Study for 'Chaos', 1860s?

George Frederic Watts RA (1817 - 1904)

RA Collection: Art

A pencil study for 'Chaos' (several versions including c. 1847-73 Watts Gallery, 1875-82 Tate Britain). This study concentrates on three large reclining Titans drawn in heavy pencil with a textured, grainy effect almost resembling a mezzotint engraving.

A handlist of the Watts drawings in the RA Collection describes this as a study for 'The Titans of the Mountains'. Watts originally referred to the earlier versions of 'Chaos' as 'The Titans' or 'The Everlasting Hills' and some of these compositions depict only the large reclining figures of the Titans themselves. Watts wrote that these 'gigantic figures stretched out at length' should represent 'a range of mountains & typify the bony structure of a skeleton' (see Franklin Gould).

The 'Chaos' theme emerged from Watts's ambitious plans to create a hall of frescoes known as the 'House of Life', illustrating the creation and history of mankind and the cosmos. In the later 'Chaos' paintings, the composition was expanded to include 'the upheaving and disturbance previous to the regular course of things establishing itself in our planet' on the left, and 'a vaporous uncertainty of atmosphere' in the centre. In this arrangement the Titans represented 'an established state of things' and were indicative of 'Silence and Mighty Repose'. Below, a chain of floating figures personified the 'current of time...a continuous stream' (see Staley and Wilton/Upstone).

Further reading:

Allen Staley et al, Victorian High Renaissance , exh. cat., Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1978, cat. no. 23, p. 80-1

Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone eds., The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Watts: Symbolism in British Art 1860-1910, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1997, cat. no. 49, p. 164-5

Veronica Franklin Gould ed., The Vision of G F Watts, The Watts Gallery, 2004, cat. no. 11 and 12, p. 49-50