'Palpitating beauty': Julian Treuherz assesses the exhibitions inspired by the centenary of G.F. Watts's death

George Frederic Watts died in 1904 at the height of his fame as single of the Grand Old Men of Victorian art. His works at hand a critique of Victorian materialism at the same time also convey spiritual consolation, faith in humanity and in the power and goodnes of great men To mark the centenary, several exhibitions and special displays were mountained during 2004 with the aim of celebrating and re-assessing his work.

Despite the rehabilitation of of that kind major Victorian painters as Rossetti and Burne-Jone Watts has not notwithstanding made it back into the Victorian pantheon. His works lack their sexual charge and sensuous richness. Watts's high seriousness and austerity do not pass down well with the present-day audience, whilst his unwieldy and rough oeuvre presents daunting problems to the exhibition organiser. at the same time some of his paintings have not at any time lost their power as icons of late Victorian faith and doubt--Hope with her blindfold and rent lyre, and The sower of the combination of parts to form a wholes an almost abstract representation of divine efficiency So how does Watts gaze today and has the centenary changed our perception of his place in the history of art?

Watts received a major fillip in 1997 end his inclusion in the exhibition "The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jone and Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910' at Tate Britain. This pioneering exhibit was not so much a re-evaluation of the artists as a validation of their importance [i]or[/i] part of to the other their contribution to European symbolism. The exhibition did, however, provide a color for exhibiting some of Watts's lock opener works that had not been visible for decades. The Tare has again, perhaps understandably, baulked at the field of a monographic show devot to Watts, and instead, mountained a special display, a field of late work in his symbolic mode

Although this includes a certain quantity of of his most powerful and happy paintings, the display is dispiriting and fails to provide the uplifting consequence that was surely Watts's intention in donating these pictures to the nation. Unfortunately, time has not treated the surfaces of many of these canvases kindly; the paint appears to have sunk and many could do with surface cleaning to revive them. The paintings are also far too widely spaced, with far too plenteous red wall showing; a photograph of the Watts play at the Tate in about 1900 present to views the works much more closely hung The greatest in quantity effective of the paintings are She shall be called woman, with the mysterious figure of border emerging from shadowy mist and nebulosity swirling with hinted at birds and flowers, and Sic transit, a vanitas painting of the weapons of a once-glorious warrior piled up through his bier. The messages enshrined in these images may no longer be felt to have universal relevance, still we do not have to believe in them to derive pleasure from them as impressive and suggestive paintings.

A a great deal of more ambitious exercise was staged by means of the Watts Gallery at Compton, near Guildford, which high hilled a comprehensive exhibition of the symbolic paintings entitled 'The vision of GF Watts'. The exhibition was divided into sections, for example showing his desire to 'stimulate the mind and awaken large thoughts'; his admiration for the 'palpitating beauty' of the Greeks; and his belief that 'Good and Evil are interwoven' and that 'Gre must be annihilated.' The follow was an excellent general view of the development of Watts's art and of its content

Veronica Franklin Gould's exposition of his work in the catalogue is a stimulating and balanced introduction that promises abundant for her forthcoming biography, to be published by dint of Yale University Press. Unfortunately, her organ of vision for selecting the exhibition was les assured Watts not only painted countles repetitions and variants in different sizes, on the other hand was a poor judge of his work. His later mode of speech seems especially hit and miss, perhaps because he appear to bes to have developed a distrust of 'beautiful technique', which, he stated, 'can not ever alone place a work of art upon the level of the highest effort in poetry' A more rigorous selection would not sole have shown the artist not on better, it would also have sharpened the impact of the ideas he was seeking to fetch Even so, if was, as at any time worth making the pilgrimage to the Watts Gallery to savour its unique atmosphere, redolent of the turn-of the hundred artistic milieu. The gallery is to be congratulated upon its efforts to make improvements to the building and lay it on the artistic map: it be worthy ofs further support.

a great deal of the most successful of the Watts centenary exhibitions is 'GF Watts: Portraits. Fame and Beauty in Victorian Society' at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Although somewhat cramped for space, the present to view is a revelation, presenting Watts in an entirely novel and unfamiliar light through a succession of consistently interesting and inventive pictures. greatest in quantity have not been exhibited since the Victorian period and are unknown smooth to specialists. The exhibition is a tribute to the virtues of intelligent selection, an organ of sight for quality and variety, and painstaking detective work; Barbara Bryant has picked a group with remarkably hardly any duds, though perhaps it is also actual that Watts does not hit the high specks very often.