Psychoanalysis and the Art of G.F. Watts

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Stephanie E. McNairy and Dr. Martha Peacock, Visual Arts

“He came to stay three days: he stayed thirty years,” wrote Sara Pattle Prinsep of her houseguest George Frederic Watts. In 1850, Mr. and Mrs. Prinsep signed a twenty-one year lease for the estate at Little Holland House in London. Shortly after moving in, Mrs. Prinsep asked Victorian artist G.F. Watts to stay with her family so that she could tend to his poor health. Mrs. Prinsep played an important role in Watts’ life. It was upon his introduction to Sara Pattle Prinsep and her single sister Virginia that Watts began his dependence on women to care for him and fill the lack left by the loss of his own mother. The motherliness these women exhibited towards him affected his artistic output, particularly his depictions of women. It is this relationship of motherly care for the artist that lends itself to a psychoanalytic approach to researching Watts’ art from this period.

There was an obvious lack of positive motherly influence in the life of G.F. Watts. Within Freudian constructs, the young boy desired exclusive attachment to and attention from his mother. Watts was not able to fully experience this phase of development because of separation between him and his mother due to illness. Later in his life, Sara Pattle Prinsep took on the motherly responsibilities Watts did not experience as a child. From this point forward, Watts continually replaced the mother figure with a constant female companion to tend to his needs. The proper replacement for the mother in the symbolic realm is the wife. Through the motherliness of Mrs. Pattle, Watts’ later marriage to the young actress Ellen Terry, and then a second marriage to Mary Seton Fraser-Tytler, Watts was continually recreating the mother. When Lacanian theory is applied to the art and life of G.F. Watts, it is understood that Watts was showing tendencies within both the symbolic and imaginary stages as he continually tried to fill the void left from his mother’s absence. The yearning or longing of the imaginary phase associated with his young bride Ellen Terry combined with his marriage as a way of replacing the mother in the symbolic stage represents confusion between stages.

Watts completed a series of paintings that explores the psychoanalytic issues addressed thus far in this study. Watts created at least four versions of Paolo and Francesca. The versions evolve in a biography of Watts’ primary female caretakers. The first version was a small fresco Watts painted while in Italy under the financial support of Lord and Lady Holland. Lady Holland was his hostess while he visited Florence before moving into Little Holland House with the Prinseps. Research shows that the figure of Francesca is patterned after Lady Holland. She is nude and her eyes are wide open. In version two and three Francesca is partially draped, bare breasted, and her eyes are closed. Version two is assumed to be a portrait of Ellen Terry. In version four Francesca is fully clothed, her eyes closed, and her drapery is blowing in more violent winds than the previous versions depict. She is assumed to be Virginia Pattle Somers, the beautiful younger sister of Sara Pattle Prinsep and the object of Watts’ obsession since his first introduction to the Pattle sisters.

In all of the Paolo and Francesca versions, it is assumed that Paolo is a “projection of the artist’s self.” This means that researchers assume that each Paolo figure represents Watts. The Francescas change through time and the figures get older as the versions progress. This series is a story of Watts’ life. He remains constant in the series. The depictions of the women are based on difference. The difference exists between the woman and Watts, as well as the difference between the various women depicted. She is the variable and he is the constant or standard. Many might assume that he is, therefore, the privileged object in the oppositional pair depicted on each canvas. But just as he is the standard, he relies on the other term, which is in this case the different women, for his own existence.

Each of these women acted as both a real and symbolic mother to Watts. In Lancanian terms, real mother is the primary caretaker of the infant. It is further defined as, “the infant is incapable of satisfying its own needs and so depends absolutely on an Other to care for him.” Watts was in constant need of a primary caretaker. His second marriage was almost solely based on this need for him. The symbolic mother is exhibited when she brings objects to the infant to satisfy his needs. The objects become symbolic of the mother’s love. Eventually, the child associates the mother’s presence with love and she no longer needs to bring objects. It is difficult to determine if Watts ever reached the point in his development that he was able to simply associate the presence of his caretaker or wife with love instead of an object to help define the love. The loss of his biological mother affected the art Watts produced as well as most of his life decisions.

Bibliography

  • Blunt, Wilfrid. England’s Michelangelo. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975.
  • Dakers, Caroline. The Holland Park Circle. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
  • Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1996.
  • Staley, Allen. Victorian High Renaissance. Minneapolis: Lund Humphries, 1978.

1 W. Blunt, England’s Michelangelo, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975), 75.
2 C. Dakers, The Holland Park Circle, (London: Yale University Press, 1999), 23.
3 A. Staley, Victorian High Renaissance, (Minneapolis: Lund Humphries, 1978), 86.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 D. Evans, An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, (London: Routledge, 1996), 118.
7 I am indebted to Richard Jefferies and his assistant Emma at the Watts Gallery in Compton, England for their assistance in research and their graciousness in letting me use their library of historically significant materials pertaining to Watts. At the gallery I was able to view in person Watts’ images of the Pattle sisters, the Paolo and Francesca series, and many other fantastic works of art by Watts.