DOI Kapitel:
Chapter V: Our Friendship
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62482#0286
i34 REMINISCENCES OF G. F. WATTS
while still young, and showing every promise of becoming
one of the most distinguished men of his time, was attacked
by a lingering and fatal illness. The portrait was continued
at intervals. At each sitting the artist felt the disease had
progressed a stage nearer the end. Everything that love
could do opposed it in vain. Out of sympathy for the sorrow
of those who had striven so hard and so fruitlessly to keep
Death at bay, arose the idea of the subject of this picture,
“ Love and Death.” The draped figure, whose back alone
we see, who is meant to represent a messenger of Death, is
entering through the doorway of a home where Love has
reigned. Love meets this “shining one” (as Bunyan expressed
it) on the threshold, and thrusts out his arm to oppose the
entrance of his enemy. The solemn figure moves forward
notwithstanding, as it were inevitably, rather than as if forcing
a way ; a fatal doom, against which the struggles of Love
are in vain. Death overshadows his figure, except where
a few bright rays of colour still light on his brow, on the
roses which wreathe it, and on the arm which clings still
to the doorway. In his anguish he gazes appealingly up
into the face of the awful stranger, while with his outstretched
arm he attempts to resist advance. But, with wings crushed,
he is thrust aside, and thrown back on the garlands of roses
which grow round the entrance of his dwelling. Though
we do not see his enemy’s face, we are not meant to feel it
would be hideous, however awful. This messenger is but
the unswerving agent to an all-powerful will which rules
over poor humanity, and, in the fulfilment of whose laws the
wounding of human feeling, however deep, and pure, and
strong, counts as no obstacle. The intention in this picture
has been to embody in a pictorial expression a suggestion
of the world-old mystery, the conflict between Love and
Death ; to endeavour to transmit by form and colour a vision
while still young, and showing every promise of becoming
one of the most distinguished men of his time, was attacked
by a lingering and fatal illness. The portrait was continued
at intervals. At each sitting the artist felt the disease had
progressed a stage nearer the end. Everything that love
could do opposed it in vain. Out of sympathy for the sorrow
of those who had striven so hard and so fruitlessly to keep
Death at bay, arose the idea of the subject of this picture,
“ Love and Death.” The draped figure, whose back alone
we see, who is meant to represent a messenger of Death, is
entering through the doorway of a home where Love has
reigned. Love meets this “shining one” (as Bunyan expressed
it) on the threshold, and thrusts out his arm to oppose the
entrance of his enemy. The solemn figure moves forward
notwithstanding, as it were inevitably, rather than as if forcing
a way ; a fatal doom, against which the struggles of Love
are in vain. Death overshadows his figure, except where
a few bright rays of colour still light on his brow, on the
roses which wreathe it, and on the arm which clings still
to the doorway. In his anguish he gazes appealingly up
into the face of the awful stranger, while with his outstretched
arm he attempts to resist advance. But, with wings crushed,
he is thrust aside, and thrown back on the garlands of roses
which grow round the entrance of his dwelling. Though
we do not see his enemy’s face, we are not meant to feel it
would be hideous, however awful. This messenger is but
the unswerving agent to an all-powerful will which rules
over poor humanity, and, in the fulfilment of whose laws the
wounding of human feeling, however deep, and pure, and
strong, counts as no obstacle. The intention in this picture
has been to embody in a pictorial expression a suggestion
of the world-old mystery, the conflict between Love and
Death ; to endeavour to transmit by form and colour a vision