Awakened shame

Initially, it may seem that the picture depicts momentary disagreements between the husband and wife, but the name of the picture and the symbols present in it make it clear that this is a lover and lover. The woman’s left hand does not have a wedding ring. Reminders of a lost life are scattered throughout the room: a cat plays under a table with a caught bird; the clock is covered under glass; the tapestry hanging on the piano is not finished; threads scattered on the floor; on the wall hangs a picture of Frank Stone; Edward Lear’s musical score is written on the floor, with the lyric poem Alfred Tennysons “ ,” and on the piano is Thomas Moore 's Often in Quiet Night telling about missed opportunities and sad memories of a happy past.

The art notes that although the interior in the picture is now seen as “Victorian,” it nevertheless exudes the vulgarity of the nouveau riche, which would be unpleasant for the modern audience ^[1] . On the frame of the picture is written a verse from the Book of Solomon's parables (25:20): “That taking off his clothes on a cold day, that vinegar to a wound, then singing songs to a sad heart” ^[2] .

In a sense, this picture is a complement to Hunt’s religious painting “The Light of the World ” , depicting Christ holding a lantern and knocking on a door overgrown with weeds, symbolizing a “closed heart” ^[3] . The kept woman in the picture “Awakened Shame” may be the answer to this image, her conscience “opens the heart” from the inside. Hunt saw in the image of a woman an example of how the spirit of heavenly love calls the soul to abandon the lower life ^[4] . In his book “Pre-Raphaelitism and the Brotherhood of the Pre-Raphaelites,” Hunt wrote that initially the idea for the composition of the painting was given to him by the novel “ David Copperfield ” and the artist began to visit “various refugees of fallen girls” in search of a suitable place for a new painting. Hunt did not plan to recreate any specific scene from the novel, but initially he wanted to capture something in common: “a fallen girl looking for love finally finds the object of search” ^[4] . Later, he changed his mind, deciding that such a meeting would cause different emotions in the girl, but hardly the repentance that he wanted to show. As a result, the artist settled on the idea that a man would play a song that would suddenly remind a fallen woman of a past life and this moment would be a turning point for her ^[5] .

Annie Miller , who often posed for the Pre-Raphaelites, was also a model for the image of the woman, and was also engaged to Hunt until 1859. A male figure can be attributed to Thomas Seddon or Augustus Egg , former friends of Hunt.

The girl’s expression on the picture is not the expression of pain and horror that the audience saw when the picture was first exhibited, shocking many critics. The painting was commissioned by Thomas Fairburn , a Manchester industrialist and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites. Egg discussed Hunt's ideas with him and may have shown some initial sketches ^[2] . Fairburn paid Hunt a total of 350 guineas for the painting. The canvas was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1854, together with the "Light of the World." Fairburn could not stand the facial expressions of the kept woman, looking at the picture day after day, so he persuaded Hunt to soften his face in the picture. The artist started to work, but soon fell ill and the picture in its almost original form was shown at an exhibition at the Birmingham Society of Artists in 1856, before being redrawn. Later, Hunt managed to work on his creation again and, according to Edward Lear , the artist significantly improved the picture ^[6] . As noted in antvolts , Hunt retouched the painting in 1864 and again in 1886, when he restored work after restoration in the interim period ^[2] .

The Victorian art theorist and protector of the Pre-Raphaelites, John Ruskin , praised Awakened Shame as an example of a new trend in British art, created by the artist’s imagination and not a chronicle of events. In his letter to the Times newspaper in 1854, Ruskin, defending the work, claims that the picture takes on a tragic meaning if it is correctly read about the objects in the room ^[7] . He was amazed at the harsh realism of the room, noting that the disclosure of characters through the interior compares favorably with the painting “ Fashionable marriage ” by William Hogarth ^[7] . The "general, modern, vulgar" interior is overloaded with shiny, unused furniture that will never be part of the house. For Ruskin, this exquisite detail of the picture drew attention to the inevitable break in relations between the couple ^[8] . The idea to visually display the turning second for human life was later shown in 1858 in the triptych “ August ” by August Egg .

The painting was inherited by the son of Fairburn, Sir Arthur Henderson Fairburn, 3rd Baronet. In January 1946, the canvas was anonymously sold at Christie's and was bought by Colin Anderson in 1947. In 1976, the painting was donated to the Tate British Gallery ^[2] .

• Barringer, TJ Reading the Pre-Raphaelites. - Yale University Press , 1998 .-- 176 p. - ISBN 0300077874 .
• Gissing, AC William Holman Hunt. - Duckworth, 1936. - 247 p.
• Hunt, WH Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood . - New York: The Macmillan Co., 1905. - 586 p.
• Prettejohn, E. Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. - Harry N. Abrams, 2007 .-- 304 p. - ISBN 9781854377265 .
• Prettejohn, E. Beauty and Art: 1750-2000. - OUP Oxford, 2005 .-- 224 p. - ISBN 0192801600 .
• Ruskin, J. Modern Painters: Volume 3. Of Many Things. - Adamant Media Corporation, 2000. - 424 p. - ISBN 978-1421229034 .
• Farthing, S. 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. - Cassell Illustrated, 2006 .-- 960 p. - ISBN 1844035638 .
• The Awakening Conscience, William Holman Hunt . Tate. Date of treatment July 11, 2016.