Part 19

His portraits of great men generally took the form of half-lengths with the simplest backgrounds. His subjects were of all kinds--Tennyson and Browning, Rossetti and Burne-Jones, Gladstone, Mill, Motley, Joachim, Thiers, and Anthony Panizzi.[34] His object was a national one, and the foreigners admitted to the company were usually closely connected with England. Sometimes the pose of the body and the hands helps the conception, as in Lord Lytton and Cardinal Manning; more often Watts trusts to the simple mass of the head or to the character revealed by the features in repose. No finer examples for contrast can be given than the portraits of the two friends, Burne-Jones and William Morris, painted in 1870. In the former we see the spirit of the dreamer, in the latter the splendid vitality and force of the craftsman, who was impetuous in action as he was rich in invention. The room at the National Portrait Gallery where this collection is hung speaks eloquently to us of the Victorian Age and the varied genius of its greatest men; and in some cases we have the additional interest of being able to compare portraits of the same men painted by Watts and by other artists. Well known is the contrast in the case of Carlyle. Millais has painted a picturesque old man whose talk might be racy and his temper uncertain; but the soul of the seer, tormented by conflicts and yet clinging to an inner faith, is revealed only by the hands of Watts. Again Millais gives us the noble features, the extravagant 'hure'[35] of the Tennyson whom his contemporaries saw, alive, glowing with force; Watts has exalted this conception to a higher level and has portrayed the thinker whom the world will honour many centuries hence. Some will perhaps prefer the more objective treatment; and it is certain that Watts's ambition led him into difficult paths. Striving to represent the soul of his sitter, he was conscious at times that he failed--that he could not see or realize what he was searching for. More than once he abandoned a commission when he felt this uncertainty in himself. But when the accord between artist and sitter was perfect, he achieved a triumph of idealization, combined with a firm grasp on reality, such as few artists since Giorgione and the young Titian have been able to achieve.

[Note 34: Sir Anthony Panizzi, an Italian political refugee, the most famous of librarians. He served the British Museum from 1831 to 1866.]

[Note 35: '"Hure: tête hérissée et en désordre"; se dit d'un homme qui a les cheveux mal peignés, d'un animal, &c.'--Littré.]

Apart from portraits there was a rich variety in the subjects which the painter handled, some drawn from Bible stories, some from Greek legends or mediaeval tales, some for which we can find no source save in his own imagination. He dealt with the myths in a way natural to a man who owed more to Greek art and to his own musings than to the close study of Greek literature. His pictures of the infancy of Jupiter, of the deserted Ariadne, of the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, have no elaborate realism in detail. The Royal Academy walls showed, in those days, plenty of marble halls, theatres, temples, and classic groves, reproduced with soulless pedantry. Watts gave us heroic figures, with strong masses and flowing lines, simply grouped and charged with emotion--the yearning love of Diana for Endymion, the patient resignation of Ariadne, the passionate regret of Orpheus, the cruel bestiality of the Minotaur. Some will find a deeper interest, a grander style, in the designs which he made for the story of our first parents in the Book of Genesis. Remorse has rarely been expressed so powerfully as in the averted figure of Eve after the Fall, or of Cain bowed under the curse, shut out from contact with all creation. In one of his masterpieces Watts drew his motive from the Gospel story. The picture entitled 'For he had great possessions' shows us the young ruler who has come to Christ and has failed in the supreme moment. His back, his bowed neck and averted head, with the gesture of indecision in his right hand, tell their tale with consummate eloquence.

In his more famous allegories the same is true; by simple means an impression of great power is conveyed. The popularity of 'Love and Death' and its companion picture shows how little the allegory needs explanation. These themes were first handled between 1860 and 1870; but the pictures roused such widespread admiration that the painter made several replicas of them. Versions are now to be found in the Dominions and in New York, as well as in London and Manchester. Photographs have extended their renown and they are so familiar to-day that there is no need to describe them. Another masterpiece dealing with the subject of Death is the 'Sic transit', where the shrouded figure of the dead warrior is impressive in its solemnity and stillness. 'Dawn' and 'Hope' show what different notes Watts could strike in his treatment of the female form. At the other extreme is 'Mammon', the sordid power which preys on life and crushes his victims with the weight of his relentless hand. The power of conscience is shown in a more mystic figure called 'The Dweller in the Innermost'. Judgement figures in more than one notable design, the most familiar being that which now hangs in St. Paul's Cathedral with the title of 'Time, Death, and Judgement'. Its position there shows how little we can draw the line between the different classes of subjects as they were handled by Watts. A courtier like Rubens could, after painting with gusto a rout of Satyrs, put on a cloak of decorum to suit the pageantry of a court, or even simulate fervour to portray the ecstasy of a saint. He is clearly acting a part, but in Watts the character of the man is always seen. Whether his subjects are drawn from the Bible or from pagan myths, they are all treated in the same temper of reverence and purity.

