4: Literary Status with Millais
John Everett Millais
Ophelia, c. 1851Oil on canvas, w111.8 cm x h76.2 cm (44" x 30")
Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
Literary history painting = depiction of an excerpt (or composite) from a literary story. While religious history painting made up the Renaissance, literary history painting found its stride more in the 19th century — advances in printing had by this time saturated the world in books, and there was a growing middle class who could join the upper class and scholars in being able to read them. This gave artists much more freedom and incentive to create literary works, since there were more stories available to pull from and a bigger audience of people who'd get the references.
The result was paintings like today's downer, a thematic narrative portrait of Ophelia (the lady from Shakespeare's "Hamlet" who went insane and drowned herself). The reason I pulled this one is that it works pretty well as a standalone image: the intended emotion comes through strongly, we learn most of what we need to know about Ophelia's context as a person, and the things left unanswered in this painting were largely left unanswered in the source text as well. Knowing the play enriches the painting, but even if you didn't know "Hamlet" this painting can still get a particular response from the viewer.
But that brings things to an interesting point: does a work have to be able to stand independently to be seen as a 'literary history painting', rather than just a (god forbid) 'illustration'? Taking 'literary history painting' at straight definition, of course, illustration falls under its umbrella anyway1. But many people have been really unhappy about that, and I would therefore suggest that by the time history painting became strongly represented by literary painting, this had become something like a simultaneous evolution and devolution of the genre2 (at least by common perception).
On the side of (progressive) evolution, we have again that artists could do much more wide-ranging, individual, innovative work, drawing from a range of texts and becoming much more subtle in their allusions to match the higher sophistication of their well-read, visually-trained audience.
But on the side of devolution, no matter how well-done a literary painting, it does become hard to see how these are not just elaborate illustrations. And in fairness, it's not like that was a new state of affairs; many (most) religious and mythological paintings had been effectively 'illustration' as well, but at least with those you could pretend to be working off the grandest themes of the human condition, given the all-encompassing scope (and/or perceived 'reality') of the texts. With literary painting, since the default author isn't 'God', choosing a text that is 'dignified' or 'classic' enough to be seen as similarly elevating becomes really important if you want the work taken seriously...and since most people won't take something to be 'classic' unless it's been around forever and been confirmed as classic over and over again, literary painting almost immediately grew the tendency of forbidding works the label of 'art' if they didn't depict Shakespeare3, or Homer, or at best maybe some Arthurian legends.
And even these days, most 'fine artists' seem only able to get away with references to literary texts well-recognized as 'classics'. The whole issue basically smacks of this scene from Amadeus, where Mozart is trying to argue for an opera based on a controversial contemporary comedy called 'The Marriage of Figaro' (most relevant starting 1:55):
And if you do manage to reference offbeat stuff, and you make it successful, then your work becomes 'classic', the things you reference become 'classic', and then it's okay for everyone else to reference and talk about because it's all been 'ennobled'4.
The art world's pretty made up most days.
NOTES:
1. And I don't see a problem with that, because obviously many truly artistic illustrations exist and have for centuries.
2. Assuming common usage of the words. Evolution doesn't have to mean 'progress', 'devolution' is only arguably a word at all, so pedants be assured that I feel your wrath.
3. Especially ironic since Shakespeare's plays were the mass entertainment of the day, and fully wallowed in ridiculous drama and gore and vulgarity. Oh my god so many penis puns, and also gaze upon the beauty of ye olde yo mamma joke.
4. For more recent examples, see also the reception history of pulp detective fiction, comic books, video games, 80s film comedies, animated movies, etc. First they're dismissed even as they're massively popular, then some works start making an impression on critics and/or up-and-coming artists, then critics fight for those works to get respect and artists roll their influences into new critically-acclaimed works, the tide eventually shifts and it all becomes 'canon'.
BUT. I actually believe firmly in the value of trained criticism, and in ongoing conversations surrounding things like the merit of a source text or the meaning of the resulting work. Analysis is great, and I love participating in it — and that process of turning the tide of opinion, I think that's probably necessary actually! This is all more to say that if all you want is permission to like what you like, you already have it. If other people don't like what you like, or point out problems with it, EVEN IF YOU AGREE WITH THE PROBLEMS YOU CAN STILL LIKE YOUR STUFF.