Talks
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History as Fiction and Art in George Eliot's Romola
Where: Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association 2009 Dates: 6th November 2009 - 7th November 2009 When: 7th November 2009, 5pm - 7pm
LikeWhere: VSAWC-VISAWUS 2009 Dates: 15th October 2009 - 17th October 2009 When: 17th October 2009, 8am - 10am
The world of Victorian visual arts is often divided between “low” and “high”: the low appeals to the masses while the high is reserved to the educated bourgeoisie and nobility. Eric Gans, in Originary Thinking: Elements of Generative Anthropology, states that “only in the romantic era does the popular begin to enter into rivalry with the high” (175), the romantic era including for him most of the nineteenth-century. Victorian serial illustration is assimilated into the “popular” category because of its appeal and accessibility to the masses. Paradoxically, many magazine and serial illustrators were painters in the more traditional sense; the most telling example of this situation is probably Sir Frederic Leighton, academic painter and president of the Royal Academy between 1878 and 1896. His paintings are known for their traditional classicism and indebtedness to the historical genre, but the rise of the impressionists during the period has negatively influenced critical interest in Leighton’s work. In comparison, his illustrative work is generally neglected by art critics. It is the literary scholars who have taken over the study of Leighton’s illustrations, mostly for his work for George Eliot’s Romola. Even in this situation, however, the general evaluation is mostly negative: Hugh Witemeyer in George Eliot and the Visual Arts has described the illustrations as stiff, inanimate, heedless of the text and lacking a cohesive interpretive vision (159, 169). My paper will present Leighton’s illustrative work, not limited to Romola, in a new light: the value and popularity of the inclusion of high art visual features and themes in the popular illustration form. I argue that Leighton’s illustrations, in fact, bridge the gap between academic art and the visual culture available to the Victorian mass reading market. Whether in the serial texts or in special illustration volumes like those published periodically by The Cornhill, Leighton’s illustrations are simultaneously high art and popular art. During my presentation, I will make visual comparisons between a selection of Leighton’s illustrations and traditional works of art chosen for their formal or thematic resemblances. I will use biographical information, when available, to prove that Leighton had a knowledge of the works of art I compare his illustrations with. I will establish the popularity of the illustrations for the Victorians through contemporary reviews and criticism, and I will determine the level of success of Leighton’s high art-low art crossover on the Victorian visual culture market.
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