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拍品專文
For some unexplained reason, Stanhope began to exhibit again at the Royal Academy in 1902. He was then seventy-three, and had not showed there since 1872, a full three decades earlier. During the long interval the Grosvenor and New Galleries had suppied his needs as an exhibitor. But the Grosvenor was now defunct, and perhaps he felt that the New Gallery, which would close its doors in 1909, was not what it had been in its heyday. Even so, it is strange that the artist should have returned to the RA, knowing how his friends and mentors regarded it. Rossetti had never exhibited there. Burne-Jones had been elected an associate in 1885, but had bitterly regretted his decision and resigned in 1893. Stanhope's niece Evelyn De Morgan, a stong-minded woman if ever there was one, would have no truck with the Academy at any stage of her career.
The Vision of Ezekiel was one of two works that Stanhope showed in 1902, the other being Knowledge strangling Ignorance (lot 4…). In his most mannered late style, it must have seemed an astonishing CCCmaly by this date, and one can imagine 'advanced' critics shuddering in disbelief. No reviews have yet been located, but The Expulsion from Eden (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), the last picture Stanhope had exhibited at the NCw Gallery, in 1900, had not received good reviews. It is possible, of course, to argue that this showed the provincialism of the reCiewers, who might well have drawn meaningful comparisons with contemporary European Symbolism. But the fact remains Chat, in England in 1902, late Pre-Raphaelitism seemed hopelessly old-fashioned beside the legacy of French realism, whether interpreted bC After all, Burne-Jones himself had been bitterly aware that, as he put it, 'the rage for me is over'; and he died in 1898.
It is not clear what prompted Stanhope to treat this comparatively recondite subject on such a heroic scale. Ezekiel was one of the four so-called 'greater prophets' of the Old Testament, the others being Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. He was among the Hebrews exiled in 579 BC to Babylon, where, beside the river Kebar, he experienced a number of apocalyptic visions. In Chapter 37 of his book he describes how, 'the hand of the Lord' being upon him, he is set down in a valley full of dry bones. He is commanded by God to prophesy and the bones come to life, assuming flesh and sinews until they represent 'an exceeding great army'. The passage was often seen as an Old Testament prefiguration of the general resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement.
Michelangelo had included Ezekiel among the prophets painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (fig. 1). He is depicted there as old man with a long white beard, as Stanhope himself portrays him. There was also a tradition of Ezekiel subjects within later Pre-Raphaelitism. Burne-Jones had illustrated Ezekiel's parable of the boiling pot in the early 1860s. Two versions exist, a pen-and-ink drawing of 1861 (Tate Gallery) and a slightly different design made a year or two later for the Dalziels' illustrated Bible (fig. 2). Although nothing came of this ambitious project at the time, the designs, which had been produced by a number of artists, were eventually published as Dalziels' Bible Gallery in 1880.
Burne-Jones's interest in Ezekiel, like that of Stanhope forty years later, seems a little surprising, although in his case it may reflect his early admiration for Simeon Solomon, the young Jewish artist who specialised in Old Testament subjects. Then there were the exigences of stained glass. Rossetti drew Ezekiel in 1863 for windows that the Morris firm was currently installing at All Saints Church, Banstead, in Surrey, and in Bradford Cathedral; while between 1865 and 1875 the prophet was the subject of no fewer than three separate stained-glass cartoons by Burne-Jones. A version originally designed for a church at Tavistock in 1875 was re-used a year or two later in one of the magnificent Morris windows in the Chapel at Jesus College, Cambridge; but what makes this re-use so interesting is that to go beneath the standing figure Burne-Jones specially designed a panel with a subject that anticipates Stanhope's picture, namely another prophet, Elijah, preaching to dry bones. Finally, it is worth mentioning a small oil painting of Ezekiel's vision of the valley of bones by Burne-Jones's son Philip, which was on the London art market some years ago. Again it seemed a strange subject, especially as Philip's meagre artistic talents lay mainly in portraiture.
No doubt somewhere behind these subjects lurked fears engendered by Darwinian theories of evolution. When Ezekiel experiences his vision, he hears the Lord asking 'Can these bones live?' In 1856 the artist Henry Alexander Bowler exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture which perfectly expresses Victorian anxiety about immortality (fig. 3). Entitled The Doubt: 'Can these Dry Bones Live?', it shows a young woman leaning on a gravestone in a churchyard, contemplating some bones which have been unearthed. If the question obsessed Bowler at the age of thirty-two, perhaps it did the much older Stanhope.
But in some ways the most interesting comparisons are offered by G.F. Watts, Stanhope's early master and another man coming to the end of a long life. Watts's picture Jonah (fig. 4), a powerful but repellent work of 1895, shows the prophet calling the people of Nineveh to repentance. It was intended as a bitter rebuke to the social vices of the day, and at the very least is an example of a subject from the Old Testament prophets being used to address a contemporary moral problem. An even clearer parallel dates from three years later, when Watts was eighty-one. In Can these Bones Live? (fig. 5), a title, like Bowler's, which echoes Ezekiel, a pile of bones or a decomposing corpse looms eerily from beneath a shroud-like form in a dark and threatening landscape. The picture was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1898, and it is not impossible that Stanhope painted his Vision of Ezekiel by way of response.
