Pen and Ink Compositional Sketch for 'Chaos'

drawing height: 25.3 cm
drawing width: 20.2 cm

This pen and ink drawing on half of a sheet of folded paper is an early sketch for what would become one of Watts’ largest and most ambitious paintings, Chaos. It has several of the key elements that remain in the finished paintings, including a falling figure at the lower left and a reclining giant overseeing the events. Watts made many drawings in pen, pencil, and chalks, as well as two oil studies for Chaos. He also made small plaster figures of the emerging giants at the bottom left of the finished painting. Watts reused many of the figures from Chaos and this study in other works. The falling figure, for example, appears in a drawing of The Battle of the Gods and the Giants and in The Denunciation of Cain. The reclining giant is based on the sculpture of Dionysus from the Parthenon pediments, which Watts drew repeatedly throughout his career.

Sir Richard Brinsley Ford, who gave this drawing to the Watts Gallery in his bequest, described it as a ‘slight and no doubt early sketch for one of Watts’ most ambitious compositions’ [1]. The writing visible on the reverse of the page is from Brinsley Ford, recording how he obtained the drawing. Dating material related to the Chaos  paintings can be complicated; Watts seems to have painted two of the four versions in the mid-1870s, but sketches showing figures and compositional elements from the paintings are included in albums at the Watts Gallery dated 1856, and Watts used elements and themes from the final composition in other canvases and projects. The Watts Gallery also holds numerous plaster studies of the emerging figures and one of the finished canvases (COMWG.413, 1875-1882). 

This sketch is likely, as Brinsley Ford suggested, an early study. The frieze-like, linear composition of the final work is not fully in evidence here; the finished painting is approximately three times long as it is tall, while the present sketch has a ratio of approximately 3:2.  The group of sleeping giants in the final painting are here represented by one reclining figure copied from the Dionysus of the Parthenon sculptures, one of Watts’ most reliable touchstones [2]. It is significantly more central in this sketch than the final painting, where the ‘a number of gigantic figures stretched out at full length represent a range of mountains typifying the rocky structure or skeleton’ [3]. At the left of the sketch, Watts included a figure falling head-first towards the viewer; this is retained in the final work but also appears to be a repeat motif across his oeuvre, appearing in a preparatory chalk drawing The Battle of the Godsand the Giants (COMWG2006.56, 1854-1855) and the torso of Abel in The Denunciation of Cain (COMWG.76, 1871-1872), as well as a chalk study of the single figure (COMWWG2007.658, 1870-1875) at Watts Gallery. Significant missing figures are the central giant emerging from the waters, and the fiery figure with its arms outstretched in the form of a cross. This latter appears in a red chalk drawing exhibited at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London in 2020.

To the bottom right of the sketch are four smaller figures who would in the final painting become a row of dancing women in blue drapery, representing humanity and regular time. Here, a group of three androgynous but probably masculine figures move towards the right edge of the page but reach back towards the fourth figure. In Watts’ description of his planned ‘House of Life’ cycle, for which Chaos was the beginning scene, he described how

revolving centuries and cycles should glide, personified by female figures of great beauty, beneath the crags upon which the mighty forms should lie, to indicate (as compared with the effect upon man and his works) the non-effect of time upon them [4].

The Royal Academy and British Museum both hold sketches of these dancers at a more finished level, where the gender and number of the group have been solidified closer to the finished painting [5]. These dancers and the reposing giants further appear in the related painting The Titans (COMWG.109, 1848-1875) .

The two monumental Chaos paintings, at Tate and Watts Gallery, both measure over three hundred centimetres long, and developed from this small 20 cm sketch and related works. Watts’ process for developing pictures, especially his ‘big pictures’ involve numerous drawing and oil sketches. The present sheet may be one of the earliest preliminary sketches of Watts’ idea for Chaos in the House of Life cycle, which he then worked up by drawing it again and again in various media until he was satisfied it communicated his vision of the origins of earth and time to the viewer.

Footnotes:

[1] Brinsley Ford & John Christian.  The Sixtieth Volume of the Walpole Society: 'The Ford Collection.' Vol. II, London: The Walpole Society, 1998. Cat. RBF524, p. 259.

[2] Watts drew this sculpture repeatedly in his sketchbooks including a sketchbook (COMWG2007.210).

[3] Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: the Annals of an Artist’s Life, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1912), p. 102.

[4] Mary Seton Watts, George Frederic Watts: the Annals of an Artist’s Life, vol. 1 (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd, 1912), p. 102.

[5] See The Hours and Compositional study for 'Chaos'

Text by Dr Melissa Gustin