Henry Ryland in Context: Aestheticism and Neo-Classicism in Victorian Art
Grace EunHye Shin
Two youthful, draped female figures are relaxing on a classical marble terrace. One
figure is softly playing a melody with her ancient stringed instrument while tenderly gazing at
her female companion, who is in the middle of daydreaming. The sense of harmony and
timelessness is accentuated by the warm pastel tonality of the piece and the marble bench in the
background, which symbolizes eternity. In these ways, Two Ladies Playing Musical Instruments
on a Marble Terrace (fig.1, 1891), by Henry Ryland, is typical of Victorian Neoclassicism and
should be viewed in the context of both the Victorian revival of classical antiquity and of the
emergence of the style of art known as Aestheticism.
Ryland was primarily a watercolor painter, although he engaged in other art forms as well.
After graduating from South Kensington Art School in London, he pursued further studies under
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre in Paris.1 Along
with his regular exhibitions at the Royal Academy and Royal Institute, he also produced
woodcuts for the English Illustrated Magazine as well as designs for stained glass and
advertisements for products such as Pears soap.2
Ryland came of age as an artist at a moment of transformation in British art, which was
greatly impacted by political, social, and economic changes. The nineteenth century was, on the
one hand, an era of self-confidence and stability. Under the strong leadership of Queen Victoria,
1
"Ryland, Henry," In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online,
http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/benezit/B00158509.
2
Ibid., Oxford Art Online
2
the British Empire brought naval expansion and industrial revolution followed by economic
progress.3 In addition, territorial expansion exposed the British to diverse cultures from their
colonies, which influenced many artists’ styles and subject matters.4 The Industrial Revolution
also brought class reformation with the rise of a wealthy middle class. These affluent middle class patrons created a larger and prosperous art market and demanded new styles.5
However, this social and economic prosperity did not bring only positive effects. The
urbanization created by the industrialization of the 1840s caused serious consequences such as
overpopulation, poverty, disease, pollution, unemployment, and other hardships. Strong
emphasis on the values of materialism and economic success were overly magnified in society.
Cities, full of unsightly factories and unsanitized streets, concentrated these social struggles.
These various problems caused anxiety in British society.
During this time of struggle, artists were seeking to find their own haven by rendering the
world only with beauty. They were stressing formal values such as color, tonality, line, and
pattern more than detailed representation.6 This effort gradually grew into a literary, artistic, and
cultural movement, known as Aestheticism. Aestheticism focused on celebrating beauty for its
own sake, without a moralizing or narrative meaning, and often drew on beautiful women in
classical dress for subject matter. The nineteenth-century British public welcomed this type of
painting, perhaps because its simplicity, lack of narrative, subtle tonality, reminiscence of a
3
Nancy Minty, The Victorian Cult of Beauty (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario: The collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario and
the University of Toronto, 1989) 1-2.
4
Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain) and Helen Valentine, Art in the Age of Queen Victoria: Treasures from the Royal
Academy of Arts permanent collection. (London: Royal Academy of Arts in association with Yale University Press, New Haven
and London, 1999) 12-13.
5
6
Ibid. 12.
Ibid. 20.
3
glorious past and representation of the female body alleviated the tension and anxiety produced
by social changes, urbanization, industrialization and changing gender roles.
The art movement was influenced by French and British writers such as Théophile
Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, James Whistler, and Walter Pater, who were
challenging the famous art critic, John Ruskin’s, claim that art should represent moral and
spiritual truth. This was also the goal of the early Pre-Raphaelites.7 Instead of having a strong
narrative, with minute symbolic details conveying moral teaching, as in The Awakening
Conscience (fig. 2) by William Holman Hunt, Aestheticism reinforced an idea of “art for art’s
sake.” Pater claimed that “art was independent of morality and that the essence of painting was
its physical form rather than its subject.”8 For instance, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s Cherries
(fig. 3) portrays a young female figure against a rich, red background and decorative animal
patterns, stressing superficial splendor rather than presenting a strong narrative or moral lesson.
One result of this movement was to “refresh the eyes of viewers overcome by the ravages of
industrialization by creating a beautiful image.”9
Aestheticism was supported by scholars and by members of the general public afraid of
losing a sense of pleasure and beauty in their lives. Art critic Sidney Colvin bolstered this claim
by writing in 1879, “art, to give its best pleasures, must surely deal with beautiful materials, and
work them up in beautiful combination; and beauty is precisely the element wanting in the
ordinary aspect of modern London streets and London skies.”10 In the midst of rapid changes
and struggles, artists were trying to provide relief through images of grandeur, especially for
7
Andrew Maunder. “FOF Companion to the British Short Story,” New York: Infobase Pub.
http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=306459.
8
Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain), and Helen Valentine. 20.
9
Minty, The Victorian Cult of Beauty 1.
10
Ibid. 1.
4
those who were primarily focused on material wealth, the consequence of industrialization and
economic prosperity. Art was seen as a refuge for the weary and confused public.
