George Herbert at Bemerton by William Dyce. c.1860-61. Oil on canvas. 33 7/8 x 44 inches (86 x 112 cm). Collection: Guildhall Art Gallery, London. Accession no. 660. Photographs by Jacqueline Banerjee. Reproduced courtesy of the City of London Corporation.
Ronald Blythe explains that the painting "shows the poet in his rectory garden by the river Nadder, neatly dressed in his cassock and with a finger holding the place in his prayer-book. The spire of Salisbury Cathedral is in the background. Fishing—tackle by a tree reminds us that Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler (1653), was Herbert's first biographer" (xv).
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
Dyce exhibited this work at the Royal Academy in 1861, no. 98, accompanied by these lines in the catalogue taken from The Complete Angler: "Come, let me tell you what holy Mr. Herbert says of such days and flowers as these; and then we will thank God that we enjoy them.…he had a spirit suitable to anglers and to those primitive Christians that you love, and have so much commended." Dyce's picture shows the seventeenth- century clergyman, devotional lyricist and poet, who abandoned a promising career as an orator and scholar at Cambridge to move with his wife Jane to live a simple life at the vicarage of Bemerton. Dyce painted this picture at Bemerton where he was staying with his friend, the Rev. Cyril Page, who may have inspired the painting. Marcia Pointon felt Dyce's portrait of Herbert succeeded because it carried a sense of personal conviction: "George Herbert was a particularly compelling subject for William. Not only was he an artist in the service of God, but he was one of a group of seventeenth-century divines whose writings were favoured by the Tractarian. As a result of this Bemerton became a shrine of true anglicanism in the nineteenth century" (175). Christopher Newall felt "the retiring and devout life that Herbert led at Bemerton, avoiding as he did all sophistication and worldliness so that he might devotedly serve his parishioners, appealed to Victorians who were nostalgic for a time when it seemed that the patterns of existence were less fraught" (273).
A dignified figure, Herbert is apparently reciting verses from the prayer-book aloud as he keeps his place in it. As for his surroundings, Dyce would have found the poet's garden there, with its distant view of the cathedral spire, largely unchanged, and the fishing tackle by the ivy-covered oak-tree trunk reminds us not only of Izaak Walton, but of Herbert's own fondness for angling — and his vocation as a "fisher of men" (Pointon 176). Another detail is the lute: Herbert was known as "The sweet singer of the Temple" and, here again, there is a symbolic dimension: the lute by the stone bench in the background serves as a reminder of Herbert's love of music, and the lyricism of his poetry. Although tradition has it that Herbert liked to sit under the medlar tree in his garden, Jennifer Melville thought Dyce depicted Herbert standing "perhaps in order to imply activity – at least intellectual activity. His raised arm suggests that he is composing a poem or song, using what he can see around him to contemplate greater themes" (182). Melville felt Dyce was attracted to Herbert "as he saw in him a parallel self – through painting such simple subjects he could become a visual poet and deliver to his audience similar devout messages" (182).
Dyce based Herbert's face on the only known image of the poet, a posthumous engraving by Robert White, although Dyce has idealised Herbert to make him appear younger. Pointon has pointed out the beauty of the landscape portrayed: "The beautiful vista across marshy land to Salisbury Cathedral, the calm stillness of the river, and the breezeless sky helps to create a mood which complements and enhances the subject, a mood which is lacking in Titian's [Titian Preparing to Make his First Essay in Colour] claustrophobic garden" (175).
Contemporary Reviews of the Picture
Above: The painting in its frame.
