A Recording Angel

Painting height: 58.4 cm
Painting width: 25.4 cm
Frame height: 85 cm
Frame width: 48 cm

This sketchy composition is an early precedent for Destiny (no. 35). The wingless angel records and judges. It continues Watts’s early preoccupations with judgment but now appears to have a more benevolent aspect. Because of its evocative meaning and gorgeous colour, Watts always kept this work by his side in his studio.

Mary Watts provides a brief history of this work in the catalogue of G.F. Watts’ work she created after his death. She wrote:

A sketch which was among the very few paintings by himself which Mr. Watts kept beside him and always in his studio. It is not to be confused with a red chalk drawing, so entitled, now in the Whitworth Gallery at Manchester which with slight differences is the design of ‘The All Pervading’ [1].

Although not offering an interpretation of this work, here Mary Watts notes that Watts highly valued this work, as he kept it with him and that it should not be confused with another work by Watts- The All Pervading (COMWG2007.504, 1887).

Twentieth and twenty-first century Watts scholars take different approaches to this work while also comparing it to other works created by Watts. Differing from Mary Watts, Alston, writing in 1929, compares this work to Destiny (COMWG.133, 1904)- another work by G.F. Watts [2].  He later added further interpretation to this work when he wrote, “Here Watts adopts the ancient idea of the prophet and judge to serve his own conceptions of moral force and righteousness” [3]. Like Destiny here Alston notes that here Watts features a divine figure who records for possible judgement.  Ralston goes on in his description of this work to note that Watts sought to convey how the divine and infinite is always above and beyond the finite [4].

        Contemporary scholars Hilary Underwood and Lucy Ella Rose also pick upon this theme. Instead of comparing this work to Destiny Underwood argues that this work helped to inspire Destiny while continuing with a theme he established [5]. She wrote, “The Recording Angel… continues Watts’s old themes of divine judgement, but with a new sense of benevolence” [6].  As with Alston, Underwood also notes that Watts depicts a Symbolist figure meant to stand in for the divine and infinite. 

Writing in 2016 Lucy Ella Rose offers a slightly different interpretation. Like Mary Watts, she compares this work with The All Pervading [7]. However, she also agrees with the interpretation of this work by Alston and Underwood. She notes that this work depicts a figure writing on a scroll and performing the role of both observer and interpreter [8]. Based on these three interpretations this work clearly fits within the canon of Watts’s Symbolist works as it clear emphasizes this theme of the supernatural forces recording everything.

Footnotes:

[1]    Mary Watts, Catalogue of the Works of G.F. Watts, page 125.

[2]    Rowland Alston, The Mind and Work of G.F. Watts, plate 9.

[3]   Rowland Alston, The Mind and Work of G.F. Watts, plate 9.

[4]   Rowland Alston, The Mind and Work of G.F. Watts, plate 9.

[5]   Hilary Underwood, G.F. Watts Parables in Print, page 9.

[6]   Hilary Underwood, G.F. Watts Parables in Print, page 9.

[7]    Lucy Ella Rose, “Subversive Representations of Women and Death in Victorian Visual Culture: The ‘M/Other’ in the Art and Craft of George Frederic Watts and Mary Seton Watts,” pages 65-66.

[8]   Lucy Ella Rose, “Subversive Representations of Women and Death in Victorian Visual Culture: The ‘M/Other’ in the Art and Craft of George Frederic Watts and Mary Seton Watts,” page 66.

Text by Dr Ryan Nutting