The Wounded Heron

Painting height: 91.4 cm
Painting width: 71.1 cm
Frame height: 124 cm
Frame width: 104 cm

Throughout his career Watts used a number of his paintings to criticise the needless killing of birds for sport and fashion. In this dramatic early work, a heron has been brought down by a falcon. Painted when the artist was just 20 years old, this was one of Watts’s first works to be exhibited at the Royal Academy annual exhibition which also included works by more famous artists such as J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), David Wilkie (1785-1841), and Charles Eastlake (1793-1865).

Painted early in the artist’s career the story behind the creation of this work captures Watts’ process. In volume 1 of The Annals of an Artist’s Life Mary Watts described this process. She wrote:

The year 1837 found him hard at work in his own studio, this being a room in Clipston Street; and in March of that year he sent in to the Academy for exhibition the picture called ‘Wounded Heron,’ painted from the dead bird he happened to see in a poulterer’s shop. Struck by its beauty, he bought it, and worked from it as rapidly as the conditions required, but with the utmost care and painstaking [1].

Based on this description Mary highlighted he saw inspiration of this work based upon a dead bird he saw in a window, how he brought the bird and brought it home, and completed the work as soon as possible before the bird deteriorated. Mary also added a postscript to information on the development of this work when she notes that Watts sold the painting, but bought it back in 1888 [2].

Although this work is not considered one of Watt’s protest paintings [such as Irish Famine (COMWG.132, 1848-1850), Found Drowned (COMWG.161, 1848-1850), Song of the Shirt (COMWG.128, 1850), and Under the Dry Arch (COMWG.171, 184-1850)] many scholars, both during and after Watts’ life praised this work for addressing social issues of the time. Writing in 1903 G.K. Chesterton described this work along these terms. He wrote, “[it was] painted clearly with a humanitarian object; it depicts the suffering of a stricken creature; it depicts the helplessness of life under the cruelty of the inanimate violence” [3]. Chesterton here notes how this interpretation of this work as reflecting the brutality of the act of killing a bird.

Scholars and critics in the twenty-first century also note this interpretation. Tromans noted that this work addressed Watts’ lifelong concern with cruelty to wildlife [4]. Other contemporary critics also note how the composition of this work reinforces this interpretation.

As Ward points out, the bird is clearly the focus of this work as it takes up the majority of the space in this work while a hunter who killed this bird is only depicted as a small figure on the right side [5]. Furthermore, Bryant compares this painting to works such as Hawking in the Olden Time by Landseer while highlighting how the low horizon line in the work and how the heron seems to be under attack allows the viewer to perceive the action in this work [6]. Bryant goes on to note that two later works by Watts [The Minotaur (COMWG2008.149, 1885) and A Dedication (COMWG.157, 1898-1899)] also highlight the thoughtless killing of birds [7].

Footnotes:

[1] Mary Watts, The Annals of an Artist’s Life Volume 1, page 27.

[2] Mary Watts, The Annals of an Artist’s Life Volume 1, page 28 and Mary Watts catalogue, page 71.

[3] G.K. Chesterton, G.F. Watts, page 28.

[4] Nicholas Tromans, The Art of G.F. Watts, page 24.

[5] Chloe Ward, The Drawings of G.F. Watts, page 36.

[6] Barbara Bryant, “3. A Wounded Heron, 1837,” in G.F. Watts Victorian Visionary (ed. Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant), page 86.

[7] Barbara Bryant, “3. A Wounded Heron, 1837,” in G.F. Watts Victorian Visionary (ed. Mark Bills and Barbara Bryant), page 86.

Text by Dr Ryan Nutting