The common view of Victorian times is one of general and overwhelming prudishness and formality. On the surface, this explanation can suffice. However, looking a little more closely, we see that life in 19^th century England can hardly be seen in this simplistic light. There was a wide and differing stratum of lifestyles at the time; whether divided into social classes, politics, race, age, and of course, gender. Indeed, questions of gender roles are prominent in this period of history, with many prominent feminist movements starting up at the time, such as the women’s suffrage movement. Women where not only restricted in their behavior and attitudes, they where also increasingly demanded to attain to a different prototypes of the "perfect woman". All this pressure powered the move for women to start writing and speaking out about there position. Furthermore, they also started looking at themselves and questioning the roles they where given.

Just like the women of the time, so too art had to contend with woman as a subject. Through art we can see the archetypal representations of women at the time, and the attitudes and changes that can be seen in the painting. The differences in representations are numerous. The Victorian age is described as one that tries to catalogue as many aspects of life as possible. Women, thus were subdivided into neat categories which could be dealt with symbolically by the artists. In general, the artists knew and kept in line with the conventions of gender roles of their time. Jan Marsh states that "Victorians divided their women into Madonnas and Magdalens, beautiful angels or seductive sirens". This paper will deal with four such representations of femininity. Maddonas and Magdalenes can be seen in the depiction of Watts Death crowning Innocence where there is a definite Madonna quality to the Angel of Death. In Leighton’s Cymon and Iphigenia we see the beautiful angel Iphigenia redeeming Cymon through her beauty. Seductive siren is all too evident when looking at Rossetti’s Pandora. Finally, we will examine a fourth category neglected by Reynolds & Humble, but brought to light by several commentators of the period, such as Deborah Cherry, and that is the tragic heroine of Ophelia, seen in Waterhouse’s work.

The mother figure was all too important in Victorian England. Reynolds and Humble detail that there was four qualities of a virtuous woman; (a) the virtuous wife-mother (b) the center of house and hearth (c) devoted in domestic craft, and (d) entirely free of sexual urges. Later on we will cover the last point in more detail, when looking at Rossetti’s view of Pandora, but for the moment, let’s concentrate on the first three virtues. Though these virtues where seen as feminine at the time, and highly valuable, there was more emphasis placed on certain points depending on the social class that a woman belonged to. There was a great emphasis for women to be devoted to crafts in a poor family, as this could be a readily accessible source of income. Seamstresses where common, and even more common where sweat houses that drove women into quasi slave states, paying little and under the most wretched conditions. Virtuous mother was a fact of life for low and middle income families, while the wife was a more important feature for a lady of aristocracy, who could finance the help of nannies and nurses.

Yet overlaying all these nuances, there was a clear understanding of the woman’s place in family dynamics. Since, as a rule, women where strictly forbidden to display passion or love (even to their own husbands), the expected outlet of all these emotions was to their children. In this one instance, a woman was not only allowed to be sentimentally attached to her offspring, but it was seen as the "proper" relationship to have.

It seems odd then to try and exemplify this mothering representation of women by Watts’ Death Crowning Innocence. The painting in itself is one of the lesser known works by Watts. Death crowning Innocence was a piece that was never exhibited. The painting depicts a dark-winged angel trying to steady a crown over a child's head. The child in question was Charles Fraser Tytler, the three year old nephew of Watts’ wife who died after falling from a pony and trap near his Loch Ness-side castle home. Both Watts and his wife where particularly horrified at the sudden death, and Watts set about painting a motif intended for the tombstone of the boy. Though the tombstone design was never realized, Watts came back to the subject and created the tableau that now exists. It was kept with the Fraser Tytler family and was never shown publicly, till the Tytler collection was sold to private collectors.

Clearly then, this tableau was never meant for the critic’s eyes. Furthermore, we can thus deduce that it was not meant to be a show masterpiece, but a more contemplative piece. It does, however, deal with a subject that "is a very constant idea in Watts". However, how do we connect the idea of the central figure, the Angel of Death, with the Madonna image of the Victorian matron? Here the paintings virtue lies in that there was no specific agenda. It shows that the intention of the motherly figure is not a constructed one. Watts does not compose the figure to try and persuade a model for woman. There is no interpellation, rather Watts’ unintentionally usage of the prevailing assumptions about motherhood that abounded in his time.

After all, Watts chooses woman as his subject. Why didn’t he pick a male figure? After all, femininity has nearly universally been associated with nature, and life-giving. Death, as an iconic figure is usually seen in a male body. The answer lies in the fact that Watts is not trying to show us the typical representation of Death. It is not a death that is violent, or sad. Rather, the Angel is very softly holding the baby, in a nurturing way.

