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Lot Essay
This charming example of Crane’s mature style, exhibited at the Royal Water-Colour Society in 1894 when he was nearly fifty, highlights two key iconographical ideas central to much of his work. The first being that of flowers, and specifically their personification, and the second of rebirth and renewal.
Five years earlier, in 1889, he had produced Flora’s Feast: A Masque of Flowers, a children’s picture-book in which flowers appear as human figures dressed according to their species (fig. 1). As Isobel Spencer observes, the confident linear designs, though clearly indebted to William Blake, also 'herald the decade of Art Nouveau'. Published by Cassell & Co., the book 'contains forty unframed colour-lithographed pages illustrating Flora calling the flowers from their winter sleep, each appearing according to its place in the yearly cycle… Crane must have been familiar with Grandville’s designs for Les Fleurs Animées (1847), but his floral figures lack the lingering formality of even those lively creations. Such apparently effortless invention is misleading, however, since Crane’s effects could not possibly have been achieved without a considerable understanding of plant form' (Spencer, Walter Crane, London, 1975, pp. 99–100).
Crane’s book proved immensely popular, and he readily capitalised on its success. Four further volumes followed, offering variations on the same theme: Queen Summer, or The Tourney of the Lily and the Rose (1891), A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden (1899), A Flower Wedding (1905), and Flowers from Shakespeare’s Garden (1906).
Ensigns of Spring also belongs to this genre, although it does not correspond exactly to any design in the flower-book series. Such imagery is less common in Crane’s oil paintings, though parallels exist. These include A Water Lily, shown at the New Gallery in 1888; Poppies and Corn, exhibited at the R.W.S. in 1893, no. 180 (illustrated in the catalogue); and The Mower (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe), an unusually sombre allegory of 1901 in which Death scythes a field of personified daisies (illustrated in Spencer, op. cit., p. 130).
In Ensigns of Spring, the three figures represent flowers emblematic of the season— irises, lilies, and bluebells taking centre stage. They wear their flowers as hats and carry them like martyrs’ palms. The colours of the blooms, the dresses, and the surrounding foliage combine to create a natural and subtle aesthetic harmony.
Crane’s focus on spring flowers introduces the second, more philosophically significant preoccupation of his: the theme of rebirth and renewal. He returned to this idea many times, often expressed through the changing seasons. Works embodying the concept are numerous: A Herald of Spring, The Advent of Spring, Winter and Spring, The Earth and Spring, The Coming of May, La Primavera, The Triumph of Spring, and many more. Spanning his entire career, these pictures typically celebrate the joy and vitality associated with the season. Even in Sorrow and Spring, a late work exhibited at the Royal Water-Colour Society in 1901, the arrival of spring dispels grief and misery.
In June 2002, Christie’s sold one of Crane’s most ambitious meditations on this theme, the large mural-like The Fate of Persephone (fig. 2), exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878. It portrays Persephone, goddess of spring, being abducted by Pluto, lord of the underworld, as she gathers flowers in the vale of Enna. At Demeter’s request, Zeus decreed that Persephone must return to earth for half the year, and the ancient world understood the myth as a metaphor for the cycle of the seasons: her descent into Hades signals autumn and winter, her return the arrival of spring and summer.
At the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery the previous year, Crane had already explored this subject in mythological terms in The Renaissance of Venus (1877, Tate, London). There, the birth of the goddess of beauty symbolises cultural renewal, fitting for such a landmark event. The Fate of Persephone represents the reverse process, though Crane carefully suggests the eventual return of life and beauty: a flowering pomegranate tree spreads over the entrance to Hades, while daffodils, jonquils, anemones, and narcissi bloom in the foreground.
When he exhibited The Fate of Persephone, Crane included a passage from Paradise Lost in the catalogue. Morna O’Neill has argued that this was deliberate: rather than a convenient literary reference, it invokes one of the most powerful expressions of redemption and regeneration. As such, Crane clearly regarded allegory as a vehicle for profound moral truth. On top of this, his decision to paint the work on a monumental scale places it within the tradition of history painting, long considered the most ethically and didactically significant art form.
Although not conventionally religious, Crane described himself as a free thinker influenced by Shelley, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer. He likely subscribed to the 'religion of humanity' that appealed to many Victorians, including his early hero John Ruskin after his loss of Christian faith in 1858. Ruskin came to view myth as equivalent to scripture in expressing 'spiritual truth', and Crane’s imagery of renewal reflects this idea in practice.
However, Crane was not always so earnest. As his children’s books demonstrate, he could be playful as well as serious, and in Ensigns of Spring this lighter approach predominates. For him, rebirth may have been a social imperative, but it could also serve as the basis for a whimsical and visually delightful expression of Aesthetic taste.
