mardi 5 mars 2019

Lizzie Siddal uncovered at Wightwick Manor and Gardens


Wightick Manor and Gardens certainly is some dream of an estate. It is open all year round but with various time entries depending on the season. One of the best times of the year to admire the domain is probably Halloween.
I had the opportunity to visit it twice, first on a stormy afternoon perfectly suiting the somewhat gloomy mood of the season and the next day bathed in sunlight, enhancing the colour contrasts between the green of the lawns and the warm autumnal hues.
On both days, the grounds were resonating with the cries of children following the pumpkin trail. This holiday was devoted to special outdoor and spooky crafts events: Wightwick Manor and Gardens truly brought all Hallows Eve through family-friendly activities.



This hidden gem is located in the heart of the West Midlands, a couple of miles from Wolverhampton. Not the easiest to access though, an erratic bus service from town will stop in front of the Mermaid Pub that one needs to circle to access the hill. Most enjoyable is that the estate reveals its wonders only when the ascension is complete. There, one can marvel at the manor towering its enchanted landscape garden. This features diversities of styles, ranging from formal borders in the main lawn to wilder woodland in the back. A few architectural surprises, such as the bridge inspired by the Mathematical one in Cambridge, or the “sun seat”, embellish these “garden rooms” redesigned by Thomas Mawson in 1904, in line with the Arts and Crafts ideal of craftsmanship and regionalism.
Shapes are clearly defined, privileging naturalistic treatment of beech trees, magnolia lifts, rose beds and holly walks. Dense hedging and stonewalls create the backbone of the park conceived as an essential component of the house.
This 17th century original building was crumbling down when manufacturer Theodore Mander bought the site. The first construction phase ended in 1887, the second extension containing the Great Parlour wing took place in 1893. The triangular gabled rooftops, ochre twist brick chimneys and oak wooden beams aim at reproducing Elizabethan simplicity. Narrow stained-glass window panes add up to the pattern of the façades.
Touring the house with a guide felt like a privilege as the interior normally does not open before 12 off season. She started with a brief historical account of the Mander family who had made a fortune from paint and varnish. Influenced by Oscar Wilde’s lectures on the “House Beautiful” in 1884, Theodore and Flora decided to decorate the manor with Morris and Co wallpapers, De Morgan ceramics, Kempe glass and antique furniture. Flora Mander, a gifted embroiderer herself, established her empire in the drawing room where she entertained social gatherings. She reached the boudoir, her private sitting room, through a small secret door.
The different sets of rooms changed functions over the course of time. From the onset, Wightwick Manor had modern facilities: central heating and electricity. The library, also a study, holds books reflecting the Manders’ concerns for art, literature and politics. The billiard room was initially used by men to play after dinner, but by the 1930s, females would join as well. “No cat or person here” declare certain labels displayed on sofas, while other cushions with stitched cats grant you the right to sit, some remembrance of Lady Mander’s love for pets and how she forbade visitors to remove them from chairs because of their claws.
Bedrooms upstairs were made to accommodate many guests. Their names, inspired by their decoration (the Indian Bird Room, the Acanthus Room), are painted on the doors. Quotes by Geoffrey Mander’s cherished poets can be seen on their walls. Alongside the family bedrooms are the nurseries, where the children played, ate their meals and slept with Nanny. The tower servants’ rooms are directly connected to the service wing downstairs. They had cold and hot running water, a bathtub, and were provided with very comfortable living conditions, which was unusual by the start of the 20th century. All this arrangement was meant at generating domestic feeling and a sense of elegance.

 


It was not before 1937 that Wightwick Manor was opened to the public by Sir Geoffrey and donated to the National Trust. Having remarried in 1930 with Rosalie Glynn Grylls, Sir Geoffrey, a radical Liberal MP, refurbished the house his father Theodore Mander had left him. Rosalie, the academic, was the impulse behind the Pre-Raphaelite collection that made Wightwick’s Manor fame. Having given up her political career, she focussed instead on researching British literature and art, beginning with a biography of Mary Shelley. She acquired then works by artists close to William Morris, with an increased heed for female painters, notably his daughter May, Lucy Madox Brown and Maria Spartali Stillman.
In addition to these, the Malthouse (a section of the original farm buildings used for malting and brewing) shelters the De Morgan collection, dedicated to this creative couple. During my visit, the gallery showcased some of the most iconic canvasses by Evelyn de Morgan including Flora, Harmonia and Cadmus or Night and Sleep.

