Commonplace 92 George & Writing.

'Loneliness is a cloak you wear...' sang the Walker Brothers in 1966 click

Loneliness by Hans Toma c 1900

Writing is generally a solitary occupation. Though many a good book must have been written with others in the room, the archetype of the writer as a single soul battling to communicate a story or an idea in solitude is what we run to when we think of the role - though it is difficult to think of Shakespeare or Boswell shacked up in their garrets eschewing company. Nowadays, writing using digital media means anyone can write anywhere - though I am sat here in isolation so as to be able to concentrate, access my resources, and make some coffee whenever I choose.

George seems to have been a self-indulgent, temperamental, over-sensitive soul not really cut out for any job of work, inasmuch as work generally requires rubbing shoulders with fellow humans. Its not them as physical bodies that is so challenging, its the adapting to their funny little ways. George did not do 'adapting' and was intolerant of others' 'funny little ways'. People, as a concept, generally left him wanting - he felt superior in intellect to most people he met (he moved in quite a narrow circle haha), was not good at small talk, and had no conscious fondness for gossip - though he enjoyed it surreptitiously by dressing it up in his letters as 'information' - news passed on, is still gossip when it involves others' doings. He refused social invites but that was an attention-seeking pose more than a reflection of his 'genius', as, by declining, he made a bid for that dratted 'sympathy' he so craved, plus pointed the finger of blame at either Marianne aka Nell or Edith so that others would not hold his foibles against him.

Solitude Idyll
by Sir Frederick Leighton 1881-3

It was as if he chose the trade of writing as a solution to his misanthropic tendencies - few jobs offer greater opportunities for being alone and provide less chance of coming up against people you don't like. The downside, of course, was the crucifying loneliness he claimed to feel, though this is somewhat over-stated, and will be forever linked to his sexual longings for sexual company. Did he really feel lonely in other ways? He liked socialising when he chose the time and the place - his Letters are peppered with requests to meet up, suggestions his wider family relocate to be closer, and the futile attempts he makes to lure Algernon into his geographical circle (all rebuffed, as Algernon had more sense than to move in with George unless he had to very briefly for practical reasons). But always on his own terms - which is the way he did everything, especially the unheroic stuff.

Wives were not really welcome in his domestic set-up because they got under his feet too much, and children, well, they had better not be too demanding. Guests such as Eduard Bertz and Morley Roberts were welcome in strictly controlled chunks of time, and Herr Plitt was allowed entry to the inner sanctum on occasion, but all three were men George felt intellectually superior to, so they would have not been too threatening for his fragile ego defences. It was also what helped keep him lonely - no wife can compensate a writer when the writer is so miserable whilst they are writing about misery.

George seems forever trapped in the late adolescent pose of suffering solitude; others have to come and find him - like he is a buried treasure they must excavate. Actual writing as work generally lays him low, he develops his man flu and 'seediness' - his term for feeling below par - and every word is wrenched out of him as an act of exorcism, more than a product of creative flow. The mental exhaustion he feels both during and at the end of the process that makes you wonder if it was all worthwhile - and maybe he should have found some other form of employment, if only for the sake of his health. A 'square peg in a round hole' might be the phrase used for one so woefully misplaced in their choice of profession. This is said out of meanness - much of George's personal unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life can be laid at the door of his chosen profession. But he was not well-equipped for any other job; he hated teaching, and would have always hated it. He was not a physical type, he lacked people skills, and detested the sort of pen-pushing desk jockey he mocked in his novels and short stories. Shopwork? - imagine that! He lacked the patience or generosity of spirit for that.

Automat by Edward Hopper 1927

Work was for him, a form of masochistic therapy. Whatever would he have done without the lash of money-making to keep him focused away from his natural tendency to gloom? His greatest strength was in his ability to read for extended periods (not everyone can do this!), which requires a skills set not easily transferable to other callings. If you add up all the hours he spent reading and then compare them to the hours he spent writing, you will see he did more of the former than the latter. But he got more enjoyment out of the former. It's not just the writing that requires a place of solitude - probably, reading even more so demands we be left in peace. All those days in the British Library 'under the dome' would have required silence and a lot of private head space. It is much harder to feel entitled to interrupt reading - it''s like you break some sort of spell. Whereas, unless you are a writer yourself, you think anyone having to write something lengthy would welcome the diversion of chat. And as the interruptor, you feel you are saving the interuptee from themselves just be selflessly diverting them from their task.

Of course, George was producing 'Art' and this was bound up, in his mind, with suffering. So, not only was writing the ideal occupation for his self-pitying solitary ways, it was an excellent fit with his daft notion that 'there is no gain without pain' where Art is concerned.
Do Artists 'agonize'? Apart from the reaction to the grief of his best friend's suicide, Picasso never claimed to do more than work very hard. Did the divine Oscar sweat blood over that 'Ernest' play? Is it not true that if a work is such a strain to produce, it can only show in its execution? Not that there isn't hard graft and applied skill involved; it's just the grace of the thing has to be apparent, and the words have to slide off the page and into the brain and soul, without the awareness that you are actually reading something made up. If it was hard to write, it will be hard to read!

Solitude by Guillaume Seignac (not for very long haha)

There is a generally held feeling in psychotherapy that individuals always act in their own interests - even when short-term gains are meagre and long-term consequences negative - then disguise it in order not to appear 'self-centred'. Accordingly, even those who choose altruism (see Commonplace 51 for an overview of Ayn Rand and Objectivism) are acting from self interest, though they cloak it in terms of 'compassion' and 'charity'. George tended to be what might be termed 'selfish' and, in order to justify it, developed a persona of put-upon down-trodden hapless stooge of a husband to two wives, and a misunderstood, under-appreciated novelist who was out of time with what was really wanted by the reading public. It's interesting that, after all the moaning on about loneliness and the awful life he lived without a companion, the moment he moved in with Gabrielle Fleury, he did all he could to give her the slip so he could head off and be on his own. Makes you wonder if it was all part of his cunning plan to be a lonesome his whole life. 