It is impossible to avoid the question of didactic art in writing of these pictures, though such a wide question, debated for half a century, can receive no adequate treatment here. We must frankly allow that Watts was 'preaching sermons in paint', nor would he have repudiated the charge, however loud to-day are the protests of those who preach the doctrine of 'art for art's sake'. But the latter, while stating many principles of which the British public need to be reminded, seem to go beyond their rights. It is, of course, permissible for students of art to object to technical points of handling--Watts himself was among the first to deplore his own failures due to want of executive ability; it is open to them to debate the part which morality may have in art, and to express their preference for those artists who handle all subjects impartially and conceive all to be worthy of treatment, if truth of drawing or lighting be achieved. But when they make Watts's ethical intention the reason for depreciating him as an artist they are on more uncertain ground. There is no final authority in these questions. Ruskin was too dogmatic in the middle years of his life and only provoked a more violent reaction. Twenty years later the admirers of Whistler and Manet were equally intolerant, and assumed doctrines which may hold the field to-day but are certain to be questioned to-morrow.

Watts was most reluctant to enter into controversy and had no ambition to found a school; in fact so far was he from imposing his views on others, that he scarcely ever took pupils, and was content to urge young artists to follow their own line and to be sincere. But he could at times be drawn into putting some of his views on paper, and in 1893 he wrote down a statement of the relative importance which he attached to the qualities which make a painter. Among these Imagination stands first, Intellectual idea next to it. After this follow Dignity of form, Harmony of lines, and Colour. Finally, in the sixth place comes Realism, the idol of so many of the end of the century, both in literature and art.

Some years earlier, in meeting criticism, Watts had said, 'I admit my want of dexterity with the brush, in some cases a very serious defect,' but at the same time he refused to accept the authority of those 'who deny that art should have any intellectual intention'. In general, he pleaded that art has a very wide range over subject and treatment; but he did not set himself up as a reformer in art, nor inflict dogmas on the public gratuitously. He found that some of his more abstract themes needed handling in shadowy and suggestive fashion: if this gave the impression of fumbling, or displayed some weakness in technique, even so perhaps the conception reaches us in a way that could not be attained by dexterity of brushwork. As he himself said, 'there were things that could only be done in art at the sacrifice of some other things'; but the points which Watts was ready to sacrifice are what the realists conceive to be indispensable, and his aims were not as theirs. But his life was very little troubled by controversy; and he would not have wished his own work to be a subject for it.

External circumstances also had little power to alter the even tenor of his way. Late in life, at the age of 69, he married Miss Fraser Tytler, a friend of some fifteen years' standing, who was herself an artist, and who shared all his tastes. After the marriage he and his wife spent a long winter in the East, sailing up the Nile in leisurely fashion, enjoying the monuments of ancient Egypt and the colours of the desert. It was a time of great happiness, and was followed by seventeen years of a serene old age, divided between his London house in Melbury Road and his new home in Surrey. Staying with friends in Surrey, Watts had made acquaintance with the beautiful country lying south of the Hog's Back; and in 1889 he chose a site at Compton, where he decided to build a house. To this he gave the name of Limnerslease. Thanks to the generosity of Mrs. Watts, who has built a gallery and hung some of his choicest pictures there, Compton has become one of the three shrines to which lovers of his work resort.[36]

[Note 36: His allegorical subjects are in the Tate Gallery; his portraits in the National Portrait Gallery.]