Evelyn de Morgan, Cadmus and Harmonia, 1877
Oil on canvas, 102 x 45 cm
De Morgan Foundation
To that date, Wightwick Manor owns the works of eleven professional women artists on permanent display, more than any other National Trust institution and some national galleries. To commemorate the anniversary of female suffrage last year, the National Trust honoured women’s histories: the “Muse to Maker” show at the Red House for instance, was part of this Women and Power programme on the most famous females of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and their contribution to the Arts and Crafts Movement. At Wightwick Manor, the re-enactments of the Suffragettes march had been so popular throughout 2018 that they were brought back for the Halloween season. Based on Emeline Pankhurst’s autobiography, volunteers in costume performed indoors, which rooms were adorned with green and purple banners, and other “votes for women” signs.


So it was only logical that Wightwick Manor should hold from March to December “Beyond Ophelia: a celebration of Lizzie Siddal” to acknowledge her status as poet and artist. Located in the single guest bedroom with the Daisy Morris wallpaper, it comprised a total of twelve artworks in various techniques and a couple of loans formerly owned by the Manders, all of which gathered and some mounted in frame for the very first time. As in the other bedrooms, it  featured two full poems and some quotations on the wall. This was the second retrospective on Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal only, curated seventeen years after the show at the Ruskin Gallery by Jan Marsh.
Siddal is known either as the model who sat for Ophelia, one of the nation’s most iconic paintings, or the tragic muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, but this thematical display explored the acquisition history of Siddal’s works, her subject-matter and style. The few biographical elements were only available to apprise the viewer’s understanding of Siddal’s career choices, her working conditions as a professional artist.


With exhibits spread between wall hangings and pieces of furniture (two tables in the corners, one in the centre, plus the fireplace and small sofa facing the window), the viewer was free to wander as he or she pleased: artworks all embodied the basis of the reflection on one particular aspect of her legacy. It made sense though, to go from left to right, starting with the nearest wall to the entrance. Panels indicated the distinct sections of the argument, along with labels, written in simple lettering design and accessible language free of jargon. Their visual identity was reinforced thanks to the stylised reproduction in dark blue and yellow of a Rossetti ink sketch of Lizzie working, at her easel.
Since Siddal’s work is small in scale and range, it was significant to present it in such an intimate setting. The viewer could thus get extremely close to the artworks, noticing the intricacy of details in pen and ink sketches, the variations in watercolour tints and get immersed in her ominous motifs. I was also surprised to discover that some artworks were not that small – contrary to what catalogues had led me to believe – but almost medium format. Besides, the soft pastel hues of green with touches of pink and blue wallpaper emphasised the jewel-like patches and strong outlines of the drawings.

Interestingly, we began not with her youth but a 1854 drawing entitled Lovers Listenning to Music, revealing great mastery of light and shade[1]. It was part of a lot of six works bought by the Manders at a Sotheby’s auction in 1961, from which art dealer and historian Jeremy Maas was outbid “thus creating a world record of her work”. Lady Mander was acquainted with Helen Rossetti Angeli as well, who owned The Haunted Wood and The Eve of Saint Agnes. Both women agreed Siddal had “real original talent, not at all Dante Gabriel Rossetti”. Overall, Lady Mander’s 1964 biography of Rossetti provoked a surge of interest in Pre-Raphaelite studies. Reproductions of letters and Sotheby’s estimations that the visitor could read and manipulate at his/ her will added up to the feeling of proximity with the collectors’ history. 
Elizabeth Siddal, The Haunted Wood, 1856
Gouache on paper, 11 x 12 cm
National Trust
On this same table, a copy of The Germ – the literary magazine of the Pre-Raphaelites – was to be found. It was open on the page revealing a drawing of Siddal as Viola by Walter Deverell. This exhibit and the video filmed by curator Hannah Squire constituted the most groundbreaking enquiry of the show. According to Dr Jan Marsh, who acted as its scientific advisor, the discovery of Siddal by Walter Deverell in a milliner’s shop was a piece of fiction transmitted by several generations of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, which made the legend of Elizabeth Siddal more convincing. In her interview, Dr Marsh reassessed Siddal’s early biography by claiming she herself took the initiative to sit for Deverell and showed some sketches to his father, the principal of the London School of Design – now Royal College of the Arts - as she was probably already working as a dressmaker for the family. The rest of the video is dedicated to Siddal’s poem "Silent Wood" read by one of the manor’s volunteers on soft notes of background music.
This section, adequately entitled “Life and Aspirations”, investigated on Siddal’s background as an burgeonning artist. Since her family was thought to have been unsupportive and because she lacked money for training, Siddal demonstrated quite some ambition for her condition (that is, lower-middle class). If drawing was often practiced by accomplished young ladies fit for marriage, it was regarded an amateur, not a professional, activity. Siddal, on the contrary, expected more than entering the studio by merely sitting for artists. She enjoyed spending time with and learning from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, unchaperoned.


