Study for ‘The Eve of St Agnes’. Verso: Study for ‘The Guarded Bower’ c. 1855 - 1866
Dimensions: image: 226 x 148 mm
Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: Here we have Arthur Hughes' pencil sketch, "Study for ‘The Eve of St Agnes.’" The composition feels so intimate, like we're intruding on a stolen moment. What do you make of its raw, unfinished quality? Curator: It's beautiful, isn’t it? Think of it as a whispered secret, a glimpse into the artist's creative process. The sketchiness captures the lovers' furtive embrace, a ghost of a touch. Does it feel hesitant, yearning, perhaps? Editor: Hesitant is a good word. I also sense a vulnerability. Curator: Exactly! The lack of rigid lines mirrors the uncertainty and fragility of young love. It's less about perfection and more about the fleeting emotion, don’t you think? It's that delicate balance that lingers, like a half-remembered dream. Editor: That makes me appreciate the sketchiness even more. Thanks for sharing your insights!
Comments
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hughes-study-for-the-eve-of-st-agnes-verso-study-for-the-guarded-bower-t06979
Join the conversation
Join millions of artists and users on Artera today and experience the ultimate creative platform.
The recto side of the sheet contains a preliminary sketch for the layout and frame design for Hughes's 1856 triptych The Eve of St Agnes (Tate Gallery N04604), based on Keats's poem of the same name. Pre-Raphaelite painters paid a great deal of attention to the framing of their pictures. This is the only known record of Hughes's early thoughts on how to present The Eve of St Agnes. It indicates the artist's conception of the picture, in true Pre-Raphaelite spirit, as an object in which frame and picture were one. For the finished triptych, Hughes adopted a more simplified, less architectural, form of framing.The verso contains a number of sketches relating to an oil painting by Hughes now in the Bristol City Art Gallery, The Guarded Bower of 1866.Further reading:Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites, London 1970, pp.113-15Leonard Roberts, introduction by Stephen Wildman, Arthur Hughes: His Life and Works, a Catalogue Raisonné, Woodbridge, Suffolk [to be published 1997]Terry RiggsNovember 1997
CollectMore like this
