women, representation and the spiritual in the works of thomas cooper gotch, robert anning bell ...

442 Pages·2017·17.33 MB·English

by  Alice Eden

A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick

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WOMEN, REPRESENTATION AND THE
SPIRITUAL IN THE WORKS OF
THOMAS COOPER GOTCH, ROBERT
ANNING BELL AND FREDERICK CAYLEY
ROBINSON

One Volume

Alice Anne Eden
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy

University of Warwick, Department of History of Art
October, 2016

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 6
Declaration ................................................................................................................... 8
Abstract ........................................................................................................................ 9
Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. 10
Illustrations ................................................................................................................. 11
Chapter One: Thomas Cooper Gotch ..................................................................... 11
Chapter Two: Robert Anning Bell ......................................................................... 13
Chapter Three: Frederick Cayley Robinson ........................................................... 17
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 22
Modernity ............................................................................................................... 28
Feminism ................................................................................................................ 31
Spirituality .............................................................................................................. 33
Feminism and Spirituality ...................................................................................... 38
Spirituality, Modernity and Art .............................................................................. 44
Methodology .......................................................................................................... 49
Chapter Outline ...................................................................................................... 63
Chapter One: Thomas Cooper Gotch ......................................................................... 65
Introduction ............................................................................................................ 65
Part One: The Child Enthroned, 1894 .................................................................... 66
Part Two: The Dawn of Womanhood, (1900) ......................................................... 89
Part Three: Death the Bride, 1894 ........................................................................ 112
Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 132
Chapter Two: Robert Anning Bell ........................................................................... 134
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 134
Part One: The Arrow, 1909: ................................................................................. 134
Part Two: The Echo, 1915 .................................................................................... 166
Conclusion: The Call of the ‘Feminist Voice’ ..................................................... 198
Chapter Three: Frederick Cayley Robinson ............................................................. 208
Introduction .......................................................................................................... 208
Part One: The Material and Immaterial ................................................................ 209
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Part Two: Representations .................................................................................... 225
Part Three: Spiritual Viewing ............................................................................... 241
Part Four: Feminism and Spiritual Expectancy .................................................... 267
Conclusion: ‘The Face of a Woman’.................................................................... 284
Thesis Conclusion .................................................................................................... 287
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 294
Unpublished Material ........................................................................................... 294
Published Primary Sources ................................................................................... 295
Published Secondary Sources ............................................................................... 311
Unpublished Secondary Sources .......................................................................... 330
Images ...................................................................................................................... 331
Chapter One: Thomas Cooper Gotch ................................................................... 332
Chapter Two: Robert Anning Bell ....................................................................... 364
Chapter Three: Frederick Cayley Robinson ......................................................... 398

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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Michael Hatt for his unflinching support,
guidance and scholarly example throughout the writing of the thesis and my
publications. Michael’s enthusiasm for my work, kind words, good humour,
understanding during challenging times and advice, sometimes given at the last
minute, have been very much appreciated.

I would also like to thank Ruth Livesey for inspiration and help in obtaining my PhD
scholarship at Warwick six years ago. And special thanks go to Sarah Turner and Rosie
Dias for their encouragement.

My research has been aided by many librarians, archivists and curators across the UK.
I am grateful for their help and encouragement, especially Susannah Waters and the
other staff of the Glasgow School of Art Archives, Adrian Allan, Victoria Osborne
and Alison Smith.

I am very grateful for the generous funding I have obtained from Warwick University
in the form of the Warwick Postgraduate Research Scholarship, the Postgraduate
Research Completion Fund as well as for funding received from the Paul Mellon
Centre for Studies in British Art.

I would like to thank my fellow PhD students at Warwick, who for several years of
this project, were a central support network. Thanks go especially to Desiree de
Chaire, Claire Fitzgerald, Ann Haughton, Kayoko Ichikawa, Eoin Martin and the staff
of the History of Art Department including Louise Bourdua, Julia Brown, Rosie Dias,
Karen Lang, Claire Nicholls, Sarah Walford and many others. At Warwick, I would
also like to thank the staff of the library, the Graduate School and the Student’s Union
Advice Centre, especially Amanda Woodfield for her thoughtful and extensive
research and support and the Senior Tutor, Stephen Lamb, for his kindness. These
resources were very important during the final, challenging years of completion.

Thanks should also go to the staff of the Institute of Advanced Study, Warwick, for
supporting the completion of my thesis whilst I began my Early Career Fellowship.

I would like to thank my family, my mum and dad, Katy, Chris, my aunts and uncles,
especially Auntie Brenda and Uncle Rob for their love and belief in my education and
writing. My partner’s family, especially Jen and Dave, have always listened with
interest, love and kindness over the years and have provided significant financial
support during the last stages, for which I am very grateful. I would like to send love
and respect to my mother, who would have been very joyful to see the finished results
of my work.

Thanks to the friends who have coped with my entire absorption in family and writing
for the last few years.