Lonesome George the Galapagos Tortoise (1912-2012), the last of his
sub-species seen here in livelier days. 

Commonplace 91 George & The East Sussex Coast PART TWO Eastbourne

The south of England will always be associated with George but of all its holiday seaside places, he said it was Eastbourne that he loved the best. His first visit was in autumn, 1886. To find out all about the history of the town, and get a flavour of the English seaside, you couldn't do much better than to watch this film click, but now you're here, read on...

c1850 before the erection of the Pavilion 

Eastbourne has always considered itself a 'cut above' the usual holiday destination. It once was posh. Nowadays, it is associated with the elders of our community who go there to retire, and with the relative under-development of its amenities. In terms of holiday destination, if you think of the words 'stimulating, exciting, thrilling' and rush to their antonyms, you have Eastbourne. In George's day, it was the sort of place an upwardly mobile middle class snob might think of as 'proper'. Lack of amusements along the seafront would have kept Demos up the coast in Brighton, where fun ruled supreme. In Eastbourne, there were no 'end of the pier' show with its 'What the butler saw' click saucy filth machines cranking out their stuff, so you would have to visit Brighton for that - as George found out!

Much of what George would have seen of the actual tourist heart of Eastbourne when he took his first trip there in 1886, would have been new-build. Eastbourne was originally a small port and fishing community made bigger by the amalgamation of several satellite villages in order to develop it as a seaside resort, thanks in part to the ambitions of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire (the family that was lucky enough to have the glory that was Georgiana in their numbers click and click) compiled from four small villages owned by the Cavendish family (the Duke's family name). Spencer Compton Cavendish, known as Lord Hartington (British aristos have many names) was an interesting cove click, who declined the offer to become Prime Minister three times, but is probably better known as the long-term consort to Catherine Walters, famous to us all as 'Skittles'. For a smidgen of information about this fascinating woman, click - she was a true legend in her lifetime, and probably much more of a Brighton gal at heart.

1916, revealing a teasing glimpse of the 'Carpet Gardens'.

As the town was being constructed for industries that demanded a façade of welcoming order, these streets are wide and tree-lined. Pavements were in place to protect tourists' footwear and skirt hems; weatherproof road surfaces were laid for the new-fangled motor car; tea shops and cafés abounded; small shops selling souvenirs and antiques dotted the esplanade. Spectacular laid gardens and parks offset the jewelled beauty of the English Channel - and stand in stark contrast to the South Downs that circle the town. Hilly in places, the path atop the sea cliffs form part of the South Coast Way click, which George would have known well. Walking was a big leisure pursuit in the Victorian Age, mainly by those who did little or no manual labour - Demos was probably too exhausted from working like a slave all week to enjoy walking over hill and dale - and parks often catered for strolling activities by providing interesting vistas and features such as grottoes and waterfalls to amuse the visitors. The South Downs cliffs above Eastbourne contain the notorious Beachy Head which gives a sheer drop to the shore below. 
Above, we see the view back from part-way up the slope, c 1930. And below, it is in its glory, the Seven Sisters, looking westwards to Brighton - the very walk George took in 1866, in the opposite direction, from Brighton to Eastbourne, carrying his travelling bag - a distance of approximately 25 miles in one day - a likely story!

Beachy Head has always been a beacon for sailors, and for the Luftwaffe in WWII. It is also a place where people commit suicide, but people do fall off the edge accidentally, of course. There is a helpful phone box and contact details for the charity The Samaritans click at the site, to deter jumpers, and this crew of heroes and heroines click. For a more detailed look at the phenomena (and to balance the karma of me actually mentioning it and putting the thought in your mind click.

There was one Eastbourne shop George liked very much - the tobacconist at 13, Church Street in what is now the area of Old Town. Maybe he found the place in 1886, when he prowled the back lanes of what was the satellite village comprising the Old Town area. Here is the church of Saint Mary The Virgin that gives the street its name and click to know more. 

And below is the original Tally Ho public house (now made-over into a hideous gastro pub) at 42, Church Street. Incidentally, the Lion Brewery was based in Lambeth, within a stone's throw of where Marianne aka Nell lived. 

George, in common with many Victorians, obsessed about the weather's effects on health, so the thought of him yomping across the Downs in winter, is frankly bonkers. In fact, George visiting the English south coast in winter for a holiday is downright dodgy - but he did, in January-February 1888, and was joined by Morley Roberts for some of that time. Did they confine their activities to bracing walks across the Downs eastwards and their nights in smoking themselves daft and discussing poetry, or did they venture into the fleshpots of Brighton via the railway? As cultural anthropologists, of course, not punters... I mean to say, why would two single (well one almost single and one single) upright young male persons with no woman to cuddle up to in their lonely London apartments ever do to amuse themselves on the south coast in a freezing cold winter within (hard) walking distance or a short train ride from the English town that is the natural love child of Paris/Las Vegas? Go figure.

Here is an excellent collection of past and present snaps click showing the various small villages that were eaten up by the mighty metropolis of Eastbourne.

Commonplace 90 George & The East Sussex Coast PART ONE Brighton. 

"It was a blazing hot day in August. Baker Street was like an oven, and the glare of the
sunshine upon the yellow brickwork of the house across the road was painful to the eye...
Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank account had caused me to postpone my holiday ..."
["The Adventure of the Cardboard Box" (1893)] click to read the story.

