Italian works. (9)

News of the Fine Arts Commission's third competition, for historical subjects in oils to be submitted by June 1847, reached Watts whilst he was still in Italy. (10) He decided to enter, taking as his subject Alfred inciting the Saxons to prevent the landing of the Danes by encountering them at sea (Fig. 1): like his Caractacus, it represents a moment when heroic national characteristics are revealed, rather than the glories of triumph, with 'a rich base accompaniment of religious and patriotic feeling'. (11) Caractacus demonstrates fortitude in adversity, whereas Alfred displays patriotic vigour when faced with attack. By selecting archaic historical scenes, Watts avoided touching upon sensitive political issues and the difficulty of depicting 'modern' portraits and costume with appropriate gravity. Historical distance had the merit of lending romantic enchantment, while generalisation rather than archaeological exactitude enabled Watts to convey 'timeless' or "permanent' truths about the national character. (12)

Watts seems to have got down to work quickly, spending the summer and autumn of 1846 producing studies for the painting, so that he was able to describe the composition in detail to Georgiana Duff Gordon in December of that year. (13) Watts's painstaking approach to the composition is confirmed by Mary Watts, who noted that 'He made numberless pencil drawings for this picture'. (14) Although few of these drawings now survive, sufficient have been recorded to suggest how Watts may have gone about designing the composition. (15)

It seems likely that Watts followed the traditional technique of sketching out the composition as a whole before proceeding to detailed studies of individual figures, first naked and then--where appropriate--draped. (16) He presumably began by sketching out the main figure group on the left, and only then proceeded to try out Alfred's pose in a series of pen and ink outline studies, which show that Watts spent some time resolving the king's final pose (Fig. 2). (17) Next, he massed out the composition and assessed the dynamics of the main figure group, before turning to make studies of individual figures in the painting, and even specific limbs. (18) A final recorded outline summary of the naked figures (Fig. 3) still differs from the finished group, at which point Watts seems to have turned to a drawing of Alice Duff Gordon--or something very similar to it--to fill a gap on the left edge of the painting with the figure whom he described to Georgiana as the 'maiden with dishevelled locks (your sister's hair)'. (19)