During the course of the thesis I have been blessed with the arrival of my daughter.
This has meant the last three years have passed in somewhat of a daze of sleeplessness
and exhaustion alongside wildly dedicated working periods. I would like to thank my
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partner, Garrie, for his unswerving and full-hearted support every step of the way and
especially in the last couple of years. Having a child to care for has required this to be
a team effort; Garrie’s loyalty, sleep deprivation, sincere feminism and unfailing belief
in my work, remain priceless.

I would like to dedicate the thesis to my daughter, Emmie. Named after Emmeline
Pankhurst, I hope you will witness greater improvement in the lives of women.

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Declaration
I declare that this thesis is my own work and that it has not been submitted for a
degree at another university.

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Abstract
This thesis examines the works of three ‘forgotten’ British artists, working from the
late nineteenth century and well into the 1920s. In a period which saw momentous
changes associated with the onset of modernity, artworks appeared to speak of
revivalism, tradition, even nostalgia, rather than the new. Thomas Cooper Gotch,
Robert Anning Bell and Frederick Cayley Robinson shared an interest in the spiritual,
the unseen and immaterial, which they expressed through representations of women,
placing faith, broadly, in ‘the feminine’ as synonymous with humanity’s neglected
‘spirit’ in the modern, materialistic world. The eclectic and contradictory nature of the
artworks examined, their complex and ambiguous representations of womanhood and
female spirituality were expressive of the condition of modernity in its rich, varied
forms.
These artworks are analysed in the context of an important historical moment
for the feminist movement, since all three artists addressed the explosion in female
agency related to contemporary feminism, the ‘gender crisis’ and the Suffragette
movement. By placing artworks in this context, I have attempted to bring women, their
presence in the public sphere and visual culture, their discovery of a ‘feminist voice’
in this period, into the frame. Women imagined invigorating movements, from the
confines of the domestic interior into the airy heights of mountain tops, using
languages of righteousness and joyous expectancy, and the artworks examined provide
visual analogues and commentaries on these feminist possibilities and new
imaginative aspirations.
While all three artists mediated the visual ‘types’ of womanhood available
within art languages, they created quite distinct images of women. Representations
range from Gotch’s female Messiah, where woman’s spiritual power originates in her
innocence and purity, Bell’s images of Amazonian strength allied with a closer female
relationship with nature, to more occult versions in Cayley Robinson’s paintings,
related to theosophy. The artworks participated in a tremendous moment of hope for
women in their endeavours toward autonomy and fulfilment. In presenting women’s
spiritual role as humanity’s redeemer, these paintings reveal how art may envisage
intangible forms of spirituality and emancipatory possibilities.

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Abbreviations
ATC The Art Theosophical Circle, London
GSA Glasgow School of Art
NUWSS National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies
RBCSA Royal British Colonial Society of Artists
SPR Society for Psychical Research
WFL Women’s Freedom League
WSPU Women’s Social and Political Union

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Illustrations
Dimensions where available are given in centimetres, with height before width.

Chapter One: Thomas Cooper Gotch
1.1 Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Child Enthroned, 1894, oil on canvas, 100 x 59
cm, (Untraced, Private Collection), reproduced in Lomax, (2004), p.16, image
from family archive
1.2 Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Dawn of Womanhood, 1900, oil on canvas, 114 x
180 cm, (Private Collection)
1.3 Thomas Cooper Gotch, Death the Bride, oil on canvas, 154 x 121 cm, 1895,
(Alfred East Art Gallery, Kettering)
1.4 Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Child in the World, 1895, oil on canvas, 127 x 94
cm, from Black and White, May 11th, 1895, Untraced, reproduced in Lomax,
(2004), p.105
1.5 Thomas Cooper Gotch, Innocence, 1904, watercolour on paper, 23 x 19 cm,
Falmouth Art Gallery, Cornwall, reproduced in Juliet Heslewood, Child:
Portraits by Forty Great Artists, (London: Frances Lincoln Ltd Publishers,
2013), p.58. This painting is based on the earlier oil painting The Child in the
World.
1.6 Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Flag, 1910, oil on canvas, 62 x 53 cm, (Alfred
East Art Gallery, Kettering)
1.7 Front cover of The Suffragette, 17th October, 1913, illustrated in Bland (1995),
p.255
1.8 Thomas Cooper Gotch, The Vow, 1916, watercolour, 930 x 770 mm, (Alfred
East Art Gallery, Kettering)
1.9 Thomas Cooper Gotch, ‘Study for The Child Enthroned’, undated, charcoal,
158 x100 cm, Private Collection. Image reproduced on a xerox from Sothebys
Catalogue, dated 30th March, 1994, cat. 207, p.128. Viewed at the Alfred East
Art Gallery, Kettering.
1.10 Fra Angelico’s The Virgin Mary with the Apostles and Other Saints, Inner Left
Predella Panel, Fiesole, San Domenico Altarpiece, egg tempera on wood, 32 x
64 cm, about 1423-4, (National Gallery, London), acquired in 1860
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