(Dr) Arthur Conan Doyle put these words into the mouth of Dr John Watson, Sherlock Holmes' sidekick. Doyle had been a GP in Southsea when he wrote the first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. The beaches in Southsea are mainly pebbles - part of the Bagshot Beds geological formation click - or 'shingle', if you want to be kind to the tourist trade. 

George never made it to Southsea, but he did confuse it with Southampton, just up the coast, when he asked his brother, Algernon, if his intended wife-to-be came from Southsea or Southampton (it was the latter). Ida Starr from The Unclassed would have taken the Isle of Wight ferry from the more commercial, less sea-sidey bit of the island (Southsea is part of the island of Portsmouth). 

In September 1886, George took a train trip down to the Sussex resort of Brighton. According to Pierre Coustillas in the first of his three-part biography: ... it was an odd choice as he detested the town with its crowds of lower-class twanging cockneys (sic). Odd choice indeed - if you believe George was stumbling like a dingbat into a world he could never have anticipated. Was he ever a stumbling dingbat? Of course not.

George Herriman's E. Pluribus Dingbat, 
head of the Dingbat Family.

Brighton is just 70 miles from the capital. In the days when rail ruled, it was a shortish hop down the London, Brighton and South Coast Line from London Bridge Station (situated very close to Lambeth in south London). George had lived in London for seven years - had it never crossed his mind before to go to Brighton? The man who made no secret of how much he liked coastal locations and fresh air would surely not have ignored the nation's most famous seaside resort.

London Bridge Station c 1850

He could have gone anywhere 'select' - into Kent and to Broadstairs, to follow in Dickens' footsteps; Margate, to follow in Turner's... but he chose Sussex and Brighton. As the whole south coast was liable to a summertime invasion of day tripping and longer-term tourists, and as Londoners (including 'Cockneys'!) lived close enough up along the railway track to make the trip a possibility, then George was barking up the wrong tree if he wanted to avoid anyone with the wrong accent. It cannot have come as a shock that the most celebrated seaside town was chock-a-block full of Demos.

Brighton 1916

One 27th September 1886, George wrote to his sister, Madge:
I am just back from the Sussex coast, whither I was driven last Thursday by sheer break-down.

Brighton Pierrots by Walter Sickert 1915

As there is a break in the collected correspondence (the previous entry is August 20th), can we assume the break-down was caused by the lack of whatever he got from the proximity of the Gaussens who were away for the summer in their country residence in Lechdale? (It certainly wasn't overwork.) Might it have been the spectre of sexual frustration that drove him to the fleshpots of the south coast? It would make sense for a man in pursuit of sexual gratification to not soil his own back yard - 70 miles seems a reasonable distance to travel to satisfy a need.
He went on:
I went to Brighton, but found the place impossible, a more hideous & vulgar sea-side town the mind of man has not conceived.  The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks click. He spent one night in Brighton - but he could have got the train straight away the moment he stepped out of the railway station to anywhere - saw how busy it was, how common, and turned on his heels and bought a ticket to east or western destinations. But a night in Brighton was what he chose. 

He goes on:
So on Friday morning I walked along the eastward, - through Rottingdean, Newhaven, Seaford, to Eastbourne. And here at length was rest. Surely there is no more beautiful watering place. It is handsomely built, with broad, clean streets, almost all of them avenued with fine, thick chestnuts. I could not discover  a dirty thoroughfare, & saw no single blackguard, - yet there is a population of twenty-thousand or so.... It is clear Eastbourne in future will be my health-resort. Return fare from London is only 7/6d. & I find very decent lodgings. It is worth pointing out George was paying 15/- weekly alimony to his estranged wife Marianne aka Nell for her entire maintenance. Talk about priorities. 

The Royal Pavilion at Brighton

Thanks to the Prince Regent's appreciation of the healthful benefits of its natural mineral waters (and the fact it was within easy reach of the capital), Brighton became famous for its zestful fresh air and possibility of healthy activities. It then evolved into a more egalitarian and bohemian watering hole, with a colourful night-life and a reputation for sin.

When George visited, he knew full-well what was on the menu in the Lanes come twilight. More than any other place in England, Brighton was/is seen as the personification of the ideal destination for a 'dirty weekend'. For anyone not familiar with this concept, then look and learn here click. It would not be nonsense to suggest George - occasionally with Morley Roberts in tow - sought out sexual release in the town (now a city) famed for its legendary sex trade. Brighton was known as 'Piccadilly on Sea' - Piccadilly Circus in London being then, as now, a place where prostitutes hang out selling their wares - and where the lovely Rupert Everett once plied a modest trade as a rent boy click. The fact that George claims to find it less than salubrious is probably a smokescreen to confuse his real opinion and his interest in the town. He could hardly talk to his sister about what he really got up to there! George was not going to wallow in his sin - he was too suppressed for that - guilt-ridden forbidden fruit had to be a cast-iron secret. Dirty George Gissing could only come out to play in the anonymity of Brighton's Nether World. Or Nethers haha

When he had sucked Brighton dry of its stimulation (or, as in the biography above mentioned: Driven away by the vulgarity of the place), he moved on to Eastbourne - the very opposite of Brighton. George liked this more select sort of place so much, he suggested to his Wakefield family that a move to Eastbourne would be the best bet for them all, and would solve everyone's problems. And with Brighton within walking distance (if you like 25 mile walks across windy chalk coastal uplands), he could set off for healthy sessions of physical activity without arousing suspicion, and return from a weekend of tramping the Downs and not have to explain his lack of energy.


And, before we go... that return railway ticket he probably bought for his trip to Brighton - would he have paid for an Eastbourne-London single to make his way home, or did he return to Brighton to board the London train and use the ticket he had already paid for? Might have needed to spend another night there. George, ever the man of mystery.

