Romney’s The Clavering Children (1777-8)

George Romney, an 18th-century English artist regularly dismissed as a "fashionable portraitist" by critics today, still painted more than most can see even by those who know his work best.

Romney, The Clavering Children (1777-8) Oil on canvas. Huntington Museum, San Marino, CA

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It's an odd fact that if you cannot imagine something, you cannot see it, a phenomenon rarely more evident than in art. If you are new to EPPH you too probably won't see what's most evident in this portrait by George Romney even though it may be patently obvious to regular readers. 

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Top: Detail and diagram of Raphael's Sistine Madonna (1512)
Bottom: Detail and diagram of Raphael's The Expulsion of Heliodorus (1511-12), inverted.

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EPPH has already shown how the great Raphael often turned an object into the shape of his own initial. At top, The Sistine Madonna is formed like an R as is the angel in his Expulsion of Heliodorus, below. At least two of his female portraits have R-shaped bows in them as well. 

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Detail and diagram of Guido Reni's David with the Head of Goliath (1605)

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Renoir, sharing the same initial, shaped the bow on a dancer's dress into an R just like Raphael. (See image and entry here.) The less well-known Guido Reni did likewise with the hilt of Goliath's sword (left). It forms a G superimposed on an R for Guido and Reni (left).

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Top: Romney, Venus orders Psyche to fetch the Waters of the Styx (c.1775-80) Black chalk on paper. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Bottom: Romney, Psyche by the Waters of the Styx (c.1775-80) Black chalk on paper. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

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In at least two designs for a series of paintings contemporaneous with The Clavering Children Romney turned Venus and then Psyche into an R (top and bottom). What's more, Venus' outstretched arm (top) suggests, on the underlying level, that Venus is "painting" the background while the kneeling Psyche holds her "paint-pot".

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Romney, The Clavering Children (1777-8) with diagram and detail

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Back to The Clavering Children. Here too the boy extends his arm like Romney would have. The leash in his hand even forms a loosely suggestive R as though in a line drawing brought to completion in his finished "painting" of the girl. The boy is the "artist", the girl his "painting". As so often on EPPH, boy and girl, artist and model, subject and object are united into one androgynous whole, the artist's mind.

Now if the next painting you see by Romney has a big R in it, you'll see it immediately. You'll have imagined it first.

For more observations on The Clavering Children, see the post "Hair, Brushes and Art".

More Works by Romney

Notes:

Original Publication Date on EPPH: 09 Jul 2015. © Simon Abrahams. Articles on this site are the copyright of Simon Abrahams. To use copyrighted material in print or other media for purposes beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Websites may link to this page without permission (please do) but may not reproduce the material on their own site without crediting Simon Abrahams and EPPH.