Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdate: Success!

"Time the Physician"
by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

"Just before the turn of the century, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale was not only well on the way to establishing herself as such but also making strong claims as a painter, with oils shown at the annual Royal Academy exhibitions. Her first, at the 1899 exhibition, 'The Pale Complexion of True Love,' advertised her admiration for Edwin Austin Abbey, but she made it emphatically clear that she had her own ideas, exhibiting not only literary subjects but original scenes addressing the abstract concepts that George Frederick Watts, above all, had promoted to the late-Victorian public. The titles of her exhibits over the next five years indicate a deep investment in these symbolic concepts: 'Time and the Maiden,' 'Time the Physician,' 'The Deceitfulness of Riches, 'Justice before Her Judge,' 'Love and His Counterfeits' established her as an allegorist.

At this time, Fortescue-Brickdale was diverted into watercolor by her next big opportunity and, while this made her name, it located her within the secondary rank of painters, since oil was still accepted as the primary medium for painting. This positioning of her practice came about through the commission in summer 1899 from the art dealers Dowdeswell's for a show of watercolors that came to fruition in June 1901 under the Shakespearean title 'Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made of' Subject matter included the Wattsian abstracts she had already essayed in oil, romantic anecdote, 'fancy pictures' and poetic moralities, with titles drawn from the Bible, Shakespeare and other literary favourites including Robert Browning, Christina Rossetti and Coleridge. Complex, interlocking spaces and a love of pattern, detailed costuming and vivid jewel-like color characterized these works.

It may have been this commission that promoted Fortescue-Brickdale's acquisition of her own studio in the west London area of Holland Park where so many other artists lived and worked, and it was spectacularly successful, with the press gushing with talk of overnight success, and all 45 exhibits said to be sold. Critics linked her definitively with Pre-Raphaelitism which, though born half a century before, was kept alive not least by the fact that Arthur Hughes and William Holman Hunt were still active. In the 'Artist's Review' it was said that 'Miss Brickdale's work combines great technical skill with an extremely felicitous, quaint imagination and rare poetic feeling... [This exhibition] should be sufficient to secure her a leading position among the women artists of this country.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "A Pre-Raphaelite Journey: The Art of Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale" by Pamela Gerrish Nunn.)