Leaving Home, by Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859-1929)

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Leaving Home

Henry Herbert La Thangue (1859-1929)

Dated 1889-90 (exhibited 1890)

Oil on canvas

179 x 150.2 cm

Private Collection

The Athenaeum

Controversial when first shown, this is described on Christie's website as a "definitive portrayal of the massive social changes affecting the English countryside in the late nineteenth century." Commentary continues below. [Mouse over the text for links, and click on the image to enlarge it.]

Downloaded from the Athenaeum website, where it is stated to be in the public domain, by Jacqueline Banerjee, who also wrote the commentary.

The picture tells a common tale with great empathy. Judging by the mother and children seeing her off, the girl being borne away so relentlessly from her rural home is probably just old enough to find employment. Sombrely dressed, she is likely to be going into service as a maid in some big house. Part of the impact comes from the contrast of the white pony, and other splashes of white (including the elderly driver's beard), in the wintry scene. The old ways are changing, life moves on, and it does so — unstoppably, it seems — in front of our very eyes.

The painting attracted a good deal of attention at the time. One critic, seeing it as an example of "modern Anglo-French work" wrote:

If we at all accept its style of art, there is no work of such importance in the Gallery as Mr. La Thangue's large Leaving Home. In any case this would be a notable picture for strength and marvellous freshness of impression. The subject is a simple one enough, a village girl leaving home for service for the first time. She is sitting in a carrier's cart with her face covered by her hands, the carrier is whipping up his old grey horse with professional indifference, her parents, and brothers and sisters, are all at the cottage gate to say good-bye. The horse is trotting plump towards us out of the picture: one feels almost tempted to get out of the way, so realistic is the impression of movement. If the work, however, had only possessed these merits, we should have scarcely thought it deserving of such high praise, but Mr. La Thangue has in the present instance succeeded in painting not only an extraordinarily realistic picture, but one in which the study of sentiment and character is very highly above the average. The difference in the expression of grief in the mother's and father's faces is very subtle and profoundly natural, so are the varying expressions of the younger children, so is the unconcern, or rather obliviousness, of the driver. Note, too, for a little piece of genuine insight, the gesture with which the girl, through all her sorrow, still clings to the band-box upon her knee. Certainly we will not quarrel with realistic art if it will frequently give us such work as this, and feel almost inclined to say that Mr. La Thangue shall have a license to be as ugly as he pleases — and he does sometimes please to be very ugly indeed — if only he will stray into beauty now and then, as he has done here. [Quilter 397]

Bibliography

"Henry Herbert La Thangue, RA (1859-1929): Leaving Home." Christie's.. Web. 4 October 2016.

Leaving Home. The Athenaeum. Web. 4 October 2016.

Quilter, Harry. Preferences in Art, Life, and Literature. London: s. Sonnenschein, 1892. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Getty Research Institute. Web. 4 October 2016.

Created 4 October 2016