However, most major institutions – like the Royal Academy – didn’t admit women. If you wanted to get education, it was through private tuition (often for a fee) or regional, less prestigious art schools, which still implemented gender segregation. It seems that in exchange of modelling, Siddal required Rossetti to teach her painting. Her lover, who had secured John Ruskin’s patronage for her in 1855[1], encouraged imagination, creativity and authenticity, rather than accuracy and refined composition, in line with early Pre-Raphaelite doctrines. Working at Rossetti’s and borrowing from his materials, Siddal never had a studio of her own. In 1857, when she attended the Sheffield School of Design, there was no life class available, as drawing from the nude was deemed improper for ladies, so she probably studied through basic elements of figure (outline and shading), copy from casts, engravings or ornamental design and nature (plants and flowers). Yet an institution of this type was initially meant for craftsmanship, not fine art.


“Style and subjects”: the core of the matter. Poetry fuelled Siddal’s potential for innovation. Though deprived of ancient classical education, she received modest instruction during her childhood and teenage years (e.g. reading and writing), but that was enough to bring an awareness of existing literary traditions. Influenced by Keats and Tennyson, Siddal’s poetry and art are suffused with Romanticism. Siddal intensively collaborated with Rossetti too, by illustrating his poems. Sister Helen remains faithful to its original source by manifesting sympathy for the eponymous protagonist, using witchcraft to take revenge on her beloved, who has wronged her. Siddal’s expressive, if not awkward poses, were inspired by medieval manuscripts and early Italian art. She dealt with religious subject-matter too: she drew no less than six sketches of the Virgin and Child, three of which on display. Unlike the lack of command usually ascribed to her, this betrays some attempts at commercial strategy, as this type of modern moral subject was thought acceptable for a lady artist. With that many versions on the topic, varying the characters poses and the move from Annunciation to Nativity scenes makes us wonder whether she intended to devise a cycle on the life of Mary.

Elizabeth Siddal, Nativity or Madonna and Child, 1860
Pencil on paper, National Trust
Her figures are stiff silhouettes in long robes, so the focus really is on hands and faces. Often appearing in claustrophobic settings, her compositions have been interpreted in the context of 19th century separate spheres. The Victorians attributed the private, domestic space of home to femininity, whereas the public, outside world was perceived as male territory. It is not rare to see windows in the corner of Siddal’s designs and women leaning towards them. With Cecilia, Patron Saint of music, Siddal conceives artistic creation as an isolated activity that should be performed alone in a peaceful environment, akin to religious devotion.
Interspersed between exhibits, pieces of poetry complement Siddal’s pictorial production. Often related to the gouache The Haunted Wood hung nearby, "Silent Wood" conveys a sense of gloom through Gothic touches and uneasiness. Precision of botanical detail and rendition of heavy rhythm through a pattern of couplets contribute to forge some enclosed, self-contained feeling. The visual translation of the theme is even grimmer, alluding to the Doppelgänger motif of Nordic folklore: meeting your double implied your imminent death. This is delivered in the contorted pose of the female character, surprisingly opening her arms to the ghost[1]The other writings in the spotlight are “Love and Hate” plus extracts of “The Lust of the Eyes” and “Dead Love”. Apparently written in private, this care for Siddal’s poetry coincided with the publication of her poems’ new edition by Dr Serena Trowbridge, who gave a talk at Wightwick last January. More than her visual production, Siddal’s verse reflects her tastes in popular legends and ghost stories, enabling her to explore themes of lost love and death, therefore fitting in a Victorian poetical convention.

