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Picture of the Month

December 2009: Peace and Goodwill

At a time when ‘peace and goodwill’ is heard more than usual, it seemed an ideal moment to consider G F Watts’s take on the subject. His painting, Peace and Goodwill, like much of his art, goes against the typical view of the subject. It can be seen on display at St. Paul’s Cathedral until the end of December.

George Frederic Watts OM RA (1817-1904)
Peace and Goodwill, 1901
Oil on canvas
St Paul’s Cathedral

On 19th February 1907, Canon Scott-Holland wrote to Mary Watts, the widow of the artist G F Watts, requesting that a picture might be presented to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s as a companion to the picture Time, Death and Judgement already in the Cathedral. Mary suggested that Peace and Goodwill would make the most appropriate gift, “no other painting seeming suitable.” “Had he lived longer,” she later wrote, “it was Mr. Watts’s intention to paint another version of Love Triumphant for this space.”

Mary Watts described how Watts made a wax model of the figure of ‘Peace’ which was ‘twisted up together and draped in wet handkerchiefs.’ She described the scene of the artist working from this unconventional model:

‘The wax lady is poised on the edge of the table, and he, a few feet off, is leaning back in his chair, one knee thrown across the other. All the lines are long and come so well, his figure reminds me of nothing so much as one of his own silverpoint drawings. His drawing-book, held at arm's length with one hand, is just supported by his raised knee, the other hand is working away busily. Then clear-cut against the window I see the small head moving up and down, as he sends that earnest direct glance of his from his model to his sketch. It was surprising to see the beauty that was suggested to his eye by that rough little figure, and to watch the regal robes that came into existence later when, using gouache, he made sketches from this figure in colour’.

A first and smaller version in the collection of the Watts Gallery was painted in 1887. This large painting was painted much later when the artist became interested again in the idea of the painting. It was never fully completed and his neighbour Mrs Barrington wrote of the highly of the work where she describes ‘the dry pigment was put on with loose, large free touches.’

Peace and Goodwill is much more uncertain in its message than the joyful triumph of love conquering death in Love Triumphant that he had intended for the space. Like several of Watts’s late paintings it raised an open question as to whether it represents the end or a new beginning, or as the artist phrased it, “is it dawn or conflagration?” Watts further explained the idea of the work, “Peace,” he said “was to be a queen, though she is a wanderer and out-cast from her kingdom. She will turn wearily towards a streak of light which may mean the dawn of better things. The son, her heir, is still only a young child upon her knee.”

 

 

 

The artist intends the viewer to reflect on the ideas of peace and goodwill and use the painting to explore this through their allegorial depiction. In particular, the relationship of the two concepts through being conceived as mother and child.

Peace and Goodwill can be seen on display in the nave of St.Paul’s Cathedral until the end of December 2009 opposite Time, Death and Judgement its companion picture.