WATTS, GEORGE FREDERICK ( 1817-1904). An English painter and sculptor, the most prominent artist of the contemporary school. He was born in London, and while still a boy was admitted to the schools of the Royal Academy. lle learned far more, however• from his study of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, the influence of which may be seen in the classical outlines and ideal character of his figures. A prize obtained in 1842 in the competition for the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament enabled him to visit Italy in 1844. Although passing most of the following two years at Florence, he was chiefly influenced by the Venetians, especially Tintoretto• from whom he learned color. In 1S46 he obtained another prize with his cartoon "Alfred Inciting the Saxons to Prevent the Land ing of the Danes," now in the committee room of the Houses of Parliament, which also led to the commission for the fresco, "Saint George and the Dragon," in the of Poets. Watts lived a quiet, simple life devoted to his art. An early union with Ellen Terry, the actress, was dissolved, and in 1886 he married Miss Mary Frase•-Tytle-, whom he greatly assisted in her well-known art pottery works at Compton, Surrey. With a singularly disinterested spirit he devoted himself to the artistic interests of the nation. He gratuitously decorated the dining hall of Lincoln's Inn (one of the Inns of Court) with the fine fresco "Justice: a Hemi cycle of Lawgivers." lie built the first memorial wall at Saint Botolph's, in honor of those who had lost their lives in saving others, for which he received the Order of Merit upon its institu tion by the King in 1902. Refusing to sell the best part of his work, with the intention of pre senting it to the nation, he was enabled to see it form the nucleus of the "National Gallery of British Art," the best portraits going to the National Portrait Gallery. Au Academician in 1867, he twice refused a baronetcy; lie took first class medals at Paris and Antwerp, and was elected to the French Institute in 1903.
Watts's art is didactic in the extreme. Each of his canvases is a kind of sermon; but they are usually invested with a strong clement of art.
Although deficient in academic training, Watts's drawing is good in a large constructive sense, while at times his color is powerful and pure. His most interesting work is perhaps the sym bolical pictures forming his message to the age —the danger of riches, the cruelty of greed. and. above al], the power of love and the fallacy of the fear of death. Among the most important of this group are 'Love and Life" (1885), which the artist said best portrayed] his message to the age, and which the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in vain endeavored to remove from the White "Love and Death" (1877-96) ; and "Love Triumphant" (1898). Other celebrated examples are "II °pc" ( "Faith" (1890). "The Good Samaritan" (City Hall, Manchester), "Sir Galahad," "Psyche," "Orpheus and btrydive." There are modern portraitists of greater technical ability than Watts, hut in force of expression, in freedom and simplicity of technique he is unsurpassed, and will even bear comparison with Tintoretto.
No other has depicted so many distinguished contemporaries. Ilk sitters include Gladstone, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Salisbury, and John Iffirns among public men; Tennyson, Browning, Swinburne, Matthew Arnold, and William Morris among poets: John Stuart .Mill, Carlyle, and Meredith among prose-writers; himself (many tinues), Lord Leighton, Rossetti, and Burne-Jones among painters; and foreign celebrities like Garibaldi, niers, Guizot, and Jerome Bonaparte.
In his few works of sculpture Watts stands unsurpassed among modern Englishmen in bold ness and breadth of treatment, and in nobility of style. Such works arc: the bust of "Clytie;" "Bishop Lonsdale," in Lichfield Cathedral; "Lord Lothian," in Biekling Church; "Hugo Lupus," a large bronze equestrian statue at Eaton Hall; "Physical Energy" (1902), symbol izing the character of Cecil Rhodes, a replica of which is destined for the Mattoppo Hills, in South Africa; and Lord Tennyson (1902), for Lincoln's Inn. Consult: Cartwright, Art Journal (extra number, 1896) ; Monkhonse, British Con temporary Artists (London, 1889) ; and Bate man, C. F. Watts, I?. A. (ib., 1001).