JOIN ME IN PART TWO FOR THE DELIGHTS OF EASTBOURNE!

Commonplace 89 George & The Influence of William Hogarth PART TWO The Four Stages of Cruelty And Moral Blindness.

Portrait of The Artist's Sister, Anne 

George was a big fan of the works of William Hogarth, whose depictions of London life in the eighteenth century are some of the best social documents of that time. Charles Dickens might weave a melodrama from the scenes of poverty and deprivation that he witnessed, but a generation before, Hogarth was telling it like it was, as close to documentary as any Artist was in his time. Hogarth's moral tales were satires of all classes and all ages of life, and had the added advantage of being accessible to everyone who saw them - in his time, cheap prints would be available pasted up on hoardings for all to appreciate. The advantage to having such scenes presented visually is that you don't need literacy skills to be able to read and enjoy them, or 'read' their messages.

Dickens, with a nod to Voltaire's Pangloss, sought to reassure his reading public that it would all work out in the end, but Hogarth did not do happy endings. For him, it all went wrong sooner or later and your past always catches up with you. Dickens might take George back in a flood of nostalgia to his childhood family gathered round the table opening the parcel containing Our Mutual Friend hot off the press, but Dickens left George's intellectual longings unfulfilled. And little could be gleaned from the tame illustrations, charming, but sanitised. Hogarth was hardcore: Dickens, with his reliance on reading skills, took thousands of words to give us what Hogarth delivers in six small paintings - as in the Harlot's Progress series .

George was commissioned to write on Dickens, and his criticism is interesting and insightful, but if his thoughts on Hogarth had been published, that would have been a fascinating read. Books designed to inspire correct behaviour and to illustrate the folly of pursuing the dark side of life were popular in the Victorian age - though these did not much influence our man! But the dual purpose of some was to titillate as much as instruct - the Newgate Calendar click was a book approximating to Hogarth, revealing insights into the lives of the poor and criminal, the luckless and the gullible, the fathers who failed to make a good income (Hogarth and Dickens), and the young students who picked pockets (you know who).

Portrait of a Girl  

All these influences must have impacted on George - his opening shot at being a serious author jumped right into the whirlpool of popular obsession with law and order, chaos and control, light and dark. They were adult themes undertaken by a boy who had led a sheltered life - he had dabbled in criminality, received a very short and lenient prison sentence; had tramped round a bit of America like an hobo; he'd lived in a horrible flea pit attic, and acquired a wife he didn't really want, but the truth is, he'd read more about the existence of the disadvantaged than he'd had personal experience of enduring deprivation, himself. It took a few years to convince him he wasn't cut out for the sort of life he thought most Artists and poets were living - or were choosing to live - because that is a fantasy, and the sort of thing he had read in books. It may be easy for some to see George as some sort of crusader in the face of adversity, but, really, he was doing it from choice, not from necessity. He could have chosen another job, moved home to Wakefield, worked as a journalist, wooed a girl he really liked, gone to live on the continent long before he did - all these would have saved him from his self-imposed internal exile and endless 'self-dissatisfaction', and early death. There is nothing but pathos in this - a wrong decision (and a debt paid by prison) allowed to be the unmaking of a potentially well-rounded person.

The Shrimp Girl by William Hogarth 1740-5

When Hogarth was a man of increasing influence, the upper middle classes and the Art patrons began to have doubts about him. He had fallen out with many wealthy potential clients, had been on the losing side in a public spat with a fellow Artist who could command great support in denying Hogarth decent commissions. Because he published satirical works shining a light on the inadequacies of the government, the greed and vulgarity of the nouveau riche and the hypocrisy of the church, it was clear that his enemies were just waiting for him to make a mistake. And, though Hogarth openly supported neither of the main political parties, he did have a keen interest in real politics - the politics of Demos and the need of the haves to support the have nots - and did not shrink from putting the blame for the inequalities of life where it was due. His charitable work was unpopular amongst the people who exploited the poor, but one of his greatest successes is still very much with us today - The Royal Academy of Arts.

As a successful Artist, Hogarth worked with his contemporaries such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, to set up the Royal Academy click at a time when Royal societies were being instituted in the sciences. This was instrumental in according Artists a higher status than they had previously enjoyed (the Royal Society of Literature followed in 1820 click). Hogarth's confidence in his talent grew, as did his ambition, but his ideas on how to make Art were not well-received, and would become one of the agents of his downfall.

Cartoons and Caricatures 1743

The Line of Beauty (before the Alan Hollinghurst novel of the same name) was Hogarth's ideal way to compose a picture - it's hard to explain, so click but it is based on the letter 'S'. If you have google play click you can download a free copy of Hogarth's The Analysis of Beauty - o, the wonders of the internet thank you so much Mr Berners-Lee, you are a true hero.

Plate from the title page of Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty

Hogarth's 'Serpentine Line' was an attempt to formalise picture composition, and possibly to have an English alternative to the Classical 'golden section' click of the European masters/mistresses, but it was lampooned by many who were annoyed at his satires. If London Transport had any sense of humour, it would rename the Piccadilly Line as The Serpentine Line - it's the London Underground line that serves the Sloane Museum, the Royal Academy and the Foundling Museum (but the only sense of humour displayed in the nation's capital right now is in its choice of Lord Mayor haha not).

We go to the Tate Gallery click to explore Hogarth's most profound and abiding work - The Four Stages of Cruelty. These concern the journey through life of Tom Nero, a poor city boy who grows up surrounded by scenes of horror - but, a typical working class child of his time. Go here for an excellent paper on the works click.

The first stage is cruelty to animals. Hogarth, lover of pugs, was appalled at the amount of cruelty inflicted on animals - and set out to suggest it was the basis of all subsequent cruelties. He wrote in his introduction that the plates: 

were done in the hopes of preventing in some degree that cruel treatment of poor Animals which makes the streets of London more disagreeable to the human mind, than any thing what ever, the very describing of which gives pain.
Here, his protagonist, Tom Nero, is seen doing unspeakable things to a dog. 

We now know that if a child delights in causing suffering to animals, it is usually a sign of a potential serial killer click. Concern about animal cruelty was a new notion in Hogarth's time, when many so-called 'sports' involved hacking defenceless critters to bits. Hogarth set out to show that the poor and the monied classes alike delight in torturing defenceless animals for fun, and suggests to them they all reflect on their base characters.

Child cruelty was akin to animal cruelty - children were not considered to be the little princesses and princes we now know they are, and as many died in infancy, were not considered to have the same sort of sentience as adults. The issue of sentience is important in understanding how the Enlightenment was changing the way the human condition was regarded - and this trickled down to influence the way animals were beginning to be thought of as capable of suffering. Apropos animals, as Jeremy Bentham wrote, 25 years after Hogarth's death: The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer click To his credit, George was always a lover of animals and did his best to care for the damaged critters he found - birds, in particular, and cats seem to have been favourites. 

The second plate shows evidence that young Tom, now a carter, is skilled at horse beating. The representatives of the Law is in the cart - the horse has collapsed under the strain of carrying them - and they seem indifferent to the animal's suffering, just as they are indifferent to the suffering of their poor customers.

Here, Tom is arrested for breaking and entering and stealing valuables and for murdering a pregnant woman. 

And here is the most famous of the series, showing what has become of Tom Nero. After being hanged for his crimes, he is anatomised. Ironic touches - the dog is not eating his heart - he's sniffing it and about to reject it. The anatomist uses the sort of long stick Tom used on that poor dog.

As a child, George would have pored over these images and begun to form his thoughts of what it would mean to live in a big city like London. There was still enough cruelty around when he arrived in Manchester, Boston, Chicago, London, even if you didn't go looking for it. The average poor victim of circumstance that Hogarth presents - the sort who make mistakes, fails at stuff, and misses all the chances in life - is what George would bring to life in his writing. Visual Art is less good at depicting inner turmoil and reflection - this is where the novel takes over as the form of choice for depicting emotions. But the Hogarth mise en scène makes its way into George's work with his famous 'Walk with me, reader into Whitecross Street' (from Workers in the Dawn) and in the carnality and innate cruelty of The Nether World. But he soon fell out of love with what had started out as his romantic delusional social experiment in what working class life is like. By the winter of 1888, after he had finally said goodbye to Marianne aka Nell earlier in that year, and had begun his pilgrimage to Paris and Rome, George's ambition was firmly fixated on the writer's life of fame and affluence - and he would spend the rest of his life searching for that elusive thing called success. Hogarth went on racking up successes in the world of politics with a small 'p'. and in his development as an Artist. London celebrates his life with the wonder that is The Hogarth Roundabout - here, presented by political cartoonist for the Guardian, Martin Rowson

But this is how Hogarth's friend, the actor David Garrick, put it in his epitaph:

Farewell great Painter of Mankind

Who reach'd the noblest point of Art

Whose pictur'd Morals charm the Mind

And through the Eye correct the Heart.

If Genius fire thee, Reader, stay,

If Nature touch thee, drop a Tear:

If neither move thee, turn away,

For Hogarth's honour'd dust lies here.

Commonplace 88 George & The Influence of William Hogarth PART ONE: A History Lesson.

When George was a lad, he was addicted to the works of William Hogarth (1697-1764). His father owned a large format edition of plates made after the original paintings, and George tells us he spent many happy hours looking through the images. When his father died, George inherited the book.

The Painter And His Pug
by William Hogarth 1745

It seems an odd choice for a father to share such a book with a child. In his own time, Hogarth's work was considered unsuitable for children's eyes - even in the harsh eighteenth century, children were considered to be sponges to bad influences, and likely to be affected by the tales of the seamier side of life. Perhaps George used to sneak in and have a crafty vada while his father was tramping the lanes of Wakefield collecting fronds. Perhaps George developed some of his own peculiar peccadilloes from the frisson of danger present when forbidden fruit is greedily gobbled up - looking at all those sins on display would have been an education.

Hogarth's biography would have been of interest to George, and in it, we have examples of what Jung and Sting call 'synchronicity', but what Douglas Adams refers to as the 'interconnectedness of everything' that chime with our man - set yourself the task of spotting them.

William Hogarth was born in Bartholomew Close, Smithfield, London. For anyone interested, it was an area first developed by Sir Richard Riche (the man who failed to stand by his friend, Thomas Cromwell), after being given Bartholomew Priory at the time of the Reformation's campaign of urban planning known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In Hogarth's time, it was situated round the corner from Grub Street click.

His father was a Classics scholar and Latin teacher who had no real talents, so he took up writing for hack publications. When this failed to pay enough, he opened a coffee shop where only Latin was allowed to be spoken - a proper USP if ever there was one. But, vulgo acceptam non, and it soon closed, with the educated entrepreneur eventually being thrown into the Fleet Prison for his debts. Hogarth never forgot this humiliation and the misery it brought on his family. If his work was about anything in particular, then it sought to portray the arbitrary outcomes of human endeavours, particularly how hope can be destroyed, how all plans can go awry, and how adversity turns up at the party whenever it can get its foot in the door. It also gave him a strong drive to make money - which fuelled his equally strong drive to win fame at his chosen craft.