Aestheticists defined their idea of beauty around the female body, their most common
subject. As a recent scholar writes, “beauty as embodied by the figure and face of woman was
morally as well as aesthetically uplifting…[and] conventional Victorians focused specifically on
feminine beauty as an outward manifestation of spiritual loftiness.”11 As a model, painters
particularly focused on and imitated female representations in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s late
aesthetic style. Rossetti’s Monna Vanna (fig. 4), for example, portrays a female figure in an
elaborately ornamented dress. She fills the entire composition, while the background contains
floral decorations. Rossetti thought that “women as redeemers” could be a refuge and
redemption.12 Such a belief was in accord with the Victorian conception that women had the
power to civilize and exercised a refining influence on men. With his female characters, Rossetti
also emphasized sensuality and decadence. Furthermore, his figures have a quality of the
“femme fatale,” the sometimes soulless, enigmatic, mysterious, or incomprehensible female. His
decorative effects and simple compositions inspired many Aestheticists.
Early Aestheticism practitioner James Whistler, however, introduced “pure aestheticism”
in Symphony in White No. 3 (fig. 5). Pure Aesthetic paintings also do not include any stories or
details but only simple outlines, and subtle colors with flattened perspective.13 The posture of
Whistler’s two female figures, one sleeping and one sitting on the floor, is also important to
notice, because it inspired many artists, including Henry Ryland as in figures 1 and 9. The
11
Minty, The Victorian Cult of Beauty 2.
12
Ibid. 6.
13
Royal Academy of Arts (Great Britain), and Helen Valentine. 20-21.
5
notion of beauty became associated not only with decorative and sumptuous color and beautiful
women, but also with classical Greek marble architecture and drapery.
The rise of an interest in antiquity strongly appealed to the painters of Aestheticism, and
many of them, such as Henry Ryland, chose Neoclassical subjects. The revival of classical
antiquity started around the 1780s, when English collectors and archaeologists were conducting
serious research and studies of Greece and Rome.14 The archaeological publication called
Antiquities of Athens by James Stuart and Nicholas Revette, the first volume of which was
published in 1762, stimulated the public to favor Greek culture, although they still did not have
complete knowledge of Greek civilization. This interest intensified, especially after Lord Elgin
brought the Parthenon marbles to the British Museum in 1808, to prevent further destruction by
the Turks occupying Athens. Also the British government’s purchase of Phigaleian marbles
from a fifth-century sculpture collection in 1814 significantly influenced the Neoclassical
movement in art and architecture.15 To accommodate public interest, the British Royal Academy
of Art decided to offer a formal course in the Antique, in which students drew from plaster casts
of Greek, Roman and Renaissance sculptures. These trends encouraged many artists and
collectors, such as James Barry, Henry Fuseli, and Sir William Hamilton, to praise Greek
antiquity. Barry, a Royal Academician, wrote enthusiastically of the “wise and noble mode of
thinking and procedure of the Greek artist,” believing that “the restoration of this perfection
remained to be accomplished by modern artists.”16 Like Barry, many artists encouraged their
pupils to pay close attention to ancient arts and to ponder antiquity more seriously. In taking up
14
David G. Irwin, English Neoclassical Art; Studies in Inspiration and Taste (Greenwich, Conn: New York Graphic Society,
1966). 68.
15
16
Ibid. 33, 69.
James Barry, “Fragment on the Story and Painting of Pandora,” The Works of James Barry, esq., Historical Painter (London;
T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1809), 146-7.
6
subjects from the past, artists were also imitating the noble era of an ancient civilization, which
they could relate to their own era of imperial expansion.
Later in the nineteenth century, Victorian Aestheticists searching for new sources of
inspiration also paid attention to this developing interest and started to experiment with
Neoclassicism. One of the leading artists who revived this interest was Frederic Leighton who,
as shown in Flaming June in 1891 (fig. 6), depicted classical nymphs wearing swirling draperies.
Although it has a simple composition and elaborate colors, Flaming June lacks strong narrative.
Neoclassical Aestheticists often painted naturally depicted, swirling draperies such as Leighton’s.
Drapery was favored by Aesthetic painters due to its simple linear quality and its concentration
on formal patterns and rhythms.17 Many artists, such as Sir Alma-Tadema, John William
Waterhouse, Albert Moore and Henry Ryland, decided to practice Neoclassicism in their
painting, producing their own interpretations in their search for perfect art in nineteenth-century
Britain. The combination of Aestheticism’s focus on superficial female beauty and
Neoclassicism’s reminiscence of a glorious past was suited to the British public.
For the Aestheticists, beauty became something more than just timeless, but sometimes
was understood as lonely, mournful, and tragic. According to Edgar Allan Poe, "a certain taint
of sadness is inseparably connected with all the higher manifestations of true Beauty."18 A hint
of melancholy on the face of a main figure was thought to enrich the beauty of the composition,
and it became a favorite symbol for Aestheticists. A good example of this tragic but decorative
aesthetic painting is by one of the leading Victorian Neoclassicists, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema,
Cleopatra (fig. 7, 1885). The beautiful, reclining Cleopatra is on her way to meet Anthony. In
17
Walter Hamilton. The Aesthetic Movement in England. (New York: AMS Press, 1971). 35.