But for many years he met with little recognition from the world at large. It was only at the age of 50 that he received official honours from the Royal Academy, though the success of his cartoons had marked him out among his contemporaries twenty-five years earlier. About 1865 his pictures won the enthusiastic admiration of Mr. Charles Rickards, who continued to be the most constant of his patrons, and gave to his admiration the most practical form. Not only did he purchase from year to year such pictures as Watts was willing to sell, but twenty years later he organized an exhibition of Watts's work at Manchester, which did much to spread his fame in the North. In London Watts came to his own more fully when the Grosvenor Gallery was opened in 1877. Here the Directors were at pains to attract the best painters of the day and to hang their pictures in such a way that their artistic qualities had full effect. No one gained more from this than Watts and Burne-Jones; and to a select but growing circle of admirers the interest of the annual exhibitions began and ended with the work of these two kindred spirits. The Directors also arranged in 1881 for a special exhibition devoted to the works of Watts alone, when, thanks to the generosity of lenders, 200 of his pictures did justice to his sixty years of unwearied effort. This winter established his fame, and England now recognized him as one of her greatest sons. But when his friends tried to organize a dinner to be held at the Gallery in his honour, he got wind of the plot, and with his usual fastidious reserve begged to be spared such an ordeal. The _élite_ of London society, men famous in politics, literature, and other departments of public life, were only too anxious to honour him; but he could not endure to be the centre of public attention. To him art was everything, the artist nothing. Throughout his life he attended few banquets, mounted fewer platforms, and only wished to be left to enjoy his work, his leisure, and the society of his intimate friends.

His interest in the progress of his age was profound, though it did not often take shape in visible form. He believed that the world might be better, and was not minded to acquiesce in the established order of things. He sympathized with the Salvation Army; he was a strong supporter of women's education; he was ardent for redressing the balance of riches and poverty, and for recognizing the heroism of those who, labouring under such grim disadvantages, yet played a heroic part in life. The latter he showed in practical form. In 1887 he had wished to celebrate the Queen's Jubilee by erecting a shrine in which to preserve the records of acts of self-sacrifice performed by the humblest members of the community. The scheme failed at the time to win support; but in 1899, largely through his help, a memorial building arose in the churchyard of St. Botolph, near Aldersgate, better known as the 'Postmen's Park'.

In private life his kindliness and courtesy won the hearts of all who came near him, young and old, rich and poor. He was tolerant towards those who differed from him in opinion: he steadily believed the best of other men in passing judgement on them. No mean thought, no malicious word, no petty quarrel marred the purity of his life. He had lost his best friends: Leighton in 1896, Burne-Jones three years later; but he enjoyed the devotion of his wife and the tranquillity of his home. Twice he refused the offer of a Baronetcy. The only honour which he accepted was the Order of Merit, which carried no title in society and was reserved for intellectual eminence and public service. At the age of 80 he presented to Eton College his picture of Sir Galahad, a fit emblem of his own lifelong quest. His last days of active work were spent on the second version of the great statue of 'Physical Energy', which had occupied him so long, and in which he ever found something new to express as he dreamed of the days to come and the future conquests of mankind. In 1904 his strength gradually failed him, and on July 1 he died in his Surrey home. Like his great exemplar Titian, whom he resembled in outward appearance and in much of the quality of his painting, he outlived his own generation and was yet learning, as one of the young, when death took him in the 88th year of his life.

JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON

1827-71

1827. Born in London, April 1. 1838-45. At school at Eton. 1841. Selwyn goes out to New Zealand as Bishop. 1845-9. Undergraduate at Balliol College, Oxford. 1850-1. Visits Germany. 1852-3. Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. 1853. Curate at Alphington, near Ottery. 1854. Accepted by Bishop Selwyn for mission work. 1855. Sails for New Zealand, March. Head-quarters at Auckland. 1856. First cruise to Melanesia. 1860. First prolonged stay (3 months) in Mota. 1861. Consecrated first Bishop of Melanesia, February. 1864. Visit to Australia to win support for Mission (repeated 1855). Serious attack on his party by natives of Sta. Cruz. 1867. Removal of head-quarters to Norfolk Island. 1868. Selwyn goes home to become Bishop of Lichfield. 1869. Exploitation of native labour becomes acute. 1870. Severe illness: convalescence at Auckland. 1871. Last stay at Mota. Cruise to Sta. Cruz. Death at Nukapu, September 20.

JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON

MISSIONARY

New Zealand, discovered by Captain Cook in 1769, lay derelict for half a century, and like others of our Colonies it came very near to passing under the rule of France. From this it was saved in 1840 by the foresight and energy of Gibbon Wakefield, who forced the hand of our reluctant Government; and its steady progress was secured by the sagacity of Sir George Grey, one of our greatest empire-builders in Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Thanks to them and to others, there has arisen in the Southern Pacific a state which, more than any other, seems to resemble the mother country with its sea-girt islands, its temperate climate, its mountains and its plains. A population almost entirely British, living in these conditions, might be expected to repeat the history of their ancestors. In politics and social questions its sons show the same independence of spirit and even greater enterprise.

