Monday 11 March 2013

Joanna Boyce Wells 2

Further to my earlier post about this artist's absence from the Tate's Pre-Raphaelites show [ surely not in response to it? ] , the good news is that her two works in the Tate Collection are on display until May this year.  Not widely publicised, and amid some 300 other 19th century pictures of variable quality and interest - but  Gretchen, for example, is nicely hung next to  Whistler's Little White Girl.    

A bit hard to see in the wall shot, so here is Gretchen  - the betrayed heroine of Goethe's Faust  - unframed and on her unfinished own, showing the composition in its simplest and purest form, without the  accessories and details one supposes  were to be added to bring the picture to the expected level of finish.

Sidney, a small, enchanting portrait of the artist's infant son, hangs a little further along the wall..

 

1 comment:

  1. Hello Jan, It's interesting to see the unfinished version of this painting, to study the construction, layering of paint and to guess at what the artist had in mind.

    Kind regards

    Kevin Marsh

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