De Morgan Paintings Capture War Hope Duality

Evelyn De Morgan: The Visionary Pre-Raphaelite Who Painted War's Horrors and Found Hope in Darkness

The art created by Evelyn De Morgan presents a compelling, frequently disquieting perspective. An artist associated with the later Pre-Raphaelite circle, her substantial accomplishments were often ignored during her own era and for subsequent decades. Her canvases investigated the deep psychological consequences and underlying significance of armed struggle, especially regarding the First World War. Distinctively, De Morgan’s output also anticipated visual motifs prevalent in modern fantasy depiction, merging symbolism with potent realism. Her paintings explore subjects like spirituality, materialism, opposition to war, and the intricate positions of women, rendering her rediscovery a notable occurrence within art history. Revived appreciation, signified by significant exhibitions, returns her forceful, message-rich art to wider public awareness.

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An Artist Emerges Against the Grain

Mary Evelyn Pickering, who entered the world in London in 1855 and gained recognition later under the name Evelyn De Morgan, confronted societal expectations that curtailed women's professional pathways. Her upbringing within the upper-middle class supplied education but deterred the quest for a dedicated artistic life. At first, her own mother resisted this ambition. Nonetheless, driven by powerful resolve, she applied herself intensely to art from her younger years. Early personal writings show a mature commitment. She had drawing tutors at home before ultimately convincing her parents to permit formal instruction.

This tenacity secured her place among the pioneering female attendees at London's respected Slade School of Fine Art beginning in 1873. Within that institution, her talents quickly drew positive attention. Achievements came through awards and financial aid, importantly the coveted Slade Scholarship, highlighting exceptional ability and technical skill apparent even during her training. Selecting the gender-neutral forename "Evelyn" was a strategic move to bypass the biases confronting female artists, seeking evaluation founded purely on artistic quality.

Forging a Path in a Man's World

Navigating the Victorian art scene posed significant hurdles for a woman. Despite graduating from the Slade, Evelyn De Morgan operated within a domain predominantly influenced by male artists and commentators. From an aesthetic viewpoint, she resonated with the later developments within the Pre-Raphaelite current, noted for its precise execution, vivid colours, and subjects derived from literature or carrying symbolic weight.

Key individuals within this group included Dante Gabriel Rossetti plus William Holman Hunt. John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, her uncle and also a painter, was part of this circle and provided initial motivation and mentorship. Even with these associations, De Morgan nurtured a profoundly unique expressive style. She advanced beyond the often maudlin or merely ornamental facets observed in subsequent Pre-Raphaelitism. Her artistic compositions pulsed with distinct verve and imaginative power, differentiating her from many peers. Recognition gradually built through presentations at locations such as the Dudley Gallery and also the Grosvenor Gallery.

Love, Partnership, and Shared Ideals

The year 1887 saw Evelyn marry William De Morgan, a distinguished ceramicist who subsequently found fame as a novelist. Their relationship signified a deep alliance of intellect and artistry. They maintained aligned forward-thinking perspectives, embracing robust advocacy for pacifism, the campaign for women's right to vote, and an engagement with spiritualism. This concordance of beliefs profoundly guided Evelyn’s artistic creations. William, initially known for his affiliation with William Morris, garnered considerable independent renown, particularly for his lustre-decorated ceramics. Some historians suggest his public stature may have sometimes overshadowed Evelyn's artistic standing during their shared lifetimes. Their Chelsea dwelling transformed into a locus for creative discussion and intellectual vitality. They cooperated on technical explorations, including innovative paint formulations, demonstrating mutual admiration for each other's specialised skills. Despite William's sometimes higher visibility, documentation indicates a partnership founded on encouragement that supported Evelyn’s individualistic artistic journey.

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Classical Roots and Visionary Style

Consistent travel to Italy, with Florence being a key destination, left a lasting impression on Evelyn De Morgan’s creative trajectory. She undertook careful study of Renaissance masters, learning techniques from painters like Botticelli in addition to Michelangelo. This influence is evident in her skilled drawing ability, confident representation pertaining to human anatomy, and sophisticated structural arrangements in her paintings. Pieces like Boreas and Oreithyia (completed 1896), showing the mythical northern wind god seizing an Athenian princess, express her curiosity regarding ancient narratives alongside her talent for rendering energetic forms suggestive of Renaissance murals.

Yet, she expertly integrated these classical foundations into a singularly modern, symbolic visual mode. Her technical methodology was similarly forward-thinking. She tried different pigments, occasionally preparing paints by combining them with glycerine and spirit – a method possibly refined alongside William. Furthermore, De Morgan characteristically employed gold paint, applying layers and polishing them to generate luminous qualities and infuse additional symbolic depth.

Symbols of Power and Female Agency

Evelyn De Morgan’s depictions of women diverged significantly from numerous Victorian portrayals. While her contemporaries often showed passive female characters – whether ideals of physical charm, unfortunate figures akin to Ophelia by Millais, or saintly domestic presences – De Morgan crafted women as proactive individuals, frequently embodying spiritual strength or standing for allegorical ideas. Her canvases present skilled enchantresses, commanding divine figures, and determined female protagonists.