The critic of The Art Journal reviewed this work extensively when it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1861. He first discussed Herbert's background before going on to talk about the picture itself, and while praising it also questioned whether the subject of this painting is the Pre-Raphaelite landscape or the figure of Herbert:
There could have been few finer subjects of its class, and, in some important respects, there never was any such subject more perfectly worked out by an artist. The drawing and painting of those grand old trees are absolutely wonderful, while the foreground, the grass, the wildflowers, and the weeds, defy description in the literal perfection of the delineation. For these qualities Mr. Dyce deserves, as he will receive, the admiration of all competent to express an opinion, and none more than of artists, who know what he has overcome, and how much he has achieved…. Although anyone may satisfy himself of this by experiment, it by no means follows that Mr. Dyce adopted the method, and if these trees, and ivy leaves, and grass, and wild flowers, be all painted in oils from nature, without the aid of photography or water colours, then must this picture be considered by artists, as it ought to be esteemed by the public, a still more marvellous triumph of manipulative success and skill. But it awakens another feeling of doubt. Is it George Herbert at Bemerton, or trees at Bemerton, with Herbert introduced? In the whole scope of thought and working out, the figure is evidently subordinate to the landscape, and especially the trees; and few among the thousands who view this work ever mention Herbert when they admire the picture, but reserve their admiration for, and bestow it on, the trees and wildflowers. This is surely a cardinal mistake in the working out of the artist's idea, if, indeed, he did not paint the trees for their own sake, and introduce the poet as an afterthought, for the sake of a good title, which is more than possible; but taking it to be what the title says it is, this defect in the realization of the artist's idea involves the whole principle of that style which Mr. Dyce has adopted, in exchange for the grander and more consistent creed of his earlier artistic career … we have thus dwelt upon this work because it is one full of captivating qualities, based on what we believe to be false principles. [165]
Surprisingly, F. G. Stephens writing in The Athenaeum positively loathed this picture:
Mr. Dyce has done far nobler things than his ivory-surfaced, tame, unloving, and only apparently laborious picture of George Herbert at Bemerton (98), a fleshless, bloodless, and extremely unpleasant George Herbert, looking somewhere into a tree with a sanctimonious smirk of the most offensive order. The painting of this picture is truly dishonest, because it pretends to finish it does not possess. Smoothness is not elaboration; and any amount of feeble stippling may be had at a lower price than this artist would like his fame to be set. There is not a tuft of grass in this picture that is conscientiously painted, although the stippling has reduced it to sheer ivory. The background of grey withies and willows is atrociously "scamped"; the ivy-leaves decorating the highly-polished tree trunks are false in every quality of colour and light. There is an artificial Art in the tree-trunks themselves that ill accompanies the really good broad simplicity of the figure's black dress. [634-35]
The Builder, on the other hand, admired the landscape depicted: "The admiration excited by Mr. Dyce's picture, George Herbert at Bemerton (98), is less qualified than was the case as to his remarkable Sea-shore picture [Pegwell Bay] last year; nevertheless, the landscape portion of it is admirable" (333). A reviewer for The Illustrated London News found the picture a charming creation:
In poetic landscape W. Dyce produces an impressive work entitled George Herbert at Bemerton (98)…. The scene (whether a copy from nature or an imaginary composition we know not) is in admirable harmony with the sentiment suggested by these beautiful words of the apostle of angling – a cool, shady spot beneath some noble forest-trees, skirted by a cool, calm stream running between low-sedgy banks; and a distant view of an old English spire. Good Mr. Herbert is sauntering in pensive mood through this pleasant retreat, his fishing-tackle for the moment laid aside. The patient finish of all the details of this little landscape, the silvery tone which pervades it, and the grateful atmosphere in which the whole is bathed, render this one of the most charming creations of the year. [461]
Bibliography
Barringer, Jeremy. Reading the Pre-Raphaelites. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
Blythe, Ronald. A Priest to the Temple, or The Country Parson, with Selected Poems: George Herbert. Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2003.
"Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series VII (June 1, 1861): 161-72.
"Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News XXXVIII (May 18, 1861): 461.
Melville, Jennifer. William Dyce and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision. Ed. Jennifer Melville. Aberdeen: Aberdeen City Council, 2006, cat. 53, 182-83.
Newall, Christopher. British Vision. Observation and Imagination in British Art 1750-1950. Ed. Robert Hoozee. Brussels: Mercatorfonds. Museum Voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, 2007, cat. 193, 273.
Pointon, Marcia. William Dyce 1806-1864, A Critical Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.
"The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Builder XIX (18 May 1861): 333.
Staley, Allen. The Pre-Raphaelite Landscape. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Art. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1750 (11 May 1861): 634-36.
Wood, Christopher. The Pre-Raphaelites. London: Seven Dials, 1981.
Created 27 May 2007
Last modified 20 December 2024