The Messenger also known as Angel of Death

Painting height: 111.8 cm
Painting width: 66 cm
Frame height: 143 cm
Frame width: 100 cm

The Messenger, also known as the ‘Angel of Death’, ‘The Message of Peace’ or ‘The Messenger of Death’ is one of many works by Watts which approached the theme of death with a symbolic meaning. Death is presented in the guise of a beautiful and serene woman. She holds a baby in her arms, symbolic of her sympathetic role. Before her is a man, frail and weak, who she reaches out to, gently touching his arm. The painting presented Watts’s view of Death as a peaceful friend who offered solace to those who had reach the end of their lives. The version held in the Watts Collection is an early, smaller oil study for the larger final version. The collection also holds several studies in ink and pencil studies for work as well as a large chalk study for Death. In the finished version of the work objects symbolic of life and work, such as a musical instrument and astronomical globe, surround the man.

The theme of death was a motif which Watts would return to frequently and which occupied much of this thought throughout his career. The theme would appear in multiple works such as Found Drowned (COMWG.161, 1848-1850) and Sic Transit (1891-2, Tate Collection). The Messenger presented Watts’s conception of death as a symbolic and allegorical figure. Watts depicts Death not as a fearful of aggressive figure, but rather as a merciful and beautiful woman, who reaches gently with her hand to lightly touch a dying man. In her arms she holds a baby, emphasising her protective and sympathetic nature. This leitmotif was repeated in Watts’s symbolist works Love and Death (1885-7, Tate Collection), Court of Death (c.1870-1902, Tate Collection), Time Death and Judgement (1900, Tate Collection) and Death Crowning Innocence (1887-93, Tate Collection). Together these works have come to be known as Watts’s ‘Cycle of Death’.

Watts began working on the concept of the messenger around 1880, a time in which the theme of death and spiritualism were reoccurring in his work. Death’s role carrying an infant, a theme repeated in Death Crowning Innocence and Court of Death (COMWG.81, 1871-1902) was symbolic of Watts’s view that ‘even the germ of life is in the lap of death’ [1]. Her headdress is crowned with wings, even more visible in a later large chalk study, also in the Watts Collection (COMWG.303, 1884-1885). This is unusual for Death and more commonly associated with figures associated with victory, suggesting that Death will always prevail. Before her the dying mans face is almost completely obscured, his neck craning dramatically towards the figure of Death, In an exhibition at the New Gallery in 1867-7 the catalogue describes his posture as ‘worn out with suffering’ [2]. In doing this Watts draws attention to his plight through his posture and strain rather than his facial features and the peace given by Death’s touch.

The Watts Collection contains numerous studies for The Messenger, where Watts experimented with the falling drapery of the man and figure of the angel, as well as their relationship. At least one drawing shows the Angel of Death bent forwards over the man (COMWG2006.6).

The Watts’s social circle included several noted spiritualists who were exploring the concepts of death and the afterlife. Notably, Watts was a member of the Society for Psychical Research and close friends with its founder Frederic Myers and his wife Eveleen (nee Tennant), whose research included investigations into the paranormal and life after death. [3] Watts in particular saw death as a visitor who offered solace to those in pain, writing to a friend, Madeline Wyndham around the time of working on The Messenger: ‘As to Death, my friend Death! You know also what I feel about it, the great power always walks by my side with full consciousness on my part, inevitable but not terrible’[4].

Watts completed this small study with the larger work was still in progress, with Spielmann noting in his catalogues of Watts’s works that this smaller work dated to 1885. It was unusual for Spielmann to catalogue smaller or preparatory studies for works, indicating that this painting was understood as a version in its own right [5]. It is likely a smaller, early version of the painting which would later be expanded and enlarged. In the final version, Watts included objects from life as symbols of pursuits during life that are useless in death. These were an astrological globe, mallet, painters palette and violin. The larger version was included in Watts’s 1897 gift to the Tate Collection. A version of The Messenger was exhibited in Dresden in 1901, where it was seen by Karl Ernst Osthaus (1874/5-1921). In 1903 Osthaus commissioned Watts to paint a further version for his Folkwang Museum of Art in Hagen. An important patron of avant-garde art, Osthaus’s collection allowed Watts’s work to be seen alongside important European contemporaries such as Rodin, Matisse and Seurat [6].

Footnotes:

[1] Mary Seton Watts, The Annals of an Artists Life, Vol. I, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1912), p.308.

[2] The Works of G.F. Watts R.A., exhibition catalogue, New Gallery, London 1896-7, np.134 p.57.

[3] Trevor Hamilton, Immortal Longings: FWH Myers and the Victorian Search for Life After Death (Exeter: Andrews Ltd., 2010).

[4] Watts to Madeline Wyndham, 4 April 1885.

[5] Mark Bills & Barbara Bryant, G. F. Watts Victorian Visionary: Highlights from the Watts Gallery Collection (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2008), p.227.

[6] Birgit Schulte, ‘Karl Ernst Osthaus, Folkwang and the ‘Hagener Impuls’: Transcending the walls of the museum’, Journal of the History of Collections, Volume 21, Issue 2, November 2009, pp. 213–220.

Explore:

Study for the Messenger (COMWGNC.14)

Three ink studies of sitting figures, one study of the Messenger (COMWG2007.438)

Study of the seated man in the messenger (COMWG2006.57)

Six pen and ink, pencil and compositional studies for the messenger (COMWG2007.330)

Two pen and ink studies for the messenger and a study of drapery (COMWG2007.610)

Text by Dr Nicole Cochrane