The Thoughts with which a Christian Child Should Be Taught to Look on the Works of God, by Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873). 1852. Oil on panel. 13 1/2 x 10 inches (34.3 x 25.4 cm). The Maas Gallery, London. Image courtesy of Rupert Maas, the Maas Gallery. Not to be downloaded; right click disabled.
Although this work was painted the same year as two of Collins's most important pictures, both of which he exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1852 – May, in the Regent's Park and The Devout Childhood of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary – this painting was not exhibited at the Royal Academy until the following year, no. 346. Collins inscribed an old label on the back of the painting with the title of the work, and with these lines of poetry: "Thou, who has given me eyes to see/ And love this sight so fair,/ Give me a heart to find out Thee,/ And read Thee everywhere." The quotation is taken from the last stanza of the poem "Septuagesima Sunday" by the theologian John Keble in his book The Christian Year published in 1827. Keble's Tractarianism was resisted by the majority of Anglicans, who felt its High Church principles were too close to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, but Collins was a devout follower of this movement as has been pointed out by W. M. Rossetti:
There was an impression abroad that the Praeraphalite Brothers and their allies were inclined to "Puseyism" or "the Oxford Movement." As to the actual P.R.B.s this was not correct: some of them were religiously (without being Puseyitically) inclined, some others were quite in the contrary direction. The only ally of the Brotherhood as to whom I perceived the statement to be well founded was Charles Collins; he took an obvious interest in religious matters, and his interest went steadily in that High Church direction. [152]
This picture was painted in the exacting manner of early work by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. As Rupert Maas has explained:
The picture is partly painted onto a wet white ground, making it wonderfully iridescent. It was a difficult process to master; for each session both the ground and the paint had to be painstakingly and consistently prepared, and then applied in stages in quantities small enough to avoid drying out too soon in order to achieve a uniform effect. The technique, like true fresco, can leave patches in the paint marking each visit to the canvas - discernible here in the dress…. This use of the wet white ground to make such intense colour, the attention to detail and the religious subject matter are typical only of the small handful of early Pre-Raphaelite paintings that revolutionised British art.
This depiction of a young girl examining a fuscia plant, while holding a bouquet of mixed flowers against her chest with her left hand, is full of the Tractarian religious symbolism common amongst the early productions of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The girl is dressed in a simple white gown, symbolic of her innocence and purity. She holds her right hand up as if giving a benediction. Maas has pointed out that the girl adopts a pose and wears a shirt strikingly similar to those of the boy Christ in Millais's Christ in the Carpenter's Shop of 1850. According to an ancient legend the fuchsia plant sprang from the blood of Christ at the foot of the cross and its flowers droop as if hanging their heads in sorrow. In Christian based symbolism the pansies present in the girl's bouquet are said to represent the flowers that were at the foot of the cross at Jesus's crucifixion and when his blood dripped on them they took on his blood and became pansies. Maas has described the religious significance of the flowers:
The flowers the girl holds are cut pansies of vibrant colour, scented sweet violet and bignonia, which does not wither before dropping; she contemplates the flowers of a potted fuchsia, which bows its flowers in humility. These flowers have a deep and resonant significance to a Victorian audience. The message in Keble's poem of the title, that we have been given eyes to see and a heart to find that God is everywhere, chimes with words from a book that Collins probably knew - John Kitto's Thoughts among Flowers, published by the Religious Tract Society in 1843: "Young plants, when removed from the soil in which they were sown, to that in which they are designed to blossom, require to be protected both from sun and shade till they have taken new root...So it is with the Christian...There is nothing in which the tender and judicious care of the spiritual, as of the natural gardener, is more required, than in this treatment of the plants newly transplanted out of the wilderness of this world into that garden of the Lord in which they are designed to grow, to blossom, and to diffuse their fragrance." [Kitto 120-21, qtd. in Maas]
Detail: Flowers in the girl's hand, and some of the fuschia heads next to her.
Caterina Franciosi has pointed out another influence on Collins's painting — that of Flemish Trecento art:
In this oil on panel, presented to the Royal Academy in 1853, Collins depicts a little girl in the act of picking the flower of a fuchsia plant. She is clutching brightly colored specimens to her chest, which stand out against her white tunic. The figure emerges from a black background, in the Flemish manner, while the minute attention to botanical details and the bright colors give the panel the aesthetic preciousness and spiritual intensity of a religious painting. The arched shape of the gilded frame is a reference to the altarpieces of the fourteenth century, a format also adopted by Millais and Hunt in the same period…. Through juxtaposition with the text, Collins makes explicit the link between his work and Ruskin's credo, according to which the artist is called to express his faith through the observation and meticulous transcription of nature, which is an expression, in all its humblest forms, of divine greatness. The little girl represented by Collins is therefore a symbol of the pre-Raphaelite artist depicted in the moment, described by Ruskin, in which she turns her gaze to creation with a "pure and devoted heart." [516]
When the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853 it received mixed reviews by the critics: a reviewer for The Observer felt it was of exceptional merit: "Collins exhibits a little picture of singular merit, illustrating a verse from 'The Christian Year,' simple and unaffected in its effect - laborious and conscientious in its execution" (5). The critic of The Art Journal, however, did not like this work and also failed to appreciate its religious undertones: "No. 346. C. Collins, A small picture of a child tending flowers; the face is not attractive in character or expression; the features are finished with a cold and too obvious stipple"(147). The Athenaeum was not impressed by the Pre-Raphaelite offerings to the Royal Academy exhibition this year in general, although considering Collins's picture one of the better examples:
From this brotherhood, returning once more to "humanity," we cannot except Mr. C. Collins, – though his picture without a title (346), a young girl gathering a fuchsia, and clasping other flowers to her bosom, has so much intellectual merit as to place it far beyond the pale of that positive school. The sad, religious, sweet expression in the child's countenance makes us almost forget the care that has been bestowed on the flower-pot beside her. But if Mr. Collins can elevate homeliness into beauty, he has many companions whose faculty it is to accomplish exactly the reverse. [592]
Bibliography
"Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1333 (14 May 1853): 591-92.
Franciosi, Caterina. "Schede." Preraffaelliti Rinascimento Moderno. Forli: Fondazione Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì, 2024. 516.
Kitto, John. Thoughts among Flowers. London: The Religious Tract Society, 1843. 120-21.
Maas, Rupert. Maas Gallery exhibition label, TEFAF Maastricht, 2019.
Rossetti, William Michael. Some Reminiscences of William Michael Rossetti. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Vol. I, 1906: 152.
Ruskin, John. The Complete Works of John Ruskin. Edited by E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. London: George Allen, 1903-1912. Vol. XII: 339.
"The Eighty-fifth Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series V (1 June 1853): 141-52.
"The Royal Academy Exhibition," The Observer (2 May 1853): 5.
Created 15 September 2024