Artworks including Luna (1885), which shows the moon deity bound, apply mythological themes to probe the restrictions faced by women and their quest for autonomy within a male-led society. The Prisoner (1907-08) uses the visual analogy of physical restraint, depicted through chained wrists plus a barred aperture, to reflect on gender disparity and the constraints affecting women. These creative declarations align with the De Morgans’ vigorous promotion of the movement supporting women’s votes. Evelyn put her signature on petitions, while William occupied the role of vice-president for the Men's League backing Women's Suffrage.

A World Steeped in Spiritualism

The concluding years of the Victorian era and the subsequent Edwardian age experienced a notable increase in curiosity regarding Spiritualism. This emergent belief system aimed to establish contact with people who had died, partly stimulated by scientific challenges to orthodox religious beliefs and the period's increased mortality figures due to disease alongside conflict. Evelyn De Morgan actively connected with these concepts. Sophia De Morgan, her mother-in-law, was a recognised spiritualist practitioner and medium, undoubtedly shaping the intellectual environment of their residence.

Evelyn partnered with William to author a volume containing automatically transcribed text, published under the name The Result of an Experiment (1909), claiming to present received communications. This conviction in an existence after death and unseen spiritual influences permeates Evelyn's art. Angels, spirits, plus symbolic renderings of the soul's journey appear often. The extensive casualties during hostilities such as the South African Boer Wars, and later the major European conflict, likely amplified this interest among many, providing possible solace plus a structure for interpreting mortality.

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Wealth, Materialism, and Moral Warnings

A persistent idea running through De Morgan's work concerns a commentary on materialism and greed, frequently positioned against spiritual ideals. She regularly utilized particular visual codes to impart this view. Crowns, often placed upon monstrous beings like the winged serpents appearing within Death of the Dragon, represent avarice plus worldly influence separated from morality. The artwork Earthbound (1897) offers a striking portrayal. It features a sumptuously attired character, cloaked in gold embellished with coin motifs, lost in scholarly activity but ignorant of the imminent figure symbolizing death standing close by.

In a related manner, The Barred Gate (produced circa 1910-1914) shows a wealthy, powerful man refused admittance to a spiritual plane, suggesting material possessions lack value beyond mortal life. According to De Morgan's viewpoint, striving for financial accumulation equated to a variation of spiritual blindness, a hazardous detour from life's more meaningful objectives and the soul's final condition. This perspective contrasted with her emphasis regarding inner satisfaction.

Confronting Conflict: From Boer War to Great War

Well before the start of the devastating 1914-18 war, Evelyn De Morgan embraced strong pacifist ideals. Her creative expressions served as a platform for conveying anti-war feelings. Our Lady of Peace (1907), made following the Second Boer War (1899-1902), presents a knight kneeling before a calm Madonna figure, requesting peace plus security amidst symbols related to battle. The Poor Man Who Saved the City (1901), drawing from a biblical account, supports intellect plus statecraft instead of armed force. A modest individual is positioned between rival factions, promoting non-violent means. These earlier pieces confirm her consistent resistance to warfare. The immense scale and savagery defining the First World War intensified this focus, resulting in several of her most striking and symbolic canvases that grappled directly with the conflict’s disastrous human and spiritual consequences. Her art evolved into an intensely personal mode of activism.

Painting the Trauma of the Trenches

The Great War period (1914-1918) had a profound impact upon the De Morgans, who stayed in London during the entire conflict. The city faced aerial bombardments from Zeppelins alongside the continuous stream of reports detailing horrific casualty figures from the fighting fronts. This immediate contact with the war's grim actuality permeated Evelyn’s later artistic output with raw sentiment and stark visual metaphors. Death of the Dragon, created over the course of the war, operates as a significant allegory. Dragons breathing smoke, emblems of wickedness and devastation, threaten imprisoned characters symbolizing humanity trapped by the conflict.

An angel offers potential salvation, embodying optimism. The Red Cross (1914-16) provides an even more pointed statement. Celestial figures lift the crucified body of Christ over terrain scarred by wartime graves situated in Belgium. This deliberate contrast hints at the tension between Christian teachings and the inherent cruelty of modern warfare, while possibly suggesting redemption via sacrifice. These paintings channel the widespread psychological distress experienced across Britain.

Death, Loss, and the Search for Meaning

The reality of death was palpable for the De Morgan couple and others living then, possibly more intensely than typically acknowledged now. Jean McMeakin, heading the Board of Trustees for the De Morgan Foundation, notes that tuberculosis affected William's relatives, and his personal health was frequently compromised. This direct experience with loss, merged with the mass fatalities caused by the war, amplified death's prominence as a subject within Evelyn’s art.

