Thoughts of the Past is an oil painting on canvas by English Pre-Raphaelite artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, first exhibited in 1859 and currently housed at Tate Britain.
| Thoughts of the Past | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | John Roddam Spencer Stanhope |
| Year | Exhibited in 1859 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 86.4 cm × 50.8 cm (34.0 in × 20.0 in) |
| Location | Tate Britain, London |
History
editKnown as one of the "second-generation" of Pre-Raphaelites, Stanhope was among Dante Gabriel Rossetti's mural-painting party at the Oxford Union in 1857, together with Arthur Hughes, John Hungerford Pollen, Valentine Prinsep, Ned Burne-Jones and William Morris (nicknamed Topsy). He was a founder member of the Hogarth Club, a direct descendant of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.[1]
This painting, with his depiction of a prostitute remorsefully contemplating her life, showed a subject typical of the Victorian era. Works such as Thoughts of the Past and Rossetti's Found (1855) allowed the genteel gallery-going public to sympathise with societal problems - from a safe distance. It was pictures such as William Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience (1854), illustrating a married man and his mistress, which were regarded as threatening to Victorian family life.[2]
Stanhope painted Thoughts of the Past in a studio just above one owned by Rossetti. Although his model is recognisably Pre-Raphaelite, the background of his painting hints at his own individual, artistic style, which was yet to emerge.[3] The river, boats and bridge owe more to the conventional style of the art in the Royal Academy than to that of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.see image detail below
See also
editReferences
edit
- ^ A.M.W. Stirling, "The Life of Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Pre-Raphaelite, a Painter of Dreams," in A Painter of Dreams and Other Biographical Studies (London: Lane, 1916).
- ^ T. Hilto, The Pre-Raphelites, Thames and Hudson (1970). Cf. also Elaine Shefer, "The 'Bird in the Cage' in the "History of Sexuality: Sir John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt," Journal of the History of Sexuality 1 (1991), p. 475, note 48.
- ^ Elise Lawton Smith, Evelyn Pickering de Morgan and the Allegorical Body, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (2002).
Further reading
edit- Hilto, Timoth, The Pre-Raphelites, Thames and Hudson (1970).
- Robinson, Michael, The Pre-Raphaelites, Flame Tree Publishing (2007).
- Todd, Pamela, Pre-Raphaelites at Home, Watson-Giptill Publications, (2001).
External links
edit- Thoughts of the Past at Tate Britain
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Thoughts of the Past, exhibited 1859, Smarthistory video
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, artist (Victorian Art in Britain)
- History of Cawthorne, Chapter IV, Cannon Hall
- John Roddam Spencer Stanhope by Lewis Carroll (National Portrait Gallery)
- "John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and the Tomb of His Daughter Mary: An Ongoing Research Project" by Nic Peeters and Judy Oberhausen
- Official website of Tate Britain