[Illustration: JOHN COLERIDGE PATTESON

From a drawing by William Richmond]

The names of two other men deserve recognition here for the part they played in the history of these islands. In 1814, before they became a British possession, Samuel Marsden came from Australia to carry the Gospel to their inhabitants, and formed settlements in the Northern districts, in days when the lives of settlers were in constant peril from the Maoris. But nothing could daunt his courage; and whenever they came into personal contact with him, these childlike savages felt his power and responded to his influence, and he was able to lay a good foundation. In 1841 the English Church sent out George Augustus Selwyn as first Missionary Bishop of New Zealand, giving him a wide province and no less wide discretion. He was the pioneer who, from his base in New Zealand, was to spread Christian and British influences even farther afield in the vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean.

Selwyn was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and these famous foundations have never sent forth a man better fitted to render services to his country. In a small sphere, as curate of Windsor, he had already, by his energy, patience, and practical sagacity, achieved remarkable results; and it was providential that, in the strength of early manhood, he was selected for a responsible post which afforded scope for the exercise of his powers. In the old country he might have been hampered by routine and tradition; in a new land he could mark out his own path. The constitution of the New Zealand Church became a model for other dioceses and other lands, and his wisdom has stood the test of time.

What sort of man he was can best be shown by quoting a story from his biography.[37] When the Maori War broke out he joined the troops as chaplain and shared their perils in the field. Against the enterprising native fighters these were not slight, especially as the British troops were few and badly led. He was travelling without escort over routes infested by Maoris, refusing to have any special care taken of his own person, and his chief security lay in rapid motion. Yet twice he dismounted on the way, at peril of his life, once under an impulse of humanity, once from sheer public spirit. The first time it was to pull into the shade a drunken soldier asleep on duty and in danger of sunstroke; the second to fill up the ruts in a sandy road, where it seemed possible that the transport wagons which were following might be upset. Many other incidents could be quoted which show his unconventional ways and his habitual disregard for his own comfort, dignity, or safety. In New Zealand he found plenty of people to appreciate these qualities in a bishop.

[Note 37: _Life and Episcopate of G. A. Selwyn_, by H. W. Tucker, 2 vols. (Wells Gardner, 1879).]

Though Selwyn was the master and perhaps the greater man, yet a peculiar fame has attached to his disciple John Coleridge Patteson, owing to the sweetness of his disposition, the singleness of his aim, and the consummation of his work by a martyr's death. Born in London in 1827, he was more truly a son of Devon, to which he was attached by many links. His mother's brother, Justice Coleridge, and many other relatives, lived close round the old town of Ottery St. Mary; and his father, an able lawyer who was raised to the Bench in 1830, bought an estate at Feniton and came to live in the same district before the boy was fifteen years old. It was at Ottery, where the name of Coleridge was so familiar, that the earliest school-days of 'Coley' Patteson were passed; but before he was eleven years old he was sent to the boarding-house of another Coleridge, his uncle, who was a master at Eton. Here he spent seven happy years working in rather desultory fashion, so that he had his share of success and failure. His chief distinctions were won at cricket, where he rose to be captain of the XI; but with all whose good opinion was worth having he won favour by his cheerful, frank, independent spirit. If he was idle at one time, at another he could develop plenty of energy; if he was one of the most popular boys in the school, he was not afraid to risk his popularity by protesting strongly against moral laxity or abuses which others tolerated. It is well to remember this, which is attested by his school-fellows, when reading his letters, in which at times he blames himself for caring too much for the good opinion of others.

His interest in the distant seas where he was to win fame was first aroused in 1841. Bishop Selwyn was a friend of his family, and coming to say good-bye to the Pattesons before sailing for New Zealand, he said, half sportively, to the boy's mother, 'Will you give me "Coley"?' This idea was not pursued at the time; but the name of Selwyn was kept before him in his school-days, as the Bishop had left many friends at Eton and Windsor, and Edward Coleridge employed his nephew to copy out Selwyn's letters from his diocese in order to enlist the sympathy of a wider audience. But this connexion dropped out of sight for many years and seems to have had little influence on Patteson's life at Oxford, where he spent four years at Balliol. He went up in 1845 as a commoner, and this fact caused him some disquietude. He felt that he ought to have won a scholarship, and, conscious of his failure, he took to more steady reading. He was also practising self-discipline, giving up his cricket to secure more hours for study. He did not scorn the game. He was as fond as ever of Eton, and of his school memories. But his life was shaping in another direction, and the new interests, deepening in strength, inevitably crowded out the old.