Feature: Exhibition - Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings and Watercolours at Somerset House until May 15

Published: 24 February, 2011
by JOHN EVANS

Life, Legend, Landscape is a powerful offering of 19th-century gems, many not exhibited before

A WORK by a young Victorian who started out as a black-and-white illustrator in publications such as Once a Week and The Cornhill Magazine acted as a “catalyst” for an impressive new show at the Courtauld.

The “Old Farm Garden” of 1871 by Frederick Walker was given to the gallery in 2008 and its outstanding use of colour and way in which it goes beyond narrative landscape illustrates how diverse the works of the period were, says Curator of Prints Dr Joanna Selborne, who put the show together. There is, she suggests, an ambiguity in the work which can also be seen in many of the 40 or so drawings and watercolours here, almost all bequests. 

This she describes as a “dichotomy between the real and the unreal”.

The garden is real, a location near Marlow; the woman knitting is real, she is the artist’s sister Mary who is modelling a spotted dress he picked out specially; the flowers are exquisite (John Ruskin remarked that they were “worth all the Dutch flower pieces in the world”). 

Yet what is it about the cat ready to pounce on the wool?

An earlier watercolour by Walker (1840-75), a street scene with boys playing piggyback, is also included and underlines the excellence of his draughtsmanship. Van Gogh was known to be among his admirers.

The quality of drawing in the Victorian age is a central theme of the exhibition with great diversity of subject matter “from birds’ nests to naked ladies…” says Dr Selborne, but also diversity of techniques, media and style. 

Many of the works have never been publicly exhibited before, from preparatory drawings for paintings, sculptures and stained glass, to highly finished show-pieces. 

Life studies, landscapes,and subjects from legend and literature all feature, and big names, including: Wilson Steer, Burne-Jones, Ruskin, Whistler, Palmer, Leighton, Holman Hunt, William Henry Hunt, Landseer, Beardsley and more.

JMW Turner is represented by two works, “Brunnen, Lake Lucerne”, c1843-44 and “The Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen”, from a couple of years earlier.

Other highlights include: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s “Study for Venus Verticordia” c1863-64; and John Everett Millais’s “The Parting of Ulysses” c1862, a woodcut illustration from which also appeared in Once a Week.

One work, a mysterious watercolour, gouache and graphite on silk by Charles Conder (1868-1909), and never shown before, demonstrates how nothing is certain here. “Les Incroyables”, in the Aesthetic style of the 1890s, is a strange ballroom scene with the figures in decadent costume and full of surprises.

The exhibition is the first organised as part of the Courtauld’s IMAF Centre for the Study and Conservation of Drawings following a £600,000 gift from the International Music and Art Foundation. The gallery’s collection of 7,000 drawings and watercolours is one of the finest of its kind in the UK.

• Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings and Watercolours runs until May 15 at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WC2, 020 7848 2526, www.courtauld.ac.uk Admission £6 includes access to the permanent collection; concessions available.