                  
Elizabeth Siddal, St Cecilia, 1860
Right: pencil and ink on paper, 21,5 x 20 cm ; left: pencil on paper, 20,5 x 17 cm
National Trust

In tune with its collection, Wightwick wished to shed a new analysis on Siddal’s use of female characters. Either powerful or melancholy figures, they depart from the customary depiction of voluptuous femmes fatales we are used to seeing in Pre-Raphaelite painting. It was quite unconventional for ladies to represent violent women, such as Sister Helen. The saints Siddal was attracted to are marked by their life of solitude. The Eve of St Agnes invokes a ritual performed by virgins on 21st January to see their future husbands but Agnes is in fact the protector of those seeking chastity and purity. 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Palace of Art
1857, engraving on paper by the
Dalziel Brothers, 8,6 x 7,9 cm
Tate Britain
Cecilia became a Christian martyr because of her faith as she was forced to marry a pagan whom she managed to convert. In the pen and ink version, kneeling Cecilia throws her head back in ecstasy towards the heavens. The three sketches on this motif expose how Siddal experimented with layout by drawing Cecilia and the Angel closer, brought together by their passion for music embodied in the shape of the organ, and building their own “Palace of Art”[1]. To put it in a nutshell, Elizabeth Siddal readapted popular, literary and biblical legend by concentrating narrative tension on the emotional struggles experienced by her favourite heroines.


Visitors’ participation was encouraged with the display of Sir Galahad’s drawings on both sides, newly mounted. Hinges allowed you to turn the frames and disclose Siddal’s lack of funds as she sometimes drew on the front and rear of paper to save it. This take on the Arthurian cycle was part of a project that never came to be: Siddal began working on designs for the Moxon publication of Tennyson’s poems, from which these were derived. Contrary to previous literary depictions of the Knight extolling masculine action, Galahad[1], in his startled expression, is self-denying. It is a moment of divine revelation and one of the very first images of the quest for the Holy Grail in Pre-Raphaelite art.

Elizabeth Siddal, Sir Galahad, 1860
Pencil on paper, 20,5 x 17 cm
National Trust
Visitors were further invited to have their say on a board upholstered with Morris fabric in the corner of the room. Pencils and paper postcards were placed on a table, reading “How do you think Lizzie Siddal should be remembered?”. Answers were diverse, empowering and gave food for thought: ‘by being an inspiration to women (and men)’, ‘to have a yearly remembrance’, ‘by showing her work amongst her male peers’, ‘maybe a memorial or statue’. I thought this was probably the most poignant legacy one could leave her: sending her a note, an honourable way of resurrecting her for posterity.
On the first day I entered the Daisy period room, I had a chat with a visitor who peered at my notebook. I had the feeling she was quite representative of art-amateurs on whom Elizabeth Siddal exerts ongoing fascination. Other viewers I’ve talked to already knew her name and parts of her life. It was as this precise point that I realised how much of a celebrity she was in Great Britain, a country proud of its national school of painting, praising the individuality and originality of Pre-Raphaelite art.

The scrapbook left on the couch engaged you to “Discover” more, making for the absence of catalogue. It was organised in chapters and added some information on the artworks. From a more detailed study of her drawings to working conditions of women in the Victorian art world, you could learn about Siddal’s complicated relationships with Rossetti and Ruskin as they both stimulated and limited her career opportunities. Despite these restrictions, we grasp that she made a point of appearing as “Artist-Painter” in the 1861 census, at a time when her ill health provoked by miscarriages probably prevented her from producing anything. Adding some information on the exhibits’ sources of inspiration, it also gave prominence to their provenance, an invaluable piece of evidence for any research on that an elusive body of work. This ended up with the printing of a couple of poems whose evocative titles evoke sorrow, remorse and passion.
Previous to my detailed enquiry on the display, I was lucky enough to be granted an interview with Helen Bratt-Wyton. Now house and collections manager at Wightwick Manor and Gardens, she wrote her dissertation on William Morris and socialism before getting interested in women’s history and domestic service. She started by informing me that an initial mistake provided the basis of the project: Sister Helen was authenticated with other drawings from the Ashmolean Museum and re-attributed to Elizabeth Siddal (some of her sketches were thought to be Rossetti’s).

