Passing Days, by John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937). 1878. Oil on panel. 15 x 44 inches (38.1 x 111.8 cm). The Pérez Simón Collection. Image courtesy of Sotheby's. [Click on all the images on this page to enlarge them.]
Passing Days, an allegory of time and mortality representing the days of a man's life passing in procession in front of him, was shown at the second Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in 1878, no. 120, It was accompanied in the catalogue by Strudwick's own description of the work:
The days of childhood, represented by children's figures, have flown into the mist of the past. The days of youth follow, and the figures hold back their hands to the man, to signify the memories the past recalls to him. The incidents of the man's life are indicated on the frieze which runs through the picture. The day just gone is best remembered, and the memory of its grief makes the day at present passing to be sad, and to walk on thorns. Then the future comes, days of good and evil, burden-bearing days; a day that fears, and seems to see, approaching death. After, follow the last and oldest days, that heed nothing but the roughness of the way. Then last of all death comes out of the clouds and mist of the future. On one side of the centre figure, Time is seated on a cloud, and puts his scythe between the man and the past days; on the other side, Love watches the procession sadly as it passes by. [qtd. in Blackburn 45]
This explanation made it easier for viewers to understand the unusual path taken by the procession which was arranged in reverse of the more traditional format (Gerard-Powell 173).
While Strudwick's work has often been criticized as being highly derivative of the work of his mentors, Edward Burne-Jones and J.R. Spencer Stanhope, Steven Kolsteren feels Passing Days is a good example of the originality and highly personal nature of Strudwick's thoughts that went into his allegorical pictures. Kolsteren has also commented on how well Strudwick has managed to explain his visual images:
The whole allegory is clearly constructed: Man, Time, and Love are situated in the centre, highlighted by the movement of the women, who symbolize mortality, and by the balcony, throne, semicircular niche and castle on the island in the background. The focal point of the scene is indicated by the outstretched arms of Man and the days of the past, which are separated by the overarching scythe of Time. The days of the past as well as those of the future look at the present, while Man's face is turned to the scythe; he cannot see his future, and even the present itself is hidden from him. The figures create a vertical tripartate division: past, present, and future. This division recurs horizontally in the clouds and mist of the foreground (birth and death), the central balcony, frieze and throne (human life), and the landscape background, itself tripartate, having a sombre, dark wood, an island and blossoming trees along a winding river. This carefully balanced composition corresponds with the meaning: Time is Man's Lord and Love, who, desperate and sad, cannot protect him. The horizontal and vertical levels isolate the centre, from which man cannot escape. [6]
Véronique Gerard-Powell also looks at the composition of the work: she points out that here, as in Love's Music, Strudwick has adopted a triptych format which has been reinforced by the semi-circular arch of the central motif. She also notes that:
Complex, poetic allegorical themes set in an indeterminate period characterise his work and relate to both the Aesthetic movement and Symbolism…. These allegories are accompanied by attributes that locate them along the path of life. Under the influence of Florentine Renaissance painting, Strudwick employs his palette of pale, muted colours across the centre of the composition…. In the centre, an island overlooked by a tall building is reminiscent of St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall. Its inclusion is perhaps an illusion to the Scales of Judgment, associated with the archangel of the same name. The central figure of the seated man looks only to the past, is unaware of the present and turns his back on the future. To the right, we see youth and a spring landscape; to the left, old age and a desolate terrain. The horizontal axes are structured around the marble balustrade with scenes of human drama in bas-relief. In front, the living frieze, formed of figures with identical proportions moves from the graceful softness of youth to the dark stiffness of old age. While their faces and poses indicate their age, a melancholy and ethereal expression unites them all. With this meditation, Strudwick seems to be insisting on humanity's inability to live in the present, a theme at the very heart of Symbolism. [173]
One of Sotheby's specialists, likely Christopher Newall, has further elucidated the meaning of the allegories Strudwick has incorporated into his composition, showing how carefully he considered his visual imagery:
Set in the center of the composition, man sits on a throne, while grey-bearded Time "is seated on his cloud," and youthful winged Love hovers and "watches the procession sadly as it passes by." The long, golden scythe of Time bars the man's outstretched hands from the memory of his youth, symbolized by lovely maidens, walking among blooms. Helplessly focused on the past, man looks away from the future of steadily aging figures, and ignores the weeping woman representing the "present day," and the pair of figures, one with burning embers falling from her hand that suggest the ever-extinguishing life of man. Strudwick's complex processional is separated into three vertical sections: present at the center, birth and youth at the right, and old age and death at the left. The composition is also evenly divided horizontally. The shallow space at the center holds the story of the man's life, with scenes of his trials and triumphs carved into its marble balcony and throne. At the lowest level, a realm of silvery mist, dwell bat-winged, shrouded Death, and cherubic children of birth. At the top tier, a panoramic landscape further establishes the movement of time, with Arcadian fields at right, inhospitable cliffs, at left and, at center, a magnificent island with guarded castle. In this multi-directional and interconnected arrangement of allegory, Strudwick brilliantly relates the unavoidable, elliptical and paradoxical nature of time, as the present looks into the past while becoming the future.
