EL TEJIDO INVISIBLE :: Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



John Melhuish Strudwick (British painter) 1849 - 1937
A Golden Thread, ca. 1885
oil on canvas
72.4 x 42.5 cm. (28.5 x 16.73 in.)
Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
© photo Tate Britain

Catalogue Note Tate Britain
This picture was first exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1885 and it was accompanied by the lines:
'Right true it is that these/
And all things else that under Heaven dwell/
Are changed of Time'.

The theme of Time is dealt with in two related parts. Below, the three Fates are spinning the thread of life. Their spindles show part gold and part grey threads. The gold part will measure out the allotted span of a person's life. Above, a girl and her lover are talking. It is their happiness that is being determined by the Fates: a bell is tolling in a tower, symbolising the passing of time, and Love's car is waiting in the sky.

Strudwick was a pupil of Burne-Jones, whose influence it felt clearly in this picture.

* * *

The Fates, or the Moerae, were invoked at birth to decide a man's destiny. Often depicted as spinners, Clotho, at the right, with a spindle spins out the thread of life, while Lachesis, at the left, measures the length of a life, and Atropos, with the shears, cuts it off.

* * *

John Melhuish Strudwick was a Victorian Pre-Raphaelite painter, the son of William Strudwick (1808–1861) and Sarah Melhuish (1800–1862).
John Strudwick attended St Saviour's Grammar School in Southwark. Disliking the idea of a business career, he took classes at the Royal Academy Schools in South Kensington, but was not regarded as a promising student. In the 1860s he was encouraged by a visitor, the Scottish genre painter, John Pettie, whose style he subsequently emulated. His depiction of the ballad of 'Auld Robin Gray', which was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 1873, is an example of this period. His art style, however, developed in a new direction in the 1870s when he worked first as studio assistant to his uncle Spencer Stanhope and then to Edward Burne-Jones. In keeping with artists in his circle, he exhibited at the Grosvenor and New Galleries. Strudwick's studio was in Hammersmith, close to that of Burne-Jones and Thomas Matthews Rooke, who had also been an assistant to Burne-Jones. He married Harriet Reed and had a single daughter, Ethel (1880–1954), who later became High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School from 1927 to 1948, and was awarded a CBE. His initial success as a painter came to an end when wealthy and influential patrons such as the Liverpool shipowners William Imrie and George Holt withdrew their support. His painting "When Sorrow comes in Summer Days, Roses Bloom in Vain" was left half finished in protest at the seemingly orchestrated collapse of his career. Strudwick's paintings were done in a blend of Renaissance and medieval styles, with meticulous attention to detail, especially in his treatment of draperies and accessories, and leading to a very small output. Some thirty of his paintings depict legendary and symbolic subjects, sometimes employing a lapidary technique from the Italian quattrocento. He employed rich, deep colours, faces clearly inspired by Burne-Jones and sumptuous drapery. His work was regularly slated by Frederic George Stephens, a failed painter become critic for the Athenaeum, who could find little positive to say. The Times obituary described him as 'a beautiful old man... (and) a charming personality, exceedingly kind to young artists'.