Lot Essay
Fildes made his name with social realist subjects like the famous Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward (Royal Holloway and New Bedford College), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, and The Widower (R.A. 1876), a sketch for which was sold in these Rooms on 13 March 1992, lot 166. In The Village Wedding he turned to a lighter theme and scored one of the great successes of his career. He was in fact already making regular visits to Venice, where he found plentiful material for popular sentimental genre subjects such as Venetian Life (R.A. 1884), sold in these Rooms on 24 November 1989 for #308,000, the current auction record for the artist.
Fildes began The Village Wedding at Aston Tirrold, near Wallingford, Berkshire, in August 1881, using local people for models. Although he was appalled at the ugliness of modern costume, he was anxious not to make the picture too sentimental, and when his brother-in-law Henry Woods suggested that he should circumvent the problem of costume by setting the scene in some earlier period, he replied: 'The picture won't have a scrap of what is considered my "forte", viz. Sentiment. This may be unwise, but if I hate anything, I hate manufactured sentiment, so I am going in for just what I think likely to happen and paint an episode in a quiet little village somewhere in my own head, the quiet little village life with the coarseness and ugliness of immediately modern times pressed out of it, and yet not put back far enough for people to say I am not painting my own time. I am certainly doing so. I am painting what I remember when a youngster among the people I used to know. I notice what you say about going back to old costume but I am sure you will agree with me on reflection that what I might, and should, I admit, gain in the picturesque I should certainly lose in naturalness. When my picture is finished I believe it will convey the impression that it is a genuine record of something experienced by the artist; whereas all costume pictures convey to me that the painter has been more influenced by what he has seen in other pictures ...' (Fildes, op.cit., p.73).
Fildes returned to London in October, hoping to exhibit the picture the following year, but in February 1882 he was still 'overwhelmed' by the problems it presented, and it was not finished for that year's Academy. All through the summer he struggled on, although those who saw the picture thought it finished, and an appreciaitive account of it was even published by Edward Russell, first Lord Russell of Liverpool, in the Liverpool Daily Post. 'When the world sees the new picture, which is a bright, highly coloured, vivaciously composed picture of a rustic wedding party returning from church through a snugly thatched and pleasantly wooded Berkshire village - it will be acknowledged that Mr Fildes is a master of sunlight as well as of shade, of festivity as well of wretchedness, and a master of reality in each ... While central figures of the rural bride and bridegroom deservedly fix the attention, the canvas is delightfully crowded with children, with women, with old men, and with the wedding personnel of mother, sisters and soldier brother, each person doing exactly what is natural and all together making up a picture of infinite variety and interest. I will only add two words: one in recognition of the well chosen and realized facial expression of the newly united pair, which is delightfully faithful to life; and the other a tribute of admiration to the realistic painting of all the dress in the picture ... It is a pleasure to foreshadow what is likely to be one of the painter's choicest and most popular successes.' (quoted in Fildes, pp.82-3).
To complete the picture, Fildes used models in London. He had great difficulty finding a suitable sitter for the bride, but eventually he saw a girl who looked the part in Hyde Park, and asked her to pose. At first she refused, but turned up a few days later. The bridegroom was painted from the artist's milkman, and the best man was from the local barracks. As L.V. Fildes recalled, 'I remember The Village Wedding in my father's studio, or rather what to me was the principal figure in it, the Trooper in the Life Guards, who gives an arm to the bride's mother and sister. He used to come down to Melbury Road from the new Cavalry Barracks in Knightsbridge and was glad to have a shilling for the morning's work and his bus fare. The two girls in the forefront, one of whom throws an old shoe at the bridal pair, were my mother's parlourmaid and head-housemaid, and great would be (so I gathered in later years) the flutterings "below stairs" on the mornings when the gallant Life-Guardsman was due to come for a sitting' (op.cit., p.86).
