DOI chapter:
Chapter V: Our Friendship
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62482#0284
i32 REMINISCENCES OF G. F. WATTS
our planet. This passes in the middle of the picture into
an indefinite period, a vaporous uncertainty of atmosphere,
of unborn creations. Light is still veiled by mists, and air
and waters mingle. Here and there a figure in the swollen
tides marks the beginning of the strides of time. In the
third part of the picture, colossal forms, silent and quiescent,
symbols of mountain ranges, suggest an established state of
things. The current of time, in the middle part of the com-
position, indicated by detached figures, is now a continuous
stream. The artist’s desire was not merely to repeat the
incidents of history as recorded by the poets and as
painted by the old masters, but to interpret the story of
the world from his own point of view, including in the in-
terpretation a modern vein of thought and feeling, and
regarding the past from the more comprehensive area of
modern acquirement.
Taking a large view of the important incidents of the
world’s history, such part of it as could be expressed in a
pictorial form, he hoped to have painted the salient points
on which turned the changes and progress of the world as
we know it, and to have described the past by the light
of the present; in so doing to create in his own time an art,
comprehensive enough in its own character to affect the
interests of all times, yet special enough to be stamped with
the fervour of contemporary interest. This would have led
the composition into the story of human life. A few frag-
ments of the scheme can be seen in the designs of the
“Creation of Eve,” the “Eve Tempted,” “Eve Repentant,”
the “Newly Created Eve,” and “Cain.”
our planet. This passes in the middle of the picture into
an indefinite period, a vaporous uncertainty of atmosphere,
of unborn creations. Light is still veiled by mists, and air
and waters mingle. Here and there a figure in the swollen
tides marks the beginning of the strides of time. In the
third part of the picture, colossal forms, silent and quiescent,
symbols of mountain ranges, suggest an established state of
things. The current of time, in the middle part of the com-
position, indicated by detached figures, is now a continuous
stream. The artist’s desire was not merely to repeat the
incidents of history as recorded by the poets and as
painted by the old masters, but to interpret the story of
the world from his own point of view, including in the in-
terpretation a modern vein of thought and feeling, and
regarding the past from the more comprehensive area of
modern acquirement.
Taking a large view of the important incidents of the
world’s history, such part of it as could be expressed in a
pictorial form, he hoped to have painted the salient points
on which turned the changes and progress of the world as
we know it, and to have described the past by the light
of the present; in so doing to create in his own time an art,
comprehensive enough in its own character to affect the
interests of all times, yet special enough to be stamped with
the fervour of contemporary interest. This would have led
the composition into the story of human life. A few frag-
ments of the scheme can be seen in the designs of the
“Creation of Eve,” the “Eve Tempted,” “Eve Repentant,”
the “Newly Created Eve,” and “Cain.”