Fairy painting

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Fairy painting is a genre of painting and

fairies and fairy tale settings, often with extreme attention to detail. The genre is most closely associated with Victorian painting in the United Kingdom but has experienced a contemporary revival. Moreover, fairy painting was also seen as escapism
for Victorians.

Origins and influences

Titania and Bottom. Oil on canvas by Henry Fuseli, c. 1790

Despite its whimsical appearance, fairy painting is strongly rooted in the literary and theatrical influences of

Douglas Jerrold as "a fairy creation that could only be acted by fairies",[2] productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream became more common, eventually leading to an 1863 spectacle featuring Ellen Terry as Titania astride a mechanical mushroom.[3]

Cultural changes were also an important factor during this period. Continuing industrialization was uprooting longstanding traditions, and rapid advances in science and technology, especially the invention of photography, left some people discomforted and confused. According to Jeremy Maas, the turn to mythological and fantasy elements, and in particular to the fairy's world, allowed an escape from these demands. "No other type of painting concentrates so many of the opposing elements of the Victorian psyche: the desire to escape the drear hardships of daily existence; the stirrings of new attitudes toward sex, stifled by religious dogma; a passion for the unseen; the birth of psychoanalysis; the latent revulsion against the exactitude of the new invention of photography."[4] The significance of fairy paintings as a reaction to cultural change is not universally accepted, however. "Ultimately," Andrew Stuttaford wrote, "these paintings were just about fun."[5]

Victorian fairy painting

The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke. Oil on canvas by Richard Dadd 1855–1864.
The Captive Robin by John Anster Fitzgerald, c. 1864

The earliest artists considered to have contributed to the genre predate much of Romanticism and the Victorian era.

outsider artist Richard Dadd, who was suspected to have schizophrenia and produced most of his work while incarcerated in the Bethlem psychiatric hospital for the murder of his father.[7] Despite his status and condition, his fantastic subjects and extraordinarily detailed style were generally well-received, with one period reviewer describing his work as "exquisitely ideal".[8] He accompanied his masterpiece, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke, which he painted from 1855 to 1864, with an elaborate poem which provides historical, literary, or mythological context to each of the depicted characters.[9]

Fairy painting was not exclusively the domain of outside art, however. The work of

Victoria's favourite artist", produced a painting of Titania and Bottom in the genre's style, his Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.[5]

The genre also influenced the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the movement it began. Co-founder John Everett Millais produced a series of fairy paintings based on The Tempest, ending with his 1849 work Ferdinand Lured by Ariel.[10] Dante Gabriel Rossetti, another of the Brotherhood's initial members, took a more sensual approach to the subject, in both painting and poetry.[11] Others involved with the movement, such as Arthur Hughes and William Bell Scott, also contributed to the genre.

Although the Cottingley Fairies briefly revived interest in fae subjects, the waning of Romanticism and the advent of World War I reduced interest in the styles and topics popular during the Victorian era. The illustrated fairy-tale books of Arthur Rackham are considered its "final flowering".[6]

Modern revival

The interest in

collectibles
.

References

  1. ^ "Victorian Fairy Painting from the Frick Collection". Antiques and the Arts Online. Archived from the original on 2007-02-04. Retrieved 2007-01-10.
  2. ^ Phelps, W. May; John Forbes-Robertson (1886). The Life and Life-Work of Samuel Phelps. Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington.
  3. ISBN 978-0-19-871176-6
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-900946-58-5
    .
  5. ^ a b Stuttaford, Andrew (1998-12-31). "Feywatch". National Review.
  6. ^ a b "Fairy Painting". Tate Glossary. Tate Collection. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
  7. ISBN 978-0-900874-79-6
    .
  8. ^ "Etched Thoughts by the Etching Club". Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (346). August 1844.
  9. ISBN 0-691-04071-0
    .
  10. ^ Bennett, Mary (August 1984). "An Early Drawing for 'The Tempest' by Everett Millais". Burlington Magazine (126).
  11. ISBN 978-0-500-09316-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
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