Underneath the Victorian Varnish

The old adage that a picture paints a thousand words is only true if you know the language being spoken. Take the Victorians; how many of their painted images appear to us at first glance so prim and proper, even twee. But beneath those buttoned-up, straight-laced exteriors, there lurks a deep, concealed well of emotion. To break through to the real significance, you need to translate the signs, decode the symbols whose meanings are no longer obvious to us. 

What are they all trying to tell us, those ladies in bonnets, those cute animals, those flowers and climbing plants that you've seen when wandering through a room of Victorian paintings in a provincial museum? You can find out in Telling Tales: The Story of Victorian Narrative Art at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth, an exhibition that reveals that British 19th-century art is as full of hidden meanings as those Dutch Golden Age interiors we love so much. 

There are no really big names in this show and, let's be brutally honest, nothing that you'd classify as really great art. Barring a couple of paintings by James Tissot and a canvas by John Everett Millais, it mostly features painters you've never heard of or have seen once and forgotten. But this is one of those shows that adds up to a lot more than the sum of the parts because of the way it's presented. The captions explaining the pictures make for a superb exhibition you will want to linger over. 

It's one of the Tissots that greets you at the start: The Captain's Daughter, subtitled The Last Evening. It's a very intricate picture, as so many Tissots are: all that wood in the railings and weatherboarding, the masts and piles and windows, providing a backdrop to the action involving the girl on the left and the older and younger men on the right. But what is that action? What's actually happening? 

The elegant young woman gazes out at the wide world beyond the harbour, binoculars in hand. Whatever she sees doesn't seem to include her young suitor, who might be downing a couple more of those glasses of spirits before the evening is out. He looks crestfallen as he listens to what the captain, the girl's father, has to say to him. That state-of-the-art telescope on the table beside him may represent his own vision of the future. But will she break free from the railings and the men hemming her in?

Boats and trains to take them to distant places: Victorians were a lot more mobile than people had been in the past, and by the 1850s, rail travel was no longer a novelty. But a train journey had many meanings, and much depended on how rich or poor you were. Abraham Solomon painted contrasting versions of first- and second-class travel.... pictures which he reprised on more than one occasion. The two on show here are from Southampton City Art Gallery, which has put on this exhibition in conjunction with the Russell-Cotes and to which it will move in spring 2023. Even the weather in these pictures betrays the class difference.

It's a sad scene in second class, subtitled Thus Part We: Rich in Sorrow, Parting Poor. This is a family fallen on hard times; the widowed mother and pale, weeping daughter are seeing off the rather anxious-looking son. The posters on the end wall of the spartan carriage offer passage to Australia, suggesting the young man is off to seek his fortune in the 1851 gold rush, a possibility further hinted at by the ships' rigging seen through the window, against a backdrop of dark threatening clouds above scrubland. 

There's a much more scenic view through the window in first class, with blue sky and pink-tinged cloud and a sight of the sea and hills. Things are much more comfortable in this luxury compartment, with deeply padded seats and headrests. One of those chance meetings on a train finds the young officer engaging in lively conversation with a gentleman whose daughter looks demurely on. But, we learn, the pink roses on the seat in front of her symbolise a gentle, sweet love which she waits for the handsome stranger to reciprocate....

The subtitle is And at First Meeting Loved, but this is a toned-down version of Solomon's original idea. The first version of the painting was deemed scandalous, because it showed the young people apparently flirting while the old gentleman had nodded off in the corner of the compartment over his newspaper. 

Where were we? Roses.... once you get started on flowers and plants you can't stop in Victorian art. Pots of chrysanthemums stand for a heart left to desolation; ivy stands for fidelity. And, would you Adam and Eve it, apples represent temptation, while oranges symbolise fertility, wealth and prosperity, though also the transience of beauty. 

What a Victorian painting Love Locked Out is. So many symbols to decipher: There's an arrow on the ground next to a broken blue vase with a pink rose, while on the thorny bush, there's only one pink flower left -- the rest have turned into autumn red rose hips, while autumn leaves are also piling up round the threshold. Does anyone have the key to unlock the door through the heart-shaped surround of the keyhole? 

This sentimental painting is a copy of one originally made by Anna Lea Merritt after her husband died in 1889, shortly following their marriage. 

