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Lot Essay
Pansies is a work of seminal importance as it attracted the admiration of the most influential critic of the day, John Ruskin, and secured Moore’s reputation amongst the public and his peers. In its depiction of an anonymous female sitter resting on a sofa, it prefigured Leighton’s Flaming June of 1895 by twenty years. It is a picture without narrative, but one that elicits interest through other means. In this respect, it is a quintessential work of the Aesthetic Movement, which celebrated beauty as the defining aim of Art.
When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1875 Ruskin praised it as a ‘consummately artistic and scientific work’ (Academy Notes, London, 1875, p. 15). He admired the perfectly balanced interrelationship of elements, and challenged viewers ‘by way of a lesson in composition’ to ‘hide in this picture the little honeysuckle ornament above the head [the artist’s anthemion cipher], and the little riband hanging over the basket, and see what becomes of everything!’ (ibid.) It is indeed an interesting exercise, a game 21st-century audiences might play when contemplating a Mondrian. Moore’s exactitude when it came to balance can be seen in a pentiment to the anthemion: dissatisfied with his original placement he moved it fractionally to the left. Ruskin also urged viewers to note Moore’s observation of the effects of light and shadow, emphasizing ‘the general modes of unaffected relief by which the extended left arm in ‘Pansies’ detaches itself from the background’ (op. cit., p. 16). He further recommended the use of a magnifying glass (which audiences delighted in using to examine Alma-Tadema’s technique) to study the sofa and basket.
The highly wrought finish is exemplified in the contrast between the semi-transparent gauze of the sitter’s apricot colour shift, and the pale taupe satin encircling her waist and legs. Moore’s biographer, Baldry, noted how the artist made ‘study after study so that he could be sure of giving to each one [of his fabrics] its specific character of form and fold and the anatomical structure – as it might be called – of the material from which the drapery was made’ (A.L. Baldry, Albert Moore, His Life and Works, London, 1893, p. 45). These studies also betray Moore’s interest in the Parthenon frieze. There the drapery not only defines each figure, but also adds independent linear interest to the composition as a whole.
Moore was fascinated by textiles, and this interest coincided with a broader revival in the appreciation of embroidery and anything hand-made as a reaction to inferior products made by machine. In this he touched the zeitgeist that propelled the Arts and Crafts Movement. Three years before this picture was painted, The Royal School of Art Needlework had been founded in 1872 by a group of women determined to revive ‘the principles which have guided Eastern and Western embroideries of the best periods’. They were supported by various artists and architects including Barbara Bodichon and Gertrude Jeykyll, William Morris, George Aitcheson and Walter Crane. Jeykyll’s influence was significant and deserves further exploration. She was a polymath who is principally remembered today for her influence on garden design. But before her sight failed, she was celebrated as a notable needlewoman who took inspiration from the natural world. She was in contact with Moore, and it is notable that the picture’s title and colour scheme derives from a single pansy, carefully placed almost as an incidental detail, lower left. The palette of purple, apricot and yellow pansies are repeated on the sofa cover and echoed in the geometric rug at the base of the composition. The textile on the sofa covering was probably a real piece that Moore kept in his studio as it features in a number of paintings at this date with varying degrees of detail: perhaps the closest representation of the fabric to Pansies is in Amber (fig. 1).
The fabric was of the type supplied by Arthur Lasenby Liberty, who opened his eponymous store in Regent Street in 1875. Liberty was a ‘textile merchant’ (fig. 2) who furnished artists’ studios, and who credited various artists including Leighton, Rossetti and Burne-Jones with initiating his ‘course of education in artistic taste’. Liberty noted that ‘The soft, delicate coloured fabrics of the East particularly attracted these artists because they could get nothing of European make that draped properly, and which was of sufficiently well-balanced colouring to satisfy the eye’. Moore’s friendship with Liberty accounts for the four pastels by the artist in his collection.
This picture passed by descent in the family of the marine artist Henry Moore, Albert Moore’s brother. It was sold in 1993 and then again a decade later, whereupon it entered the Zuckerman collection. It remains one of the artist’s most admired works.
When it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1875 Ruskin praised it as a ‘consummately artistic and scientific work’ (Academy Notes, London, 1875, p. 15). He admired the perfectly balanced interrelationship of elements, and challenged viewers ‘by way of a lesson in composition’ to ‘hide in this picture the little honeysuckle ornament above the head [the artist’s anthemion cipher], and the little riband hanging over the basket, and see what becomes of everything!’ (ibid.) It is indeed an interesting exercise, a game 21st-century audiences might play when contemplating a Mondrian. Moore’s exactitude when it came to balance can be seen in a pentiment to the anthemion: dissatisfied with his original placement he moved it fractionally to the left. Ruskin also urged viewers to note Moore’s observation of the effects of light and shadow, emphasizing ‘the general modes of unaffected relief by which the extended left arm in ‘Pansies’ detaches itself from the background’ (op. cit., p. 16). He further recommended the use of a magnifying glass (which audiences delighted in using to examine Alma-Tadema’s technique) to study the sofa and basket.
The highly wrought finish is exemplified in the contrast between the semi-transparent gauze of the sitter’s apricot colour shift, and the pale taupe satin encircling her waist and legs. Moore’s biographer, Baldry, noted how the artist made ‘study after study so that he could be sure of giving to each one [of his fabrics] its specific character of form and fold and the anatomical structure – as it might be called – of the material from which the drapery was made’ (A.L. Baldry, Albert Moore, His Life and Works, London, 1893, p. 45). These studies also betray Moore’s interest in the Parthenon frieze. There the drapery not only defines each figure, but also adds independent linear interest to the composition as a whole.
Moore was fascinated by textiles, and this interest coincided with a broader revival in the appreciation of embroidery and anything hand-made as a reaction to inferior products made by machine. In this he touched the zeitgeist that propelled the Arts and Crafts Movement. Three years before this picture was painted, The Royal School of Art Needlework had been founded in 1872 by a group of women determined to revive ‘the principles which have guided Eastern and Western embroideries of the best periods’. They were supported by various artists and architects including Barbara Bodichon and Gertrude Jeykyll, William Morris, George Aitcheson and Walter Crane. Jeykyll’s influence was significant and deserves further exploration. She was a polymath who is principally remembered today for her influence on garden design. But before her sight failed, she was celebrated as a notable needlewoman who took inspiration from the natural world. She was in contact with Moore, and it is notable that the picture’s title and colour scheme derives from a single pansy, carefully placed almost as an incidental detail, lower left. The palette of purple, apricot and yellow pansies are repeated on the sofa cover and echoed in the geometric rug at the base of the composition. The textile on the sofa covering was probably a real piece that Moore kept in his studio as it features in a number of paintings at this date with varying degrees of detail: perhaps the closest representation of the fabric to Pansies is in Amber (fig. 1).
The fabric was of the type supplied by Arthur Lasenby Liberty, who opened his eponymous store in Regent Street in 1875. Liberty was a ‘textile merchant’ (fig. 2) who furnished artists’ studios, and who credited various artists including Leighton, Rossetti and Burne-Jones with initiating his ‘course of education in artistic taste’. Liberty noted that ‘The soft, delicate coloured fabrics of the East particularly attracted these artists because they could get nothing of European make that draped properly, and which was of sufficiently well-balanced colouring to satisfy the eye’. Moore’s friendship with Liberty accounts for the four pastels by the artist in his collection.
This picture passed by descent in the family of the marine artist Henry Moore, Albert Moore’s brother. It was sold in 1993 and then again a decade later, whereupon it entered the Zuckerman collection. It remains one of the artist’s most admired works.