A man in rags sits in a rocky landscape — G F Watts, *The Prodigal Son,* 1872-73, oil on canvas
Watts Gallery Trust

This painting illustrates a moment in the story of the Prodigal Son. The younger son has spent all the money that his father gave him. His only option is to find work looking after pigs. He is so poor that he even considers eating the pigs’ food.

George Frederic Watts shows him at his lowest ebb in a rocky landscape dressed in rags and starving. This is when he realises that, despite his shame, he must go back to his father’s house. The picture was a favourite of the influential 20th-century art critic Roger Fry, who greatly admired George’s landscape paintings.