Fred Elwell's 'The Wedding Dress'

'The Wedding Dress'

The painting, 'The Wedding Dress', by Fred Elwell tells a story. At the centre, a young woman is kneeling on the floor. She is leaning on an open trunk with her head in her hands and beside her is her wedding dress, strewn across the floor. The woman's bowed body, with her face hidden from view, conveys her distress and grief. The emphasis on the wedding dress makes the story behind the woman's emotions explicit - she is in mourning for the man she was due to marry, or has recently wed.

Elwell was an extremely accomplished still life painter and the placing of the dress with the shoes in the foreground is like a still life composition. The extensive folds of the fabric provide the artist with plenty of scope for skilfully capturing its texture and the play of light, including the subtle nuances of light and shade.

Just above the dress the still life composition continues with what looks like a veil on the edge of the chest, with a small spring of flowers placed upon it. It is difficult to discern what the flowers might be, but flowers often hold a symbolic meaning in narrative works from this period, from purity and hope to death.

Use of Light

Elwell is famous for his use of light in paintings, often paying great attention to highlights in a still life composition, or using a window to flood a room with light. In this painting, Elwell goes a stage further than just skilfully capturing the play of light, as he has uses light symbolically. Light dramatically contrasts with dark and is symbolic of the forces of life and death. The woman's jet black dress contrasts with the almost shimmering white of the wedding dress.

This contrast is heightened further as the scene is divided into two halves - on the right hand side the large bed is covered with white sheets and drapes, with the falling light suggesting that there is a window just out of view. By contrast the left hand side of the painting is so dark that it is devoid of all detail. The room is almost pitch black and only a few outlines, such as those of pictures on the wall are visible. This heightens the sense of realism and the strength of the emotion, which almost verges on the sentimental.

The painting is displayed beside two of Elwell's other narrative paintings in the Ferens, 'The War Worker' and 'First born', which also use domestic settings for an unfolding story. It's interesting to note that Elwell has used very similar props in all three paintings but to very different effect. In all three paintings, domestic dramas unfold around a bed, and in 'The First Born' the sense of optimism, fresh air and sunlight are contrasted vividly.

Death and the Victorians

Although 'The Wedding Dress' was painted in 1911, after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, it undoubtedly reflects Victorian tastes. In fact it is not unusual to extend the end of the Victorian period until the beginning of the First World War in 1914. Death was a common theme in Victorian art; painters often contrasting the sorrow caused by death with previous happiness and joy. The fashion for portraying death was probably partly due to Queen Victoria's rigid practice of mourning, wearing mourning clothes for a whole decade after the death of her husband, Albert in 1861. In Victorian paintings, death is commonly given a domestic setting, such as the privacy of the middle class bedroom found in Elwell's painting. Other characteristics typical of the period include the use of significant objects, such as the wedding dress, to remind us of the recently departed, and portraying the mourner so they do not engage the spectator, making the scene intensely private.

Innocence and Experience

Another popular theme is the contrast between innocence and experience. In this painting there is a contrast between the innocence symbolised by the white dress and flowers and the sudden heralding of experience with the death of the woman's future husband. The fragile world of innocence is threatened by this loss. Ironically, some years after posing for the painting, the model, Violet Press, lost her own husband in the First World War, after only a very short marriage, adding a greater poignancy to the work when we look at it today.

Elwell

Elwell frequently used local people, native to Beverley, as models. The model in this painting was a Mrs Violet Press, a costumier of Minster Moorgate West, Beverley. The same model also posed for a very large and monumental painting, titled, 'Bereaved' or 'The Wreath', by Fred Elwell's future wife, Mary Dawson Holmes, also exploring the subject of widowhood. Mary's painting preceded Fred's by three years and may even have been a source of inspiration for him. This in part contests a teacher-pupil relationship, with Fred as the teacher and Mary as the pupil, which has often been accepted. Behind the sorrow portrayed in the painting, both fictional and real, there is a far happier story about the talents of two individual artists Fred Ewell and Mary Dawson Holmes; with their shared interests and inspirations, but own distinctive styles and visions. Mary's 'The Wreath' was reproduced in a contemporary magazine, alongside another work by Fred Elwell's from the same Royal Academy Summer Exhibition - a remarkable coincidence in view of Fred Elwell's later marriage to Mary.