18
Minty, The Victorian Cult of Beauty 16.
7
addition to her well-known tragic story, the decoration of flowers, luxurious dress, golden
draperies and beautiful and emotionless face would have pleased the viewers and evoked
curiosity about this “femme fatale” figure.
The inexpressiveness of female faces in Aestheticism was also developed in paintings of
women asleep. Albert Moore, for instance, depicted ladies in their sleep in Dreamers (1879-83)
(fig. 8). For his composition, the artist drew on the Elgin marbles of the Parthenon frieze at
British Museum.19 After observing other Aesthetic artists portraying female figures without any
facial expressions, Moore went further and erased any sense of consciousness in the main figures
of the painting. He and other Aestheticists believed that ultimate expression of beauty was in the
human body, the most refined creation of God. This praise for human body was not a new notion,
but had been established by the ancient Greeks.20 Neoclassicists began to portray the female
nude in a classical setting, which was allowed because Victorians thought of the “classical era as
highly cultured and civilized… [which could] justify the presentation of what should have been
offensive by placing it in a Greek or Roman setting.”21
According to Ruskin, however, the traditional notion of beauty was not based on the body,
and he maintained that the “face was the most important part of the anatomy as it was the least
animal.”22 Although Ruskin accepted the revival of classical antiquity, delighting in the Elgin
Marbles and noting that, “in the British Museum, it is quite right that British public should see
the Elgin marbles to the best advantage,” 23 he was not a fan of mythological or classical
19
Ibid. 16.
20
Minty, The Victorian Cult of Beauty 2.
21
Ibid. 18-19.
22
John Ruskin The Art of England: (Lectures given in Oxford. During his second tenure of the Slade professorship. 1887) 76.
8
paintings. He preferred “Englishness” and Christian subjects in painting and believed that “the
latter revival of the legends of antiquity meant scorn of those of Christendom.”24 Ruskin strongly
opposed Aestheticism, which did not fulfill his belief in the role of art as a messenger to
audiences. He was concerned that the sensual qualities of Aestheticism appealed to the baser
parts of human nature rather than focusing viewers’ minds on moral truths; he argued, “that is
the true meaning of classic art and of classic literature; - not the license of pleasure, but the law
of goodness.”25 However, conservative ideas—even those of John Ruskin--about the nature of
beauty could not prevent artists from developing images of melancholic and sleeping females.
Rather these pictures flourished in British society, perhaps because audiences in a rushed and
busy society responded to images of relaxation and rest.
Such depictions of beautiful women also reflect Victorian gender roles. The emphasis on
female beauty refers to the Victorian definition of womanhood as spiritual yet sexualized, such
that an image of a woman became an “irresistible object of desire and a certain kind of especially
contemplative subject.”26 Such imagery was produced largely by male artists for male viewers
and participated in a commodity-centered society, in which the definition of woman was
artificially constructed and controlled by men. Art historians have suggested that in portraying
passive, beautiful women to be looked at, the Aestheticists perhaps also helped manage anxieties
over female sexuality, as in this way the “sexless ideal woman comes to contain her opposite, the
23
Ibid. 54.
24
Ibid. 41.
He continued, “; and if, of the two words, ….one can be left unspoken, as implied by the other, it is the first not
the last. It is written that the Creator of all things beheld them- not in that they were beautiful, but in that they were
good.” Ibid.
25
26
Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Beauty's Body: Femininity and Representation in British Aestheticism (Stanford, Calif: Stanford
University Press, 1997) 4.
9
dangerously sexualized and desiring woman.”27 Such images possibly helped anxious male
audiences to reconfirm their power over women and to superficially soothe the tensions arising
from continuous social change.
A decorative woman with a melancholic or emotionless face and beautifully rendered
draperies in a classical setting is a typical portrayal for Neoclassical Aestheticist painting. As one
of the members of this movement, Henry Ryland was impacted by the leading painters of this
style, such as Sir Alma-Tadema and Albert Moore. He frequently depicted two draped young
female figures in a relaxed classical setting, as for example in Two Classical Figures Reclining
of 1893 (Fig. 9). Two Ladies Playing Musical Instruments on a Marble Terrace might seem as if
it does not have any meanings. Nonetheless it contains a new notion of beauty and it both
reflects and reinforces aspects of nineteenth-century British society, which was undergoing a
transitional period of urbanization, industrialization, revival of classicism, and changes in gender
roles and definitions.
27
Ibid. 5.
10
Images
(Fig. 1) Two Ladies Playing Musical Instruments on a Marble Terrace* by Henry Ryland
(1891)
(Fig.2) Awakening Conscience by William Holman Hunt (1853)
11
(Fig. 3) Cherries by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1873)
(Fig.4) Monna Vanna by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1866)
12
(Fig. 5) Symphony in White No. 3 James Whistler (1865-1867)
(Fig. 6) Flaming June by Frederic Leighton (1891)
13
(Fig. 7) Cleopatra by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1885)
(Fig. 8) Dreamers by Albert Moore (1879-83)
14
(Fig. 9) Two classical figure reclining by Henry Ryland (1893)
15
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