There's a lot to interpret as well in The Torn Gown by Henry Tonks, which hangs right next to Love Locked Out. A woman wearing a white dress is ready to go out to a ball, but has just discovered a tear in the hem, which she holds up to examine. Does that mean her purity is about to be sullied? Or is she not quite a nice girl already? A red curtain in the picture is suggestive of sin.... And then she's also revealing her petticoat to us.... surely a no-no for a decent Victorian girl.

But amid all this love and death, let's turn to some Victorian clickbait; you'll find a pony, puppies, and a very cute rabbit. And allegorical social commentary in the shape of The Dogs' Home by Walter Hunt. 

The Victorians, we're told, feared poverty more than any other misfortune; decades before the introduction of any welfare state, if your income dried up, you might end up in the workhouse. Hunt's picture of abandoned, lost or stray animals in Battersea Dogs Home can be read as a portrait of the different strata of society -- the upper-class foxhound, the collie for the rural labourer. A Skye terrier, possibly standing in for the criminal underclass, steals a biscuit from a cowering black-and-tan dog.  

Paintings in Victorian times were sometimes popularised by their use in advertising. The Pears Soap Company reproduced this picture of a lion in their 1899 Christmas annual. 

Following the outbreak of the Boer War, the title of the picture was changed from Repose to The British Lion to strike a patriotic note. But there's nothing British about the animals or the artist. The Hungarian painter Géza Vastagh painted these North African lions in Budapest Zoo.... 

Sin and suffering loom large on these gallery walls. Penance by William John Hennessy depicts a woman with a look of misery on her face walking barefoot in the snow in her shift, holding a candle in one hand and cradling a baby with her other arm.  

She's an unwed mother, walking away from a church, in clothing that signifies her baptismal dress. Traditionally, both parents were made to perform such a penance for begetting a child out of wedlock, but Victorian society reflected the Biblical view that the woman was mostly to blame. There's no compassion in this picture.   

The long Victorian era finally came to an end with World War I and its horrors. The Awakening shows a distraught young German woman being dragged towards a fiery pit by a Satanic figure. Others, some in German military uniform, seem to be inexorably pulled towards the chasm. Above, Justice, surrounded by figures representing the powers allied against Germany, stands aloof, moving to save no one from the flames. 

The artist, John Charlton, lost his sons Hugh and John in combat within a week of each other in 1916. This painting expresses his rage at the Prussian militarism he blamed for the war. He never recovered from his shock at the death of his sons and died the following year. 

Pathos and prettiness abound in this show, but it's the discovery of the lost messages and meanings contained in these paintings that makes this a wonderfully diverting and pleasurable day out by the sea.

Practicalities

Telling Tales: The Story of Victorian Narrative Art continues its run at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth until March 5. The house is open Tuesdays to Sundays (and Monday January 2) from 1000 to 1700. It's closed December 24-26 and January 3-16. Full-price admission is £8.50, and you can buy tickets online here, though advance booking isn't necessary. Allow yourself an hour for the show. The Russell-Cotes is beautifully situated overlooking the sea on East Cliff Promenade, a 20-minute walk, though not a very scenic one, from Bournemouth station. 

The exhibition is on at Southampton City Art Gallery from March 17 to July 1.

While you're in the Russell-Cotes....

Take some time to explore this very quirky museum and its contents, and to enjoy the views out of the windows over the English Channel (assuming the weather plays ball). A video (admittedly somewhat out-of-sync when we viewed it) explains the history of the house and the hotelier couple who built it and assembled the collection. Two key pictures to look out for: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Venus Verticordia and, for that seaside atmosphere, Spray by Harold Williamson.  

Images

James Tissot (1836-1902), The Captain's Daughter (The Last Evening), 1873, Southampton City Art Gallery. Photo: Southampton City Art Gallery

Abraham Solomon (1823-1862), Second Class, the Parting and First Class, the Meeting, 1854, Southampton City Art Gallery
Henry Justice Ford (1860-1941) after Anna Lea Merritt (1844-1930), Love Locked Out, 1890-1910, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Photo: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum
Walter Hunt (1861-1941), The Dogs' Home, 1883, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Photo: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum

Géza Vastagh (1866-1919), Repose or The British Lion, 1899, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Photo: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum
William John Hennessy (1839-1917), Penance, 1889, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Photo: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum
John Charlton (1849-1917), The Awakening, 1916, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bournemouth. Photo: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum