![]() ![]() This lack of art-historical focus also overlooks the reality that Victorian artists themselves must have given some consideration to the subject of age. However, the inclusion of art historians in this dialogue would introduce an essential critical voice and provide necessary disciplinary context from an alternative perspective. ![]() There are, of course, some very fine book chapters available on the subject by scholars working outside the field of art history, including Mike Hepworth’s essay, “Framing Old Age: Sociological Perspectives on Ageing in Victorian Painting,” in The Sociology of Art, edited by David Inglis and John Hughson (2005) Karen Chase’s “Artistic Investigations and the Elderly Subject” in The Victorians and Old Age (2009) and Esther Godfrey’s sensitive interpretation of the fine arts in her chapter, “Visualizing Power: Age, Embodiment, and Aesthetics” in The January-May Marriage in Nineteenth-Century British Literature (2009). Despite the frequency with which elderly figures populate images of the Victorian era, there do not seem to be any academic volumes produced by art historians that specifically address the subject of late life in Victorian art. Unfortunately, older adults have not traditionally been afforded such investigations in the discipline of art history. ![]() Looking at what is, perhaps, the most common trope in the visual culture of Victorian late life in two diverse scenes of “good” and “bad” aging, by the popular British painters Walter Dendy Sadler (1854-1923) and Frederick Daniel Hardy (1827-1911), provides an opportunity to develop new art historical approaches to the subject of aging. This paper examines the archetypal image of the senescent hearthside figure in order to better evaluate the larger context in which Victorian aging was visually interpreted and generally understood. While these genre painters may not have intended to reflect the quality of later life in Britain at the time or to present a specific idea of the habits and treatment of age, their representations of these themes came to have a profound, lasting impact, irrevocably forming a conceptual basis for understanding aging that has long endured (Chase 3). Such works include examples by successful Victorian artists like Frank Bramley, Stanhope Alexander Forbes, Hubert von Herkomer, Walter Langley, and Thomas Webster. ![]() The production of British images of aging in the mid- and late-nineteenth century paid deference to these conflicting states, especially in the context of genre painting. These complex and diverse ideas about aging in the mid- and late-nineteenth century were reflected in a visual culture that communicated the problematic contemporary ideas of “good” and “bad” aging. Examples of such pictures were particularly popular in the mid- and late-nineteenth century, when they were exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, widely distributed by the American Art Union in New York, and reproduced in great numbers by American publishers Currier & Ives and by British firms like Raphael Tuck & Sons.īy most accounts, the Victorians were responsible for initially shaping many of the concepts of aging that have since developed into the basic framework by which late life is still defined and understood. These popularly held, sentimental stereotypes of sedate, fireside senescence are relatively common. One may readily imagine pictures of grandfathers reading the newspaper with their feet perched on hassocks, or grandmothers warming their hands by the fire, holding their knitting in their laps. If asked to describe an image of later life in Victorian times, it is likely that many respondents would conjure scenes of mature men and women sitting by the fireplace, enjoying the perceived quiet, peace, and comfort of old age. *Winner: Graduate Student Essay Contest 2014* By examining depictions of this theme by the popular British painters Walter Dendy Sadler and Frederick Daniel Hardy, this study demonstrates some ways in which art history may profit from age studies in formulating expanded readings of such material. This article examines the archetypal image of the senescent hearthside figure in order to better evaluate the larger context in which Victorian aging was visually interpreted and generally understood. The fireside was, at that time, a significant center of the home and family, and older members of the household were viewed as principal organizing forces around this central gathering place. The image of the aged parent or grandparent sitting contentedly before the hearth is a canonical trope in Victorian visual culture. ![]()
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