The Vision of Ezekiel was one of two works that Stanhope showed in 1902, the other being Knowledge strangling Ignorance (lot 4…). In his most mannered late style, it must have seemed an astonishing CCCmaly by this date, and one can imagine 'advanced' critics shuddering in disbelief. No reviews have yet been located, but The Expulsion from Eden (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool), the last picture Stanhope had exhibited at the NCw Gallery, in 1900, had not received good reviews. It is possible, of course, to argue that this showed the provincialism of the reCiewers, who might well have drawn meaningful comparisons with contemporary European Symbolism. But the fact remains Chat, in England in 1902, late Pre-Raphaelitism seemed hopelessly old-fashioned beside the legacy of French realism, whether interpreted bC After all, Burne-Jones himself had been bitterly aware that, as he put it, 'the rage for me is over'; and he died in 1898.
It is not clear what prompted Stanhope to treat this comparatively recondite subject on such a heroic scale. Ezekiel was one of the four so-called 'greater prophets' of the Old Testament, the others being Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. He was among the Hebrews exiled in 579 BC to Babylon, where, beside the river Kebar, he experienced a number of apocalyptic visions. In Chapter 37 of his book he describes how, 'the hand of the Lord' being upon him, he is set down in a valley full of dry bones. He is commanded by God to prophesy and the bones come to life, assuming flesh and sinews until they represent 'an exceeding great army'. The passage was often seen as an Old Testament prefiguration of the general resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement.
Michelangelo had included Ezekiel among the prophets painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (fig. 1). He is depicted there as old man with a long white beard, as Stanhope himself portrays him. There was also a tradition of Ezekiel subjects within later Pre-Raphaelitism. Burne-Jones had illustrated Ezekiel's parable of the boiling pot in the early 1860s. Two versions exist, a pen-and-ink drawing of 1861 (Tate Gallery) and a slightly different design made a year or two later for the Dalziels' illustrated Bible (fig. 2). Although nothing came of this ambitious project at the time, the designs, which had been produced by a number of artists, were eventually published as Dalziels' Bible Gallery in 1880.
Burne-Jones's interest in Ezekiel, like that of Stanhope forty years later, seems a little surprising, although in his case it may reflect his early admiration for Simeon Solomon, the young Jewish artist who specialised in Old Testament subjects. Then there were the exigences of stained glass. Rossetti drew Ezekiel in 1863 for windows that the Morris firm was currently installing at All Saints Church, Banstead, in Surrey, and in Bradford Cathedral; while between 1865 and 1875 the prophet was the subject of no fewer than three separate stained-glass cartoons by Burne-Jones. A version originally designed for a church at Tavistock in 1875 was re-used a year or two later in one of the magnificent Morris windows in the Chapel at Jesus College, Cambridge; but what makes this re-use so interesting is that to go beneath the standing figure Burne-Jones specially designed a panel with a subject that anticipates Stanhope's picture, namely another prophet, Elijah, preaching to dry bones. Finally, it is worth mentioning a small oil painting of Ezekiel's vision of the valley of bones by Burne-Jones's son Philip, which was on the London art market some years ago. Again it seemed a strange subject, especially as Philip's meagre artistic talents lay mainly in portraiture.
No doubt somewhere behind these subjects lurked fears engendered by Darwinian theories of evolution. When Ezekiel experiences his vision, he hears the Lord asking 'Can these bones live?' In 1856 the artist Henry Alexander Bowler exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture which perfectly expresses Victorian anxiety about immortality (fig. 3). Entitled The Doubt: 'Can these Dry Bones Live?', it shows a young woman leaning on a gravestone in a churchyard, contemplating some bones which have been unearthed. If the question obsessed Bowler at the age of thirty-two, perhaps it did the much older Stanhope.
But in some ways the most interesting comparisons are offered by G.F. Watts, Stanhope's early master and another man coming to the end of a long life. Watts's picture Jonah (fig. 4), a powerful but repellent work of 1895, shows the prophet calling the people of Nineveh to repentance. It was intended as a bitter rebuke to the social vices of the day, and at the very least is an example of a subject from the Old Testament prophets being used to address a contemporary moral problem. An even clearer parallel dates from three years later, when Watts was eighty-one. In Can these Bones Live? (fig. 5), a title, like Bowler's, which echoes Ezekiel, a pile of bones or a decomposing corpse looms eerily from beneath a shroud-like form in a dark and threatening landscape. The picture was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1898, and it is not impossible that Stanhope painted his Vision of Ezekiel by way of response.