Hogarth worked as an apprentice printer and etcher until he was in a position to make a name for himself as an independent. He would walk the streets of London observing the masses and making notes and sketches for future works - much as George used to do. Books of printed plates, like the one George had, were based on paintings - and for Hogarth's first real success, A Harlot's Progress, he had first painted a scene of a prostitute about to be arrested for her crimes - which became scene 3 of the series. All of the plates are based on this series of paintings now in the Sir John Soane's Museum in London - having been bought by Sir John directly from the artist.

A Harlot's Progress of 1732 click concerns a country girl, who comes to London seeking work as a seamstress but becomes the mistress of an old, rich man. Thrown out by him because of her habit of taking young lovers, she becomes diseased and mad and eventually dies of syphilis. Some of George's biographers trot out a version of this tale whenever they think of George's first wife, Marianne, but that might be down to the fact they assume all working class girls are prostitutes at heart, and all working girls become infected with venereal disease. I'm sure Freud would be able to explain their motives to them. Marianne aka Nell is often described as a country girl who fell from grace in a big city - but George told HG Wells Edith was a country girl who fell from grace... so, perhaps George is the one we should blame for this episode of rampant wish-fulfilment.

What would the child George have seen in his book? Here are tinted versions of the six Harlot plates, with their captions - George would probably have viewed monochromes:

1. Moll arrives in London

2. Moll the Harlot

3. The Harlot Apprehended

4. The Harlot Does Bird

5. The Harlot's end (1)

6. The Harlot's Wake 

In later years, George would have been particularly interested in Plate 4 - The Harlot Does Bird - as he had done a bit of bird, himself, and would be able to compare notes.

Belle Vue Manchester - where George did his bird.

Hogarth was a man somewhat at odds with his time - he hated the influence the rise of Classicism was having on the traditional values of England (back in those days, 'England' stood as a term for all the UK). He despised the French and the Italians - and did all he could to promote English superiority. In Commonplace 23, we saw how his painting 'The Roast Beef of Old England' click was based on the Grub Street Opera by Henry Fielding. (here is a hint at why click and click)

In 1732, Hogarth went on an extended holiday - his staycation version of the Grand Tour - with some chums and then returned to compile Five Days Peregrinations Around The Isle of Sheppey. If you can access google play you can download it for free here click. It does contain images - Hogarth's sense of humour comes into play, sometimes rather in a sort of Georgian Carry On fashion. Dickens' Pickwick Papers covers similar turf, albeit in a more complicated, less scatological, way, but it is similar.

Hogarth's works were popular with all the social classes - he didn't differentiate between them and preach that the rich were morally superior to the poor. It was clear to Hogarth we are all in the gutter together, making a mess of things, or being the victims of circumstance. Without being politically aligned in any direction (he lampooned both Whigs and Tories), he believed in private philanthropy and getting stuck in to help the disadvantaged. 'Charity' that came from institutional places was the norm, but the idea of the private benefactor who gave for the common good was a brand new concept. At St Bartholomew's Hospital, Hogarth painted huge murals for free - to save them being done by an Italian! - click to see - and then turned his hand to supporting needy children.

Captain Thomas Coram by William Hogarth 1740

One of Hogarth's most lasting philanthropic concerns was the Foundling Hospital, the building now being run as The Foundling Museum click. Captain Thomas Coram set up the first ever charity dependent on public donations, to help children; it's still going strong. Hogarth donated paintings for the charity to sell, Thomas Gainsborough helped him decorate the interior walls of the building, and George Frideric Handel composed music for it - click to find out about Coram and the Handel concert.

The Foundling Hospital offered a place for unwanted or abandoned babies or those who, for various reasons, could not stay with their mothers - such as when there were no workhouse places for babies, or a widow remarried and her second husband did not want his predecessors' child. A mother would leave a small, unique token to be taken as ID in the case she might one day be able to return and reclaim her child. This new move to identify children as being vulnerable and worth helping quickly caught on and raising money for them became fashionable. The children would be educated and then work was found for them - a chance for a decent life as a servant or an apprentice.

Foundling tokens 

In 1735, a woman called Judith Dufour dropped her two-year old child off at a workhouse because - she claimed - she could not look after him. She eventually returned and reclaimed him - he was now well-dressed in new clothes. Judith took him home, killed him, disposed of his body and then sold the clothes he wore and used it to buy gin. Or, so the story goes.

Hogarth may have had this in mind when he made perhaps his most famous picture - Gin Lane. It is a satire on the addiction to the dreaded foreign substance he despised, and the way this foreign muck was ruining the salt of the earth Londoners.

Gin Lane

Beer Street

Here, we have Gin Lane, next to Beer Street, its companion piece, celebrating the delights of British Beer. These two separate plates were meant to be viewed side-by-side, so a comparison could be drawn between the decent consumption of British beer, which makes us happy and content, and the foul, destructive consumption of foreign gin.

George was occasionally a bottled Bass beer man - oddly he says he took it for medicinal reasons (yep, that old excuse haha). He reports it went through him like a train, but as this seems to be a common effect of the ale (according to my reliable sources!), and George was a martyr to his innards, we must not say he - and his bowels - could not 'take' their beer.

A Bar At The Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet 1882
(Bass beer bottles with red triangle logo)

JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO EXPLORE HOGARTH'S THE FOUR STAGES OF CRUELTY AND HIS SERPENTINE LINE
AND GO TO click TO SEE HOW BEER AND TEA HAVE SHAPED OUR WORLD AND PROBABLY SAVED MILLIONS OF LIVES.

Commonplace 87 George & The Male Gaze PART THREE

In 1898, George came to the realisation that unless a miracle happened, he would die a lonely and miserable death having ballsed up most of the opportunities he had been handed in life. Luckily, the Fates had an ace up their sleeves - and Gabrielle Fleury was delivered unto him, and so love blossomed in his heart. Well, that's what he claimed. Afraid Gabrielle would do a runner before she was signed up for the Gissing Rescue Plan, he made his move within days of meeting her, and did some significant back-pedalling in order to convince her he was not a misogynist with outmoded (not to say, erroneous!) ideas of male superiority. George was not the most insightful of men - but he knew some of his more shameful behaviours would take some explaining. In order to obfuscate and stage-manage Gabrielle's perceptions of what she already knew about him from his writings, he committed his literary talent to writing The Crown of Life as a paean of love to Gabrielle. Which is what he told her, but hopefully, she will have realised that was tosh.

Venus, Mars and Vulcan by Tintoretto c 1551 (There is such a lot going on here! Mars, Venus' lover, is hiding under the bench because her husband, Vulcan, has come back to check on her - he has heard she has taken a lover. The faithful dog is about to give the game away by barking at Mars, and Cupid, who acted as the lovers' go-between, is pretending to be asleep.)

In The Crown of Life, the hero, Piers Otway, is a man with a secret - he is illegitimate (an important distinction as this makes him the product of lustful impulses - a form of bad blood). His journey throughout the narrative is to prove to himself, and his love object, Irene Derwent, that this must not be taken as a sign that he is damaged goods. George's own life stuffed full of guilty secrets, needed a spokesperson and Piers is it. Piers is an odd name - it is an upper class British first or surname but George possibly chose it from the story of Piers Plowman click an early text about one man's search for redemption in the Christian life. In Plowman's Passus 17 the protagonist meets the spirit of Hope and learns about the 'Good Samaritan', the prospect of salvation and the meaning of love. Otway - this could have been an homage to Thomas Otway click, the English dramatist who wrote a tragedy: The Unhappy Marriage - which would have resonated with George as he was shackled to Edith at the time he wrote Crown of Life.

The novel opens with Piers walking round London, alone, but not aimlessly - he feels compelled to make his way to the Haymarket and its many Fine Art picture shops:
A window hung with engravings, mostly after picture of the day; some of them very large and attractive to a passing glance. One or two admirable landscapes offered solace to the street-wearied imagination, but upon these Piers did not fix his eye; it was drawn irresistibly to the faces and forms of beautiful women set forth with varied allurement. Some great lady of the passing time lounged in exquisite array amid luxurious furniture lightly suggested; the faint smile of her flattered loveliness hovered about the gazer; the subtle perfume of her presence touched his nerves; the greys of her complexion transmuted themselves through the colour of his blood into life's carnation; whilst he dreamed upon her lips, his breath was caught, as though of a sudden she had smiled for him, and for him alone. 

The male gaze - Piers felt entitled to it, and so did George. When he visited Italy for the first time, in the 1888-89 winter, deep into his readings of John Ruskin on Venice, George surveyed the galleries like he was attending a visual meat market. When he took a look round the Uffizi Gallery Museum in Florence, he decided he preferred Tintoretto to Titian. He went to view Titian's celebrated Venus of Urbino. The male gaze, judging the horse flesh. On Valentine's Day 1889, to Eduard Bertz, he wrote this: To tell you the truth, I suppose Titian's great qualities are mainly technical, & that only an artist can fully appreciate him. Take the celebrated so-called 'Venus' - which isn't a Venus at all - in the Tribuna of the Uffizi. I cannot say it disappointed me as I already knew the picture; but I felt more strongly than ever its value was that of an academical study of the nude - & of colour; nothing more. The woman is not - to me - even beautiful. 

The Venus of Urbino by Titian 1538

First, let's examine the last phrase - its value was that of an academical study of the nude. Well, that's okay, then - he isn't looking at it as a celebration of erotica, he's looking at it as a technical visual aid. A likely story! Talk about rationalising your motives. But, as he was writing to Eduard, his man-wife who was still in the closet, maybe he felt the best thing to do was to deny any arbitrary heterosexual motives. Freud (Sigmund as well as his daughter, Anna), described how we unconsciously manage threats by utilising defence mechanisms click. One of George's most commonly used defence mechanisms is intellectualization, and here we see it being unconsciously used - along with a touch of reaction formation - to pass over what he feels about the painting of a beautiful naked woman and makes it clear, it is he who has the power to decide what is beautiful and what is not - because he owns the gaze that defines her.

The Urbino Venus was famous then as now, as one of the most alluring paintings of a nude female - many a young man on the Grand Tour would seek it out to admire the female form. Mark Twain called it the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses... painted for a bagnio, and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong...in truth, it is a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery. 
This is interesting wording - too strong for any place but a public art gallery. The original insult - that the picture is pure filth - is ironic because Twain is talking about the attitudes to it - the debate about Art being above censorship. It is also a nod to the debate about whether or not Art rationalises sexually explicit images by turning them into intellectual erotica. But, again, we have a man telling us what is acceptable, and even how to look at a work of Art. 

The Tribunal of the Uffizi by Thomas Zoffany 1772-8 

George already knows the work, so we can presume he saw it first as a print/reproduction, possibly in the British Library - or in a Haymarket shop window! He did not consider himself to be typical of the young men who might visit this painting. He was a Classics scholar, and lover of all things Rome, someone who read the great writings of the Romans for his own enjoyment and instruction. He could not have approached this painting with an open mind - Venus was already embedded (no pun intended!) in his subconscious, along with all the Roman attitudes to sexual thoughts, behaviours and attitudes. Presumably, George had the idea that a goddess must have a certain look - being superhuman, she must transcend the physical flesh typical of the human experience of erotic love. The Romans loved physical beauty as much as did the Greeks - and they were not afraid of erotica.

Piers Otway, still looking at those nudes:
Near to her was a maiden of Hellas, resting upon a marble seat, her eyes bent towards some AEgean isle, the translucent robe clung about her perfect body; her breast was warm against the white stone; the mazes of her woven hair shone with unguent. The gazer lost himself in memories of epic and idyll, warming through worship to desire. Then his look strayed to the next engraving; a peasant girl, consummate in grace and strength, supreme in chaste pride, cheek and neck soft-glowing from the sunny field, eyes revealing the heart at one with nature. Others there were, women of many worlds, only less beautiful; but by these three the young man was held bound. He could not satisfy himself with looking and musing; he could not pluck himself away. An odd experience; he always lingered by the print shops of the Haymarket, and always went on with troubled blood, with mind rapt above familiar circumstance, dreaming passionately, making wild forecast of his fate.

George's two erotic loves - the Classics and sex with women. And evidence of his dual nature: civilised v feral; sophisticated v naive; middle v working class allure; Classic and contemporary; Mother nature v metropolis. Sacred and profane:

Sacred and Profane Love by Titian 1514

The other name for this picture is Venus and the Bride - the woman on the left is a widow about to be remarried and the figure to the right is Venus, assisting her on her wedding day. What is the picture about? We can go to the Uffizi Gallery Museum website click and read about it.

The Urbino Venus - her erotic charms had been celebrated for four centuries, but George was not going to let her have power over him; he was not the sort to relinquish self control so easily - a case of  'once bitten, twice shy'. When he fell in love with his first wife, he learned the danger of letting go and allowing someone to deeply affect his passions. That didn't go to plan, but it did, perhaps, teach him that he couldn't love deeply, after all. Not like a Shakespeare or a Keats - that his soul, at the very bottom of it, was not the soul of a bohemian - it was the soul of a bourgeois book lover. He never again thought of sexual love as more than functional, hence the ease with which he inflicted himself on Edith when celibacy was driving him mad. Perhaps thoughts of Marianne aka Nell were still in his mind - she was hardly cold in her grave - when he was looking at the Titian Venus.

The painting was commissioned by the Duke of Urbino, Guidobaldo Il della Rovera, allegedly as a sort of visual aid for his first wife, to give her a few hints of how she should present herself to her husband - to be eternally available, alluring and desirable. The male gaze decides what it wants and offers a prompt. He married his first wife in 1534, when she was eleven, so if this was meant for her benefit, it might now be seen as a man grooming a young girl. But, as it was painted in 1538, four years after the wedding, there is every chance the consummation was delayed - as was the custom with very young brides - until she was fifteen or sixteen.

Guidobaldo
by Angelo Bronzino 1532

Giulia (aged 22) by Titian 1545

Giulia died, childless, in 1547, aged twenty four. The following year, Guidobaldo married Vittoria, the twenty-seven year old daughter of the Duke of Parma. There is some question of which wife the painting was originally made for, but, if this picture was painted in 1538, ten years before he married Vittoria, it can't be her.

So, is it a 'Nuptials for Dummies' piece, painted for Giulia's benefit, the young, possibly overly-modest, timid, virginal wife who was dreading the fulfilment of her impending sexual obligations? If so, the bar was set very high - but that could be because he revered her. Or, might it be something a little less formal? In fact, is it a painting made for a wife, at all?

This Venus is naked, though casually modest, and it looks like the bed has seen some action - those sheets looked wrinkled. In her hand are flowers - roses; they match the fabric of her cushions. Roses are the symbol of the goddess Venus; in mythology, Venus gave a rose to her son, Eros, who passed it on to Harpocrates, the god of secrets and silence and of children. Roses, to the Romans, were symbols of secrets - the term sub rosa (under the rose) was the practice of leaving a rose outside the closed door when secret things were going on inside a room. In the painting, one blossom has come adrift... a warning sign of mishaps to come? The dog at her feet - Romans often gave small dogs to their lovers, as a reminder to be faithful. In traditional European Art, again dogs represent fidelity, but by the Middle Ages, had become associated with lust and procreation... but this spaniel is sleeping. Is the dog sleeping on the side of the bed vacated by the lover - tired out from a bout of strenuous exercise?

Harpocratic Cupid, 100-50 BCE
the model for Harpo Marx?

And, then we have the huge space behind Venus. In the far background, a phallic column and a pretty myrtle bush in a pot, lit by starlight and the coming dawn. Myrtle is associated with Venus and marriage. What are those women up to? One is rummaging about in a chest, and an older woman, fully-clothed and with an elaborate hairstyle, looks like she is in charge. Chests were often given as wedding gifts - perhaps the younger girl is the subject filling her marriage chest for the future - a sort of 'bottom drawer' event, watched over by her mother.

So, would Guidobaldo have asked for a nude painting with his wife as a model? No, there would have been a stunt body double, with Titian making use of a professional model, and then painting in the face of Giulia.  Would Guido have shown it to his wife as the so-called visual aid to what he wanted her to appear to be when he finally got to consummate their union? Was it a celebration of his love for her to prove his devotion? Might it not have been better to symbolise it in a way she would have preferred - a necklace, or a fur, or a tapestry? So, maybe it isn't his young wife after all - perhaps it is his stunningly beautiful mistress, with him as her faithful dog, reassuring her that, even when he is a proper husband to his child bride, he will always adore his lover, his soul mate and muse. And, in the background, the small figure is his wife, the larger woman is her mother or her maid, both busy organising his future.

Have a look at this click to see what Matt Collings has to say about Titian. And click to have a butcher's at more Tintoretto.