![Dreams [Daydreams]](5.jpg)
Dreams [Daydreams]. 1863. Watercolour and gouache on paper, 8 x 12 inches (20.3 x 30.5 cm). Collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, accession no. B1980.37. Click on image to enlarge it.
his painting is important, not only because of its inherent beauty, but because it is the first time Burton features a striking young child model who will later appear in his masterpiece The Child Miranda of 1864 and Clematis of c.1865. In these latter two paintings D. G. Rossetti was the obvious influence but this initial painting is more reminiscent of portraits of children by John Everett Millais. Burton’s model is clothed in white emphasizing the purity and innocence of childhood. James Whistler’s Symphony in White series may also have influenced it. Burton’s picture, in turn, may have influenced both Whistler and Millais. Its composition is very similar to Whistler’s etching Weary of 1863. Both Burton and Whistler may have influenced Millais’s Sisters of 1868, an Aesthetic portrait of Millais’s three eldest daughters dressed in identical white dresses, as well as his Portrait of Nina Lehmann of 1868-69. In Dreams the young girl hold a sprig of clematis in her hand, similar to Clematis, but in this case the flowers are pink and not white. This flower was likely included for symbolic purposes. In the language of flowers a pink clematis symbolizes caring and love of family and the power of long-term friendships and deep family ties.
This picture received favourable reviews when it was shown at the O.W.S. in 1863, although most of the praise was reserved for Iostephane that Burton exhibited that same year. The critic of The Art Journal commenting on Dreams wrote: ”No. 230 by the same artist...is one of more voluptuous and romantic beauty, calling in to the aid of drawing the fascination of fervent colours. Here we delight on a girl-like loveliness, with auburn hair falling as a shower of gold upon her shoulders, which press on a softly yielding pillow, bright as an emerald sea” (117). The critic for The Saturday Review wrote: “Three figure pieces by F. W. Burton – marvels of elaborate manipulation –are very conspicuous…and better still, a little child playing with flowers” (598). The reviewer for The Illustrated London News was the most enthusiastic in his praise, however:
The most exquisite figure-drawing in the room, and, we think, surpassing in loveliness everything the artist has previously exhibited, is No. 239, by Mr. Burton. It is simply a study of a young and beautiful girl, dressed in white muslin, lying idly on a couch, the rich golden-auburn hair scattered over the green figured velvet cushion, the head and eyes turned towards a spray of eglantine held in one fair white hand. A drawing more remarkable for ornate yet chaste elegance, for pure and tender pearliness of colour, and for delicacy of drawing and foreshortening, we do not remember to have seen. [494]
Bibliography
“Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Art Journal New Series 7 (1861): 117-19.
“The Water Colour Exhibitions.” The Saturday Review 15 (May 9, 1863): 597-98.
“Fine Arts. Society of Painters in Water Colours.” The Illustrated London News 42 (May 2, 1863): 494-95.
Last modified 12 April 2022