It shows up through various symbolic representations: the figure of a skeleton holding a scythe, menacing sea creatures, shadowy angels, or more indirectly through motifs like an hourglass signifying existence's limited duration. Her engagement with spiritualist ideas supplied a structure for processing grief, proposing that life extended beyond physical demise. The paintings addressing the war, in particular, wrestle with the enormous scope of loss, seeking significance amid destruction that seemed arbitrary and mirroring a society confronting bereavement on an unprecedented scale.

Light in the Darkness: Finding Hope Amid Despair

Even while Evelyn De Morgan depicted scenes of catastrophe and the grim realities of warfare, her artwork regularly integrates components hinting at hopefulness alongside the possibility of salvation. Jean McMeakin highlights that even her most somber paintings often possess "a trace of optimism... or a section within the composition retains serenity". Rainbows make frequent appearances, such as within Death of the Dragon, signifying divine assurance, reconciliation, and the potential for spiritual liberation after enduring hardship.

Light itself transforms into a commanding symbol, indicating spiritual awareness cutting through darkness, exemplified by Lux in Tenebris (which translates to Light within Darkness) (1895). In this artwork, a female character holds an olive sprig representing peace, immersed in brilliant light. The repeated presence of an angelic figure often signals not only death but potentially renewal and transition toward a spiritual existence after life, consistent with the artist's personal beliefs. This foundational optimism suggests a conviction regarding the ultimate prevalence of good over evil, enduring even amidst severe conflict.

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Technical Innovation and Paving the Way

Beyond her thematic profundity, Evelyn De Morgan showed remarkable technical aptitude and creativity. Her skilled handling of oil paint permitted intricate representation and deep colour intensity, hallmarks of the Pre-Raphaelite visual approach. Nevertheless, she actively challenged established practices. Her explorations involving the application of gold powder and associated pigments, carefully polished onto the canvas, imparted luminosity plus surface variation, amplifying the transcendent quality of her spiritual subjects. She investigated unusual paint formulations, perhaps collaborating with William De Morgan, known for his chemical expertise concerning ceramic glazes. Artistically, De Morgan displayed striking foresight. Her sometimes non-standard colour applications, incorporating intense pinks, rich purples, and iridescent sheens, coupled with her dynamic structural arrangements, foreshadow later artistic developments. Some commentators draw connections to visual styles found within psychedelic art dating from the 1960s and 70s, while her forceful, often frightening mythical depictions resonate with illustrations characteristic of current fantasy genres.

Rediscovery and Belated Recognition

After her death occurred in 1919 (following William's passing by only two years), Evelyn De Morgan remained for many decades a figure of relative obscurity within art historical discourse. Various circumstances contributed to this situation. The waning appeal of artistic modes like Pre-Raphaelitism alongside Symbolism had an effect. The substantial celebrity attained by William De Morgan, especially after his late-career achievements writing novels, might have inadvertently diminished focus on her artistic legacy.

Even Wilhelmina Stirling, Evelyn's sister who founded the De Morgan Foundation specifically to protect their artistic output, released their combined life story using the publication title William De Morgan and his Wife, an action reflecting the gender biases common then. However, academic curiosity began to resurface near the late 20th century, stimulated by feminist art historical scholarship reassessing female artists previously disregarded. The steadfast dedication shown by the De Morgan Foundation toward conserving and championing her art proved essential. Recent important exhibitions indicate a substantial re-evaluation of her artistic significance.

The De Morgan Legacy Today

The De Morgan Foundation carries on its essential undertaking to preserve and exhibit the art produced by both Evelyn and William. Stationed at Cannon Hall near Barnsley, South Yorkshire, the De Morgan Museum initiated operations again following major refurbishments, facilitating enhanced public interaction with the artefacts held there. A significant exhibition, Evelyn De Morgan: The Modern Painter in Victorian London, held at the Guildhall Art Gallery located in London, further reinforced her re-established prominence.

This presentation included crucial creations, incorporating restored canvases plus reproductions of works lost during a 1991 fire at a storage facility. This resurgence emphasizes the persistent impact and applicability of her art. Her investigations into the psychological wounds of war, the search for spiritual meaning, the hazards of materialism, and female resilience consistently engage contemporary viewers. Her singular combination of technical prowess, evocative symbolism, and social observation establishes her position as a vital, though once overlooked, contributor to the story of British art.

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A Final Vision: Art's Eternal Power

Evelyn De Morgan regarded art as something beyond straightforward ornamentation; it functioned as a crucial medium for expression, commentary, and spiritual inquiry. Her commitment was apparent and strong from her early years. A diary passage composed at the age of seventeen vividly captures this passion. Feeling her painting output was inadequate, she admonished herself: "Art holds permanence whereas life is fleeting... I must compensate this instant, I lack even a solitary moment to spare."

This awareness of urgency guided her throughout her working life. Facing societal restrictions and later the overwhelming presence of global warfare, she channelled her principles, apprehensions, and aspirations into her canvases. Her paintings remain as affirmations of her pacifist stance, her spiritual questing, and her advocacy for female empowerment. Through visual narratives involving dragons and celestial beings, darkness and light, she engaged with the profound challenges defining her period, leaving an artistic inheritance whose strength and importance continue.