The wings of the angel completely envelop the baby, and frame the two characters. These wings give us the impression of being arms, that are cradling the baby. The Angel look is directed to the baby, a slight tilt of the head and downward look that only the baby can fully see. We are drawn to her face, and the light and framing make this the focal point of the painting. The face is the area with the most detail. In fact, the rest of the painting seems to be devoid of it, and in it we see the look of compassion in the eyes of the Angel. The phrase, "angel in the house" became a well-known description for the expected role of a woman in the Victorian period, and here we are tempted to take this as a literal exemplification of this. The depiction has to be a female, because it is that underlying motherly love that Watts is trying to tap into. The other parallel to draw from this painting is by classical representations of Madonna and child, which match the pose and structure of Death crowning Innocence.

Another image of woman is that of the beauty object. Woman as a beautiful ornament is very clearly seen in Lord Leighton’s Cymon and Iphigenia. The key concept that underlies this painting is the woman as the object of male’s Gaze, a view put forth by theorist such as John Berger. She is an object, purely for the gazer’s delight. This is further indicated by Cymon’s gaze. Through Iphigenia’s position and arrangement, the viewer too is invited to become a gazer, a moralistic proposal that we too can be redeemed through her beauty.

Cymon and Iphigenia was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1984, at the time when Lord Leighton was still the Academy’s president. In a year when the exhibition as a whole was seen as "ordinary", Leighton is praised by critics for this painting. The Athenaeum writes of it "Cymon and Iphigenia…. Is sure to rank high among Sir . Leighton’s works, as it is a striking example of the maturity of his powers". Later on in 1896, the year after Leighton’s death, the painting was again displayed in the winter exhibition at the Academy, in a retrospective of Leighton’s work. At that time it is described as "Leighton at his best". It is easy to see why it was met with such high praise.

The painting depicts the story of Cymon, a rough brutish fellow, and his first glance at the beautiful Iphigenia. Happening upon her sleeping figure, Cymon is instantly in awe, and he gives up his rough wild ways and marries Iphigenia. The painting is very softly lit by the rising moon, giving the whole painting an orange hue that softens all tones. In the center is the sleeping figure of Iphigenia, turned towards the viewer. This way, not only is Cymon gazing at her beauty, but the viewer is also invited to contemplate Iphigenia and find their own redemption. She is very strongly lit, and the hue gives her an almost all over halo effect. The robes that she wears are draped on, and fit her body perfectly, yet modestly (Leighton painted few nudes in his career). Barrington writes that Leighton painted "with emotionally intimate and caressing sense of beauty". The Athenaeum of 1897 writes "The type of the lady’s face and form is one of the noblest Sir Frederic Leighton has developed.. Her expression has the dignified air of repose that belongs to an antique statue."

Deborah Cherry puts for the view that "women in the 19^th century didn’t have to do anything, just be beautiful". This is the reason why this painting may have appealed so much to the Victorian crowd it was intended for. To the male audience, Iphigenia becomes the "antique statue" mentioned earlier. Woman is seen as an object that one can not only admire, but can also posses. Notions of 19^th century sexuality confirm this. Leighton’s painting is the division of feminine and masculine characteristics. The male is seen as the active character in sexuality, and the woman is a passive object subjected to the male’s doing. Iphigenia’s passivity is made obvious in her sleeping pose, while Cymon is actively looking at her, much the same as the viewer.

Rossetti’s masterpiece Pandora give us yet another different representation of woman; the Femme Fatale. This is an image that was popularized in the 19^th century, and one that fitted in with dominant views of the role of women in sex. There are some key points which first need to be mentioned. The overall assumption made was that women did not have sexual feelings. That is, normal women where not allowed these thoughts. William Acton, a well respected doctor of the times states that "the best women are those who know little or nothing of sexual indulgences." Indeed, this kind of advice was common. William Cobbet, in his book Advice to young men and (incidentally) to young women", writes this pearl of wisdom "women should not only abstain from anything approaching un-decorum in her behavior towards men, but she should also be void of any thoughts of sex". In fact, the only women who where thought to have sexual feelings at all where nymphomaniacs and prostitutes, both which where insatiable.

Hypocritically, it was these two images of women that fascinated many men in the Victorian era. Both the word "nymphomaniac" and "femme fatale" originated from this period. Given the poverty and prudishness at the time, it is not surprising that prostitution hit an all time high in England, specially London. Both these images where scapegoats for women’s sexual expression, and where perversely followed by men.

Rossetti’s vision of the femme fatale is seen in Pandora’s gaze. Rossetti is said to have had three main models, and consequently three main themes when representing women. Elisabeth Siddall typifies his early simplistic and cloistral purity. Fanny Schott breaks through coarsely and voluptuously in the rich gaiety of the "good" years, and finally Jane Morris "who stands for all the haunting melancholy and frustration that beset him at the close of his life". Jane Morris was the elusive love interests which was never fulfilled for Rossetti. He did, however, spend much time with her and William in their house in Kelmscott. It was there where, heavily addicted to Chloral, he started his series of "Janey" paintings.

