The First Communion by Flora Macdonald Reid (1861-1938)

The First Communion by Flora Macdonald Reid (1861–1938). Oil on canvas. 1894. Birmingham Museums Trust. Accession no. 1896P78. Presented by George Myers, 1896. Reproduced from Art UK by Jacqueline Banerjee, on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (CC BY-NC). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Commentary by Pamela Nunn

Closer view of the main group.

In this painting, Reid builds on her success of the previous year, Faith, which was awarded a medal at the Paris Exposition. Like that work, this is a horizontal canvas showing a market scene typical of the many large towns and cities of France and Belgium that British gallery-goers would recognise from their holidays on the Continent. The exact location does not matter, although the architectural background suggests Belgium in this case, because the focus is on the touching (some would say, sentimental) anecdote unfolding in the foreground.

Closer view of some of the "local colour" elements around the main group.

The elements that Reid began to repeat over and over are amassed here to add local colour to the simple human subject of the young woman contemplating her first communion, an important date in the lives of Roman Catholic families: piles or heaps of fresh produce, bric-a-brac or old clothes (depending on the stalls depicted), old women in their vernacular dress, a few little children with nothing much to do, a woman with her baby, overarching trees. These paintings were popular with gallery-goers until the 1920s, although critics began long before that to find fault with Reid’s lack of variety.

Bibliography

The First Communion by Flora Macdonald Reid (1860-1945). Art UK. Web. 8 July 2022.

Created 8 July 2022