Victorian British Painting: William Powell Frith

Showing posts with label William Powell Frith. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

William Powell Frith

John Knox Reproving Mary, Queen of Scots (1844)

Sisters (1843)

William Powell Frith, with the assistance of Thomas Creswick:

An English Merrymaking a Hundred Years Ago (1847)

Friday, May 24, 2013

Miscellanea

Another posting of works by previously featured artists.

Edwin Longsden Long: Jephthah’s Vow (The Martyr) (1885)

George Elgar Hicks: The Goldfinch (1875)

George Vicat Cole: A River in Wales

John Callcott Horsley: Showing a Preference (1860)

John Callcott Horsley: The Waiting Maid (1875)

Maria Spartali Stillman: Blossom

Robert Alexander Hillingford: Gifts for the War Chest

Sir Joseph Noel Paton: Dionysus and Sea Nymphs (1853)

William Powell Frith: Charles Dickens (1859)

William Powell Frith: The Fair Toxophilites (1872)

William Powell Frith: The Rejected Poet: Alexander Pope and Lady Mary Wortley (1863)

Monday, July 9, 2012

William Powell Frith, ctd

The final set of paintings by Frith.

The Derby Day (1858)

[about this painting] [audio summary]

The Family Lawyer (1857)

The Flower Seller (1865)

The Marriage of the Prince of Wales, 10 March 1863 (1863-64)

The Merry Wives of Windsor (1843)

The New Earrings (1875)

The Proposal (1853)

The Railway Station (1862)

[about this painting] [more about this painting]

The Signal (1858)

The Sleeping Model (1853)

Friday, July 6, 2012

William Powell Frith, ctd

Life at the Seaside (Ramgate Sands) (detail) (1854)

Lovers (1855)

An Incident in the Life of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1872)

[who was Mary Wortley Montagu? find out here]

May Day Celebration

Measuring Heights (1863)

[a scene from The Vicar of Wakefield]

In the RA catalogue, the title was followed by a quotation from chapter 16 of Oliver Goldsmith's most famous novel (published 1766): 'It must be owned that my wife laid a thousand schemes to entrap him .... Then the poor woman would sometimes tell the Squire that she thought him and Olivia extremely of a size and mould, and would bid both stand up to see who was the tallest'. Mrs Primrose, the vicar's wife, is aiming to marry her daughter Olivia to their landlord, Squire Thornhill.

The RA painting was Frith's first great success. He wrote to Charles Hawker on 6 May 1842: 'I am sure you will be glad to hear that my reputation may now (I flatter myself) be said to be fixed, as I have a picture of some size and importance, containing 8 figures, in one of the centre places on the line/that is, at eye level/at the Academy - As you may imagine from its situation it was sold within half an hour of the first opening of the Exhibition -'. Frith also describes this success in his Autobiography.

The Art Union critic was enthusiastic: 'The main characters of Goldsmith's novel are here charmingly portrayed ... The author of this work studies profitably the characters he transfers to canvass. He is not a mere picture-maker; but thinks, and thinks long and deeply over what he does. His abilities to execute are not inferior to his powers to conceive ... [it] cannot fail of being appreciated by "the mass", while it will as certainly satisfy "the critic".' It did not satisfy the Athenaeum critic, who thought the facial expressions too exaggerated; noting Frith as 'a rising artist', the writer thought 'he has already risen to the heights of affectation'. This review inspired Frith in his Autobiography (I, p98) to 'here advise all artists, young and old, never to read art criticism. Nothing is to be learnt from it'. [from Measuring Heights: A Scene from the Vicar of Wakefield]

My Window in Boulogne

Poor Maria (ca. 1850)

Poverty and Wealth (1888)

[Frith clearly did not shy away from social commentary]

A Scene From Moliere's L'Avare (1876)

Thursday, July 5, 2012

William Powell Frith

William Powell Frith (1819-1909) was a Victorian painter of genre scenes. Among his paintings are several excellent sprawling panoramas depicting very detailed slices of Victorian life.