The choice of the title was made to dismantle stereotypes associating Siddal to the drowning heroine she sat for. The aim was to point out her contribution to the Pre-Raphaelite movement by influencing some of its “brothers” in return. This was all the more necessary as the loans from descendants of the Pre-Raphaelites came to Wightwick almost by accident, Helen explained to me. What appealed to them in the first place was the taste for scandal and the direst aspects of Siddal’s biography. For this precise reason, Helen stressed that the scrapbook had been devised for viewers who wanted to know more about her life[1]
Elizabeth Siddal, Sister Helen, 1860
Ink and chalk on paper, 13 x 15 cm
National Trust
Its purpose was to raise an awareness of the Rossettis’ responsibility in editing Siddal’s “legend”, without adopting a polemical tone: Dante Gabriel indeed destroyed her notebooks and correspondence after she passed away. This is why I appreciated the lack of data on her sickness, drug addiction and early death in the exhibition itself. Yet her career had, according to early 20th century collectors and critics, little artistic merits and value on the market. Thanks to the Manders, this erroneous conception started to evolve[2].

This change can be felt in the current use of language, women artists are less and less the daughters of wives of …, to be portrayed as makers in their own right, argued Helen. In that sense, the Women and Power programme might have been conceived as overtly political, but this informal discussion felt incredibly refreshing to share about my Ph.D topic without any judgment from my respondent.
There has certainly been a gap in reception of gender studies between my homeland and the countries they originated from. In the UK, it is not a shame to be both activist and researcher, on the contrary, it is rather embraced by art historians working in the field. When I debate with British or American curators, I don’t feel the need to restrain myself, moderate my speech, or prove my point. Let’s just say that to French art historians, Siddal could appear as a mere ‘department’ of the more prolific painters she was acquainted with[3].


Therefore, it is a shame this display did not elicit more attention from the media. I came across it almost by accident on social networks, through the Facebook page of Wightwick Manor and Gardens, which promotes relatively well its events. One can then deplore the absence of general press coverage as reviews were published on specialised websites or blogs (The Kissed Mouth, William Morris Society amongst them), the most disappointing being, without a doubt, the one from the Victorian Web. As much as I respect this database, its author has completely missed the point, falling into the very pit the exhibition sought to disclaim: most her artworks are interpreted as “borrowings from Rossetti”, The Haunted Wood is esteemed as “illegible”, while all “can only be viewed as (…) amateur”. Nevertheless, Anna McNay devoted the show a long, significant article in Studio International and it seems the revision of Siddal’s poems has caused some renewed scholarly attention to her career.


In the end, did Wightick Manor and Gardens succeed in progressing beyond Ophelia? Despite Simon Cooke’s assertion that “this is an inflated estimation, a misreading that privileges the legend and not the facts”, this show, in my opinion, fulfilled its pledges in tearing Elizabeth Siddal apart from constant comparisons to her male counterparts. For the first time, the narrative of the muse we have come to know as “Lizzie” has been framed out of Pre-Raphaelite mythography, endowing her early start with more agency. This looks all the more promising in an era favourable to female heritage finally making its way to museums and galleries. It also gives one many hopes for the upcoming “Pre-Raphaelite Sisters” show at the National Portrait Gallery, unveiling the stories of twelve artists and models central to the movement, Siddal featuring as one of its stars. Exhibitions of this scope are essential to open the doors of world-famous museums to women studies. Traditional art histories need to be thus shattered by alternative narratives reconfiguring the canon.






[1] According to William Michael Rossetti, this represents his brother and Siddal as a couple on the Lovers’ Seat, a popular romantic spot in Hastings


[1] John Ruskin, after seeing some of her works under Rossetti’s initiative, offered Siddal an annual allowance of £150 for her whole artistic output

[1] This very painting was chosen to feature in the 1857 summer exhibition set up by Pre-Raphaelite associate Ford Madox Brown, at Russell Place. Elizabeth Siddal was its sole female artist

[1] Cecilia, from a noble Roman family in the first centuries of our era, is the heroine of Tennyson’s 1832 poem "The Palace of Art"

[1] Renowned for his gallantry and worthiness, Sir Galahad, illegitimate son of Lancelot, is the only knight able to see the grail with Percival

[1] Siddal and Rossetti’s relationship is in that respect characterised as ‘dysfonctional’. Marriage seemed to have been a source of quarrel as Gabriel avoided to commit for lack of financial means while their relationship risked of damaging her reputation
[2] Siddal’s collection was hung in Rossetti’s home after she died from laudanum overdose. It was spread through the photographic portfolio compiled by her husband in 1871
[3] I am here referring to an expression employed by Hector Obalk to describe Camille Claudel’s career in relation to her master and lover Auguste Rodin, interviewed for the opening of a museum dedicated to her in March 2017 (source: “Visites Privées” Youtube channel hosted by Stéphane Bern)