Late in his career Strudwick completed a second larger version of Passing Days (oil on canvas, 30 ½ by 105 inches, private collection). This version, while compositionally similar, does differ in details. It was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1904, no. 104, and then later that same year at the Autumn Exhibition of Modern Art held at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, no. 1215. Surprisingly, both versions were at one time owned by Strudwick's major patron William Imrie, who was a partner in the Liverpool shipping firm of Ismay, Imrie & Co., better known as the White Star Line. Among the many paintings in Imrie's impressive collection were more than six compositions by Strudwick.
Contemporary Reviews of the Painting
When the picture was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, Strudwick's work was again noticed by the critics. Fred Wedmore in the Temple Bar put his own interpretation on this allegory:
One work, by Mr. Strudwick, demands individual mention, for it rises at least beyond the average excellence as to technical things, and the symbolism it employs is rich and interesting. Passing Days shows us the procession past a man, who is still in early middle life, of the various embodiments of days now passing, of days long gone, of days yet to come. Very young Days - the figures of gambolling children - fade away into the mists and waters of forgetfulness. Just before him is a beautiful Day, - a beautiful girl - and this he cannot regard, because his eyes look longingly on another just passed that waves him signs of good-bye, and an entreaty like Ophelia's rosemary "pray love, remember." And he remembers at present only too well, since what might be the happy present is lost to him. The conception, however lovely, thoughtful, and suggestive, is at bottom pagan and sad, for it points at nothing, it appears, more clearly than at the first business of personal enjoyment, the folly of memories, the idleness of hopes. For here, not far remote, is a burden-bearing day, and then behind it a figure wrinkled and worn, in which desire of life is set, in now enfeebled array, against its pains, and then the days of the last decrepitude, seen only in vague shadows, and then, in deeper obscurity, the final day. Now, whether we like it or do not like the sentiment of this work - the moral it is possible at least to deduce from it - it is easy to see that its poetical intention is supported by poetical power. The figures, daintily drawn, sometimes daintily painted with the bloom and finish of a miniature, at worst lack strength of draftsmanship. The group has strength and fertility of invention. [342]
F.G. Stephens in The Athenaeum noted the influence of early Renaissance art: "Numbers 112 and 120 are by Mr. J. M. Strudwick, after the manner of the fifteenth century…. The second is called Passing Days, full of thought and possessing many beauties. The days are coming, passing or past, sad or gay, as it may be, and within its sphere of endeavour the picture is adequately accomplished" (642). The critic for The Builder dismissed Strudwick as a "mere imitator of early art" (456) but did praise "the microscopic delicacy of the faces in the Passing Days" (688).
W.M. Rossetti in The Academy found more to praise in this picture, although he agreed that it fell below "perfection":
Mr. Strudwick's Passing Days, seems to be a general favorite: the symbolism is moderately easy to decipher, but any difficulty which may at first have existed has been cleared up by the artist himself, who supplies, in Mr. Blackburn's handy illustrated catalogue, an abstract of his theme. Man, attended by Time and Love, is watching the past and passing days: those of childhood have already gone down into the mist; behind come the future days, ending with decrepitude, and the final apparition of Death. The period of advanced middle age hardly finds a representative. Mr. Strudwick, who evidently inspires himself out of the rich oracular fumes of Mr. Burne-Jones, to a large extent, has produced here a picture with an ample sufficiency of appropriate and well worked-out thought. His manner runs into two extremes: that of the quaintly angular and hard, and that of the prettified; all the youthful faces, broadly speaking, belong to the latter category. Making fair allowance for a painter at an early stage of his career, we can join in with Mr. Strudwick's eulogists: not that we think his style perfection, or his idea a portent of profundity, but that he is thoughtful, diligent, and artist-like. [494]
Many critics over the course of Strudwick's career criticized him for imitating the art of the Italian early Renaissance masters. George Bernard Shaw, in his article on Strudwick in The Art Journal in 1891, defended him on this charge: "there is nothing of the fourteenth century about his work except that depth of feeling and passion for beauty which are common property to all who are fortunate enough to inherit them" (101).
Link to Related Material
Bibliography
19th Century Paintings. New York: Sotheby's (May 5, 2011): lot 72. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/19th-century-paintings-n08738/lot.72.html
Blackburn, Henry. Grosvenor Notes. London: Chatto and Windus (May 1878): 45.
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Gerard-Powell, Véronique. A Victorian Obsession. The Pérez SimónCollection at Leighton House Museum. London: Leighton House Museum, 2014, cat.44, 172-73.
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Last modified 8 April 2014