Left: Beati Mundo Corde [Blessed are the Pure in Heart] , 1852. Oil on panel, arched top. 12 ¾ x 8 ¼ inches (34.2 x 21 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Christie's, London, by kind permission. Right click disabled; not to be reproduced. Right: Study for Beati Mundo Corde [Blessed are the Pure in Heart] , 1852. Click on this image for more detailed information, and to see a larger version.
Collins exhibited this painting, long thought lost, at the Royal Academy in 1852, no. 347, accompanied by these lines in the exhibition catalogue "So keep thou by calm prayer and searching thought, etc." The drawing is inscribed on an old mount "Beati Mundo Corde / Let no earth-stain thy robe of glory mar:/ Wrap it around thy bosom undefiled...Keble." This quotation was taken from the Anglican clergyman John Keble's Lyra Innocentium: Thoughts in Verse on Christian Children, Theirs Ways and Privileges first published in 1846. The lines are from poem eleven entitled "'White Apparel' I. The Chrisom," which includes the Biblical quotation "These are they which have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb."
The painting shows a young woman fastening the cloak of a nun-like white robe around her neck. It has much in common with Collins's The Thoughts with which a Christian Child Should Be Taught to Look on the Works of God that he painted that same year, but which was not exhibited until the following year. When Beati Mundo Corde was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852 the critic of The Art Journal had little sympathy for the subject depicted: "No. 347, C. Collins. This is a single figure – that of a woman – apparently assuming the robe of a devotee. The subject is from Keble's Lyra Innocentium . This is going far for a subject, and faring rather indifferently. There can be but little public sympathy with the 'pribbles and prabbles' of any sect in Art. It will be better for them when the maturer time shall come, and the 'pulses of their being shall beat anew'" (171). A reviewer for The Athenaeum felt the model chosen for the picture was inappropriate for the painting's intended subject: "In No. 347 Mr. Collins gives us a young girl who – we are to imagine – preserves her 'chrysom' purity by wearing a sort of white, flannelly nun-robe; but her cherry-ripe lip and plump cheek are hardly in keeping with the sentiment of the downcast eye and the ascetic costume" (582). The Illustrated London News was also not impressed with this work feeling painting it had largely been a waste of time: "Sickly, and at the same absurd, is Collins' Female Devotee (347), distinguished by the lines from Keble's Lyra Innocentium, beginning – 'So keep thou by calm prayer and searching thought / Thy chrisom, pure, &c.' We have a very commonplace face earnestly looking down at the owner's two common-looking hands, which are endeavouring to hook on the white 'garb of purity.' It is all cold pretence, all 'much ado about nothing' on canvas" (407).
The painting in its frame. Image courtesy of Christie's, London, by kind permission. Right click disabled; not to be reproduced.
W. M. Rossetti in The Spectator felt the work itself was well painted but again felt the model was inappropriate for the subject chosen:
The other works in this class painted on the Pre-Raphaelite principle – as the adopters of the name understand it – are Mr. Brown's subject of the last century bearing the infantine title The Pretty Baa-Lambs and Mr. Collins's No. 347… Mr. Collins's female head – to which a quotation from Keble is attached, and which represents, we presume, a novice induing the convent vesture – is exquisitely painted. The hands especially are beautiful: but the face is too much that of a country girl – sensible, indeed, and good, but not eligible as the ideal of a bride of heaven. [472]
David Masson in The British Quarterly Review in 1852 liked the technical qualities of the painting but not the sentiment expressed:
No. 347 bears no title, but it is described by a verse from Keble's Lyra Innocentium, appended to it in the catalogue, and of which it is designed as an illustration. The verse is as follows:–
So keep thou, by calm prayer and searching thought,
Thy Chrisom pure, that still, as weeks roll by,
And heaven rekindles, gladdening earth and sky,
The glow that from the grave our champion brought,
Pledge of high victory by his dread wounds wrought,
Thou mayst put on the garb of purity.
To illustrate this, or be illustrated by it, we hardly know which, we have the figure of a young girl, in a very stiff, high white dress, against a blue background. The face is that of an ordinary modern girl; the eyes are looking down at the fingers, which are engaged in fasting the dress close round the throat; and the whole expression is rather sullen. The painting, we believe, would be described by good judges as, technically, very well done, though there is not much of it; and any objection we would take to it is on the deeper ground of the meaning and sentiment. [214]
As can be seen, the painting closely follows the study for it in the collection of the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California.
Bibliography
"The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, 1852." The Art Journal New Series IV (June 1, 1852): 165-176.
"Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1282 (22 May 1852): 581-83.
Masson, David. "Pre-Raphaelitism in Art and Literature." The British Quarterly Review XVI (August 1852): 197-220.
Rossetti, William Michael. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Spectator XXV (15 May 1852): 471-72.
"The Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News XXII (May 22, 1852): 407-08.
Created 1 November 2024