Beatitudes of love VII: Romantic meeting

item details

NameBeatitudes of love VII: Romantic meeting

ProductionSir Stanley Spencer; 1938

Classificationoil paintings

Materialsoil paint, canvas

Materials Summaryoil on canvas

DimensionsImage: 1040mm (height), 497mm (length)

Registration Number1954-0009-3

Credit linePurchased 1954 with T G Macarthy Trust funds

Overview

Here, we see a servant girl and a janitor in the throes of a grotesque, consuming love affair.

Spencer painted his ‘Beatitudes of Love’ series after his second marriage collapsed. But he wasn’t dismissing love. Rather, he believed that ugliness was a far better vehicle than beauty to represent true love: ‘I love them from within outwards, and whatever that outward appearance may be, it is an exquisite reminder of what is loved within.’

When Ernest Heber Thompson purchased this work in 1954, one critic wrote: ‘Beatitudes represents two elongated figures … both with giraffe-like necks … The male would be far better suited to the cover of an American magazine of a certain type rather than … an art gallery … [This purchase] should provoke controversy and criticism.’ Do you agree?