As the picture neared completion, Fildes despaired of selling so large a canvas. 'Agnew would not even come and see it', he complained, and negotiations with 'the Fine Art people' fell through. However, Agnew had second thoughts and bought the picture for 2,500 guineas, the highest price the artist had yet received. Agnew's were also to publish an immensely popular engraving. As for the picture's reception at the Academy of 1883, it was everything the artist had hoped for. Press coverage was extensive, and there was even a cartoon by Fildes' friend Gordon Thomson in Fun. F.G. Stephens's comments in the Athenaeum are representative. 'In turning from the P.R.A.'s ever elegant art to the rustic movement, sparkling light, and open aspect of Mr Fildes's Village Wedding, we pass from Italian air and cultured elegances to English sunlight and the animation of English countrymen, women, and children, assembled in their village street. The scene includes the long vista of a village street "in the pairing time" of the year, enriched with half-developed foliage. The weather is sunny, and bright light falls on the thatched roofs and gay costumes of the bridal party. The road is filled by the procession, which is headed by a simple young swain and his bride in their best attire, he in a new black coat and hard round hat of a country block, she in a pale lavender muslin gown and a very neat straw bonnet, the trimmings being just a little showy. The pair are attended by a tall, somewhat demonstrative guardsman in his scarlet coat. On one arm is a ruddy bridesmaid in pink, and on the other arm the bride's mother in a close bonnet. Other friends troop after these, including an old father in a hat which is all too big for his shrunk features, and a coat too loose for his withered form. Joyful and inquisitive boys and girls march beside the bridal party. One girl, who is just old enough to admire the bridegroom, trips along and looks eagerly in his face. She has been on an errand to the baker's, and carries bread under one arm. A burly boy, on his way a-field, loaded with a keg and a basket of provisions, contemplates the charms of the bride with loutish but honest wonder. Next is a stout servant-girl with a knot of children in a perambulator. A woman on our right boisterously casts a lucky shoe at the bride; a girl who has squatted in front stares open-mouthed at the finery. From a cottage on our left the busy women are being called forth by a damsel beckoning from a garden gate. It would be hard to improve on this first-rate piece of healthy genre, which is, moreover, instinct with a true and simple pathos and by no means devoid of humour. The attractions of the whole are enhanced by the bright, soft, and full illumination, the wealth of that sparkling local colour (which, so happily has it been employed, is in itself a characteristic and faithful element of the design) aiding its expression, and, by means of its fitness, giving peculiar value to the work. The distance, including the houses and church, the sky and trees, is of first-rate quality, and attests the careful studies of the artist; likewise admirable is the tact shown in the choice of the costumes, their cut and materials, from the rigid muslin and sash of the bride to the stiff coat of her lover, from the padded scarlet of the trooper to the slightly limp pink garments of his young companion. The very boots and shoes of the happy pair seem to creak with newness. The best element of all is the expressions of the bride and the bridegroom. Undoubtedly this is one of the pictures of the year, and so successful as to be worthy of the honourable care of the painter, who forbore to hasten its completion when, more than a year ago, he felt dissatisfied with the labours of the previous twelve months.'
The picture scored a further success in 1887, when it was shown in the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester. It was voted the most popular picture in the show, and Fildes headed a second poll as the artist having the largest proportion of his exhibits chosen for special notice. The picture remains one of the great examples of popular Victorian genre, exceptional for its size and remarkable for the way it has pathos and charm without falling into the trap of what Fildes himself called 'manufactured sentiment'.
Fildes began The Village Wedding at Aston Tirrold, near Wallingford, Berkshire, in August 1881, using local people for models. Although he was appalled at the ugliness of modern costume, he was anxious not to make the picture too sentimental, and when his brother-in-law Henry Woods suggested that he should circumvent the problem of costume by setting the scene in some earlier period, he replied: 'The picture won't have a scrap of what is considered my "forte", viz. Sentiment. This may be unwise, but if I hate anything, I hate manufactured sentiment, so I am going in for just what I think likely to happen and paint an episode in a quiet little village somewhere in my own head, the quiet little village life with the coarseness and ugliness of immediately modern times pressed out of it, and yet not put back far enough for people to say I am not painting my own time. I am certainly doing so. I am painting what I remember when a youngster among the people I used to know. I notice what you say about going back to old costume but I am sure you will agree with me on reflection that what I might, and should, I admit, gain in the picturesque I should certainly lose in naturalness. When my picture is finished I believe it will convey the impression that it is a genuine record of something experienced by the artist; whereas all costume pictures convey to me that the painter has been more influenced by what he has seen in other pictures ...' (Fildes, op.cit., p.73).
Fildes returned to London in October, hoping to exhibit the picture the following year, but in February 1882 he was still 'overwhelmed' by the problems it presented, and it was not finished for that year's Academy. All through the summer he struggled on, although those who saw the picture thought it finished, and an appreciaitive account of it was even published by Edward Russell, first Lord Russell of Liverpool, in the Liverpool Daily Post. 'When the world sees the new picture, which is a bright, highly coloured, vivaciously composed picture of a rustic wedding party returning from church through a snugly thatched and pleasantly wooded Berkshire village - it will be acknowledged that Mr Fildes is a master of sunlight as well as of shade, of festivity as well of wretchedness, and a master of reality in each ... While central figures of the rural bride and bridegroom deservedly fix the attention, the canvas is delightfully crowded with children, with women, with old men, and with the wedding personnel of mother, sisters and soldier brother, each person doing exactly what is natural and all together making up a picture of infinite variety and interest. I will only add two words: one in recognition of the well chosen and realized facial expression of the newly united pair, which is delightfully faithful to life; and the other a tribute of admiration to the realistic painting of all the dress in the picture ... It is a pleasure to foreshadow what is likely to be one of the painter's choicest and most popular successes.' (quoted in Fildes, pp.82-3).