Five years earlier, in 1889, he had produced Flora’s Feast: A Masque of Flowers, a children’s picture-book in which flowers appear as human figures dressed according to their species (fig. 1). As Isobel Spencer observes, the confident linear designs, though clearly indebted to William Blake, also 'herald the decade of Art Nouveau'. Published by Cassell & Co., the book 'contains forty unframed colour-lithographed pages illustrating Flora calling the flowers from their winter sleep, each appearing according to its place in the yearly cycle… Crane must have been familiar with Grandville’s designs for Les Fleurs Animées (1847), but his floral figures lack the lingering formality of even those lively creations. Such apparently effortless invention is misleading, however, since Crane’s effects could not possibly have been achieved without a considerable understanding of plant form' (Spencer, Walter Crane, London, 1975, pp. 99–100).
Crane’s book proved immensely popular, and he readily capitalised on its success. Four further volumes followed, offering variations on the same theme: Queen Summer, or The Tourney of the Lily and the Rose (1891), A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden (1899), A Flower Wedding (1905), and Flowers from Shakespeare’s Garden (1906).
Ensigns of Spring also belongs to this genre, although it does not correspond exactly to any design in the flower-book series. Such imagery is less common in Crane’s oil paintings, though parallels exist. These include A Water Lily, shown at the New Gallery in 1888; Poppies and Corn, exhibited at the R.W.S. in 1893, no. 180 (illustrated in the catalogue); and The Mower (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe), an unusually sombre allegory of 1901 in which Death scythes a field of personified daisies (illustrated in Spencer, op. cit., p. 130).
In Ensigns of Spring, the three figures represent flowers emblematic of the season— irises, lilies, and bluebells taking centre stage. They wear their flowers as hats and carry them like martyrs’ palms. The colours of the blooms, the dresses, and the surrounding foliage combine to create a natural and subtle aesthetic harmony.
Crane’s focus on spring flowers introduces the second, more philosophically significant preoccupation of his: the theme of rebirth and renewal. He returned to this idea many times, often expressed through the changing seasons. Works embodying the concept are numerous: A Herald of Spring, The Advent of Spring, Winter and Spring, The Earth and Spring, The Coming of May, La Primavera, The Triumph of Spring, and many more. Spanning his entire career, these pictures typically celebrate the joy and vitality associated with the season. Even in Sorrow and Spring, a late work exhibited at the Royal Water-Colour Society in 1901, the arrival of spring dispels grief and misery.
In June 2002, Christie’s sold one of Crane’s most ambitious meditations on this theme, the large mural-like The Fate of Persephone (fig. 2), exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1878. It portrays Persephone, goddess of spring, being abducted by Pluto, lord of the underworld, as she gathers flowers in the vale of Enna. At Demeter’s request, Zeus decreed that Persephone must return to earth for half the year, and the ancient world understood the myth as a metaphor for the cycle of the seasons: her descent into Hades signals autumn and winter, her return the arrival of spring and summer.
At the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery the previous year, Crane had already explored this subject in mythological terms in The Renaissance of Venus (1877, Tate, London). There, the birth of the goddess of beauty symbolises cultural renewal, fitting for such a landmark event. The Fate of Persephone represents the reverse process, though Crane carefully suggests the eventual return of life and beauty: a flowering pomegranate tree spreads over the entrance to Hades, while daffodils, jonquils, anemones, and narcissi bloom in the foreground.
When he exhibited The Fate of Persephone, Crane included a passage from Paradise Lost in the catalogue. Morna O’Neill has argued that this was deliberate: rather than a convenient literary reference, it invokes one of the most powerful expressions of redemption and regeneration. As such, Crane clearly regarded allegory as a vehicle for profound moral truth. On top of this, his decision to paint the work on a monumental scale places it within the tradition of history painting, long considered the most ethically and didactically significant art form.
Although not conventionally religious, Crane described himself as a free thinker influenced by Shelley, Darwin, and Herbert Spencer. He likely subscribed to the 'religion of humanity' that appealed to many Victorians, including his early hero John Ruskin after his loss of Christian faith in 1858. Ruskin came to view myth as equivalent to scripture in expressing 'spiritual truth', and Crane’s imagery of renewal reflects this idea in practice.
However, Crane was not always so earnest. As his children’s books demonstrate, he could be playful as well as serious, and in Ensigns of Spring this lighter approach predominates. For him, rebirth may have been a social imperative, but it could also serve as the basis for a whimsical and visually delightful expression of Aesthetic taste.