The painting deals with the story of Pandora, the first woman in Greek mythology. She is made "perfect" by the gods, and is given a box full of all the evils in the world. Her curious nature gets the better of her, and she opens the box, realizing human evil on the mortals. The painting shows Morris looking directly out of the frame at the viewer, unashamedly. Normal representations of Pandora show her as timidly unleashing the evils, but here Rossetti has shown a defiant Pandora letting the spirits free. The evils form behind her to create a halo effect.

Swinbourne said of Pandora "[it] is amongst the mightiest in the godlike terror and imperial trouble of beauty". Beauty, instead of being redeeming like in Iphigenia, here is seen as a hazard, a way for women to temp men into sin. Marsh comments on this painting that it is a vision of woman as a threatening siren. Why is this so prominent an opinion? One of the reasons is the stare that we get from the model. A downcast stare was considered at the time to be a sign of a feminine modesty, while a direct glance at the male stranger (i.e., the viewer) was constructed as an indicator of sexual deviancy. Her unashamed look at the spectator shows that she knows that she is being watched. This is problematic for the voyeur, and thus it’s label of dangerous. For the viewer to have power over the representation, the woman’s sexual passion has to be minimized.

Finally, we come to a very different form of representation from that which we have seen earlier. Waterhouse’s Ophelia depicts Shakespeare’s tragic heroine in the moment before her self inflicted death. Ophelia, driven mad by the death of her father, the absence of her brother and Hamlet’s own madness is driven to suicide. This heroine is to be pitied, and also serves as an excellent ideal of woman as bearers of hardships.

Conditions for women in this period where extremely hard, especially for the lower classes. Modernity saw women as marketable objects, and their exploitation in industry and servitude were rampant. Not only this, but a family with little money could hardly afford to keep a nurse, so the female’s role was, as stated earlier, the center of the household. Woman cooked, and cleaned, and took care of children, often while being subcontracted by textile factories to do darning. Moreover, women had practically no legal rights. If there was a male in the family, the female could inherit no money. Furthermore, before marriage, woman was property of the father, who later bequeathed the title to the husband. Women had no ownership rights, their property was that of the husbands. It is in this climate that we see the ideal of the tragic heroine arise. Rather than react to their condition, women where encouraged to bear it all with grace and dignity.

Waterhouse’s Ophelia shows us this. We know that she is mad, and through context we pity her. However we also hold her as an ideal of fortitude and honor. Even though she will kill herself, she is making sure that she looks beautiful before she does. Ophelia is not only directed at the male watcher to reinforce feminine roles, but also to the female watcher as a role model. Imitation of Ophelia’s beauty and actions by a female viewer would be seen as redemption.

A word must be said of women’s role in art in the 19^th century. It is not until the late part of the century when women start to be accepted as artists. They struggled to get their work recognized, and for the most part, their paintings where considered recreational rather than serious. A circle of women painters did evolve, however, which Jan Marsh terms "the pre-Raphaelite sisterhood" in her book by the same title. This group mostly consisted of wives and muses of the PRB, notably Lizzie Siddall, Georgie Burne-Jones, Jane Morris, Emma Maddox Brown, Annie Miller, Euphemia Millais and Edith Hunt. These women, after having posed for the PRB, started painting through a female gaze. Their paintings show us life from a woman’s point of view, with the female becoming less the focus, and concentrating more on her activities and interactions with other subjects. The women also developed themes that the PRB where interested in, such as Ophelia and The Lady of Shallot. Apart from the sexism that the sisterhood had to constantly battle, there where also gender ideals that had to be broken. Since painting wasn’t the realm of the Victorian "woman", it was hard to take pride in their womanhood if they where completely outside of that realm when they picked up a brush.

Victorian artists painted different representations of women for different purposes. Some had a moralistic twist to them, such as Iphigenia and Ophelia. Cherry points out that "middle class women where occasionally recognized as a constituent group and target audience. They where assigned, and indeed took up, positions as representative of feminine purity". Others displayed idealized women, and their role as society’s maternal caretakers. Also there where the paintings which showed the evils in women, the dangerous temptresses, targeted at male audiences. In all, the recurrent trend is to center woman as the subject of the gaze. She is systematically categorized and understood as a stereotype. As Berger puts it "women are depicted in a quite different way from men, not because the feminine is different from the masculine, but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be a man". As we have seen, Victorian painting has to be looked in it’s historical context, in order to decipher the codes of the stereotypes, and the effect they had.

Athenaeum, The (1984) No. 2949, May 3^rd (p. 572)

Athenaeum, The (1897) No. 3615, Feb. 6^th (p. 190)

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