Motherless (painting)
{{Short description|1895 painting by Walter Langley}}
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| image = Motherless by Walter Langley.png
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| artist = Walter Langley
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| completion_date = 1895
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Motherless is an 1895 painting by Walter Langley. The painting depicts a child in bed, illuminated by the sunlight. An elderly woman and the child's sister sit nearby. It was painted the same year that Clara, Langley's wife and the mother of his four children died of a stroke.
The painting
Motherless is an 1895 painting by Walter Langley.{{cite journal |last1=Brake |first1=Laurel |title=Doing the biz: Book‐trade and news‐trade periodicals in the 1890s |journal=Media History |date=June 1998 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=29–47 |doi=10.1080/13688809809357934 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13688809809357934?journalCode=cmeh20|url-access=subscription}} It was painted the same year that Clara, Langley's wife and the mother of his four children died of a stroke.{{cite web|title=Cornwall's fishing industry 1880-1900 as portrayed by the Newlyn painters|url=https://www.bsjwtrust.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/Fishing-By-Newlyn-Painters.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523100810/https://www.bsjwtrust.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/Fishing-By-Newlyn-Painters.pdf|publisher=Borlase Smart John Wells Trust|accessdate=23 May 2023|archivedate=23 May 2023}} The painting shows a child in bed, illuminated by the sunlight. An elderly woman and the child's sister sit nearby.{{cite book|title=London Society: Volume 67|publisher=William Clowes and Sons|date=1895|page=691}}
Critical reception
The painting was selected for the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in 1894 and hung in Gallery X.{{cite book |last=Blackburn |first=Henry |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WXAdAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA22 |title=Academy Notes - Issues 20-22 |date=1895 |publisher=Royal Academy of Arts |pages=22, 130}} It was described in the Summer Exhibition's programme notes as a "grey picture, relieved by yellow blanket and bowl of primroses". The painting was in a private collection as of 2005.{{cite book|last=Pryke|first=Richard|title=Norman Garstin|date=2005|isbn=978-0-9543615-9-4|page=101}} A reviewer for The Sketch felt the title was "somewhat sickly" but Langley's painting was superior to another painting of the same title by Frederick D. Wallen.{{cite book|title=The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality - Volume 10|publisher=Ingram Brothers|date=1895|page=192}} A reviewer for London Society felt it was the "lest offensive" of the "avowedly story pictures" and that the elderly woman's "pathetic expression" was "particularly good". The Art Journal felt that the painting suffered from "a love of mournful subjects" which Langley shared with other Newlyn artists and described the subject as a "golden-haired child sick into death" surrounded by "all the minutely observed paraphernalia of poverty".{{cite book|title=The Art Journal: Volume 57|publisher=Virtue and Company|date=1895|page=175}}
It is described as "a very touching scene" in Media History (1998).
References
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External links
- [https://www.proquest.com/docview/7723153?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true Royal Academy pictures] : illustrating the ... exhibition of the Royal Academy: being the Royal Academy supplement of The Magazine of art; London (Jan 1895): [n. pag.]-3.