7. The Moral View.
Sometimes artists become popular because their art appeals to contemporary concerns; they then go out of fashion for
precisely the same reason. This class is about painters, writers, and hymnodists—all highly skilled in their own
right—who managed to speak to the mid-nineteenth-century appetite for moral exploration. Many of these well-known
figures have been forgotten, and if such names as John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Cecil Frances Alexander,
and Harriet Beecher Stowe remain on the tongue, it is more as a matter of honor than active devotion.
Our first hour will consist entirely of Victorian British painting, from the Pre-Raphaelites onwards. Some of it is
explicitly Biblical, some addresses secular moral themes, and towards the end of the century some is simply designed
to keep the beholder guessing. For whatever reason, there was no close equivalent in America, but there was a strong
evangelical fervor and one enormous moral issue—slavery—that engaged artists of many kinds.
The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.
VIDEO LINKS
The only problem with the Meywrbeer selections this week is the London production of Robert le diable. We have only
a very short clip of the nuns' ballet, but there are a couple of other scenes that give a very good idea of the style. The two
documentaries are also interesting. On the other hand, the Australian production of Les Huguenots is available
complete, with English titles. In addition to the scenes heard in class, I have added the love duet at the end of Act IV, which
many people single out as the finest thing that Meyerbeer wrote, plus Joan Sutherland in the opening aria of Act II, as a comparison
to the Lisette Oropesa clip which we watched part of in class. I did not play anything from Le prophète, but there is
a complete production with titles online, albeit with a much smaller budget than Meyerbeer would have had. The complete San Francisco
production of L'Africaine is also available.
I have two staged versions of the opening of Wagner's Das Liebesverbot which we heard in audio only; they are both great
fun. I only played a scrap of the famous tune from Rienzi, but I include links to concert performances of the overture and
Rienzi's prayer, in both of which it appears; I also add another aria in a staged production by the composer's great-granddaughter. The
two Flying Dutchman links are the originals of music heard in audio. The other Wagner links are the same as those seen
in class, and in many cases rather longer. I have given a link to the complete four-hour Wagner bio-pic, and also a much
shorter one, The Brilliant Bigot, which is more manageable but marred by pedestrian narration. Finally, for those that can bear
it, I attach a link to a translation of Wagner's Jewishness in Music essay; though not named in this 1850 edition, Meyerbeer
is the subject of its final chapter.
This time, *asterisks refer to items that were played as videos in class. rb.
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The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though
there may be a few small discrepancies.
Click the thumbnail to see a larger image.
Click on the right
or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close. |
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John Newton, 1725–1807. English cleric and writer.
Author of the hymn "Amazing Grace," Newton was originally a man of no great religious faith. After serving with the Royal Navy, he became a captain and then owner of a fleet of slave ships. When wrecked off the coast of Ireland, his desperate prayer was answered, and he began a spiritual change, devoting himself to God, giving up the slave trade, and studying for the priesthood.
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William Holmes McGuffey, 1800–73. American educator.
Growing up on the Ohio frontier, McGuffey began working as a teacher in his teens. Years later, when he was already a Professor of Ancient Languages at Miami University in Ohio, and an ordained Presbyterian minister, he was recommended by Harriet Beecher Stowe to write a series of school Readers for children. These are still used by homeschoolers today, largely on account of the strong moral lessons they teach along with basic literacy.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811–96. American writer.
Living in Cincinnati, where he father was President of a theological seminary, Stowe became aware of slaves escaping by means of the Underground Railroad. Becoming passionate in the cause of Abolition, she published Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1852, a book whose immediate popularity energized the forces that ultimately led to Emancipation and the Civil War.
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Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818–95. English poet.
Born of an English family in Dublin, she began writing religious poetry in her teens, and in time became celebrated for her hymns, including "All things bright and beautiful," "Once in royal David's city" and "There is a green hil far away." She married an Anglican clergyman who became Bishop of Londonderry and Archbishop of Armagh, both in Northern Ireland.
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Charles Kingsley, 1819–75. British writer and reformer.
The son of a Church of England rector, Kingsley entered the church himself. He was appointed chaplain to Queen Victoria in 1859 and Professor of History at Cambridge in 1860. He was also a novelist, writing once-popular books like The Water Babies (1863), nominally for children but with a strong didactic function and passionate polemic against child labor and similar real-world issues.
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Coventry Patmore, 1823–96. English poet and critic.
Patmore is best known for his long poem The Angel in the House, in praise of his wife Emily, published serially between 1854 and 1862. Though decried today, it became immediately popular as an expression of the Victorian ideal of a perfect marriage.
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William Holman Hunt, 1827–1910. English painter.
One of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, his paintings were noted for their vivid color, precise detail, religious or moral subjects, and profuse symbolism. His The Light of the World became one of the most reproduced paintings in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1828–82. English painter and poet.
A member of an unusually talented and literary family (father a Dante scholar, sister Christina a poet), he hesitated before devoting himself to painting, but then in 1848 became the co-founder and virtual leader of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which influenced the course of Victorian art for the rest of the century. Although he became mannered in later life, his earlier works have a remarkable freshness and sincerity.
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John Everett Millais, 1829–96. English painter.
Millais was, with DG Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. At first noted for his highly realistic treatment of religious and literary subjects, he later adopted a more sentimental style, with which he was hugely successful.
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Philip Hermogenes Calderon, 1833–98. Franco-Spanish-English painter.
Calderon was an English painter of French birth (mother) and Spanish (father) ancestry who initially worked in the Pre-Raphaelite style before moving towards historical genre. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy in London. [Wikipedia]
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William Frederick Yeames, 1835–1918. British painter.
Born in Russia, the son of a British consul, Yeames studied in Dresden and Florence before settling in London, as one of a group of painters specializing in historical subjects. In Yeames' hands, this developed into the "problem picture," leaving the beholder to work out what is going on, his most famous example being And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1878),
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Ira Sankey, 1840–1908. American hymnodist.
Although only an amateur, Sankey developed a reputation as a singer, choirmaster, and lay preacher, both at home in PA and in the Union army during the Civil War. Evangelist Dwight L. Moody recruited him as his colleague in 1870, and toured with him to Britain and across the USA. Sankey began to write his own gospel songs, which grew to a collection, Sacred Songs and Solos, eventually comprising 1,200 items.
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John Collier, 1850–1934. English painter.
Collier was a highly successful portraitist and painter of scenes from life, often with a "problem picture" element. He was connected through both his marriages to the family of Thomas Huxley, President of the Royal Society.
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