To complete the picture, Fildes used models in London. He had great difficulty finding a suitable sitter for the bride, but eventually he saw a girl who looked the part in Hyde Park, and asked her to pose. At first she refused, but turned up a few days later. The bridegroom was painted from the artist's milkman, and the best man was from the local barracks. As L.V. Fildes recalled, 'I remember The Village Wedding in my father's studio, or rather what to me was the principal figure in it, the Trooper in the Life Guards, who gives an arm to the bride's mother and sister. He used to come down to Melbury Road from the new Cavalry Barracks in Knightsbridge and was glad to have a shilling for the morning's work and his bus fare. The two girls in the forefront, one of whom throws an old shoe at the bridal pair, were my mother's parlourmaid and head-housemaid, and great would be (so I gathered in later years) the flutterings "below stairs" on the mornings when the gallant Life-Guardsman was due to come for a sitting' (op.cit., p.86).
As the picture neared completion, Fildes despaired of selling so large a canvas. 'Agnew would not even come and see it', he complained, and negotiations with 'the Fine Art people' fell through. However, Agnew had second thoughts and bought the picture for 2,500 guineas, the highest price the artist had yet received. Agnew's were also to publish an immensely popular engraving. As for the picture's reception at the Academy of 1883, it was everything the artist had hoped for. Press coverage was extensive, and there was even a cartoon by Fildes' friend Gordon Thomson in Fun. F.G. Stephens's comments in the Athenaeum are representative. 'In turning from the P.R.A.'s ever elegant art to the rustic movement, sparkling light, and open aspect of Mr Fildes's Village Wedding, we pass from Italian air and cultured elegances to English sunlight and the animation of English countrymen, women, and children, assembled in their village street. The scene includes the long vista of a village street "in the pairing time" of the year, enriched with half-developed foliage. The weather is sunny, and bright light falls on the thatched roofs and gay costumes of the bridal party. The road is filled by the procession, which is headed by a simple young swain and his bride in their best attire, he in a new black coat and hard round hat of a country block, she in a pale lavender muslin gown and a very neat straw bonnet, the trimmings being just a little showy. The pair are attended by a tall, somewhat demonstrative guardsman in his scarlet coat. On one arm is a ruddy bridesmaid in pink, and on the other arm the bride's mother in a close bonnet. Other friends troop after these, including an old father in a hat which is all too big for his shrunk features, and a coat too loose for his withered form. Joyful and inquisitive boys and girls march beside the bridal party. One girl, who is just old enough to admire the bridegroom, trips along and looks eagerly in his face. She has been on an errand to the baker's, and carries bread under one arm. A burly boy, on his way a-field, loaded with a keg and a basket of provisions, contemplates the charms of the bride with loutish but honest wonder. Next is a stout servant-girl with a knot of children in a perambulator. A woman on our right boisterously casts a lucky shoe at the bride; a girl who has squatted in front stares open-mouthed at the finery. From a cottage on our left the busy women are being called forth by a damsel beckoning from a garden gate. It would be hard to improve on this first-rate piece of healthy genre, which is, moreover, instinct with a true and simple pathos and by no means devoid of humour. The attractions of the whole are enhanced by the bright, soft, and full illumination, the wealth of that sparkling local colour (which, so happily has it been employed, is in itself a characteristic and faithful element of the design) aiding its expression, and, by means of its fitness, giving peculiar value to the work. The distance, including the houses and church, the sky and trees, is of first-rate quality, and attests the careful studies of the artist; likewise admirable is the tact shown in the choice of the costumes, their cut and materials, from the rigid muslin and sash of the bride to the stiff coat of her lover, from the padded scarlet of the trooper to the slightly limp pink garments of his young companion. The very boots and shoes of the happy pair seem to creak with newness. The best element of all is the expressions of the bride and the bridegroom. Undoubtedly this is one of the pictures of the year, and so successful as to be worthy of the honourable care of the painter, who forbore to hasten its completion when, more than a year ago, he felt dissatisfied with the labours of the previous twelve months.'
The picture scored a further success in 1887, when it was shown in the Royal Jubilee Exhibition in Manchester. It was voted the most popular picture in the show, and Fildes headed a second poll as the artist having the largest proportion of his exhibits chosen for special notice. The picture remains one of the great examples of popular Victorian genre, exceptional for its size and remarkable for the way it has pathos and charm without falling into the trap of what Fildes himself called 'manufactured sentiment'.