Startled, 1892

Sir Frank Dicksee PRA (1853 - 1928)

RA Collection: Art

Frank Dicksee's Diploma work depicts two girls who have been surprised while bathing by what appears to be a Viking long-ship. When the painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1892, the critic for the journal The Academy found the subject confusing, writing: 'it does not appertain exactly to idealistic or realistic art, and halts, indeed, somewhat unsatisfactorily between the two' (7 May 1892, p. 450). Unlike most of Dicksee's previous works, there is no quotation appended to the title identifying a literary source for the subject. This suggests that the subject is an imaginary scene.

Dicksee believed that Greek sculpture displayed human form to perfection and the portrayal of the nude figures in this painting reflects his debt to the academic tradition based on the study of antique sculpture. Dicksee produced numerous classicising scenes portraying idealised, partially draped white bodies. Such works were part of a broader cultural trend that has been described as the 'Aryanisation' of Ancient Greece (see Further Reading). As President of the Royal Academy from 1924-28, Dicksee gave annual lectures to the students of the RA Schools. In his 'Discourse' of 1925 he rejected developments in modernist art influenced by the arts of Africa, OCeania and the Americas, directly expressing white-supremacist views by stating: ‘Our ideal of beauty must be the that of the white man’ (see Further Reading).

Related works:

Dicksee made many preliminary studies for his paintings and the Royal Academy Collection holds a detailed study of the younger girl (RA 09/2072) in this painting. In this study, Dicksee focused on the effect of light falling from behind the figure. The strong white chalk highlights in the study are translated into golden highlights in the finished painting.

Further reading:

Entangled Pasts 1768-now. Art, Colonialism and Change, eds. Dorothy Price, Esther Chadwick, Cora Gilroy-Ware and Sarah Lea, exhibition catalogue, RA 2024, p. 146