Far From the Madding Crowd and Painting

Leah Smith Class of 1997
Melissa Balint Class of 1997
Franklin & Marshall College

In 1872, the Cornhill magazine's editor, Leslie Stephen, sent Thomas Hardy a letter requesting Hardy write a story for the magazine. Hardy responded that his next novel would be "a pastoral tale with the title of Far From the Madding Crowd and that the chief characters would probably be a young woman-farmer, a shepherd, and a sergeant of calvary." Thomas Hardy set out to write a pastoral novel, and one of the ways he achieves this is with many allusions to traditional pastoral painting.

Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) is one of the artists to whom Hardy refers. Poussin is known for his depictions of Arcadia, the land of pastoral perfection invented by Virgil. Some of Poussin's most well known paintings are mythological subjects, such as "The Triumph of Flora," or "The Birth of Bacchus." These paintings depict mythological subjects in a pastoral surrounding. It is important to note that the surrounding serves as a backdrop for mythological characters of the painting. Hardy wanted the reader to have Poussin's work in mind when reading this literary pastoral: "That matters should continue pleasant Maryann spoke, who, what with her brown complexion, and the working wrapper of rusty linsey, had at present the mellow hue of an old sketch in oils--notably some of Nicolas Poussin's" (chap. 22). As J. Hillis Miller explains:

"None of the characters of the novel is thinking of Poussin at this moment, and most of them have never heard of him. The comparison establishes the narrator as a knowledgeable man of culture watching the scene with the detachment of a connoisseur, as if it were a painting. He places it in a historical and cultural context of which the participants in the scene are unaware."

Hardy also refers to the paintings of the Dutch masters. Although Rembrandt, Terburg, Douw, Ruysdael, and Hobbema are not considered classical pastoral painters in the manner of Poussin, they also painted pastorals: fresh countryside, warm and fair, idyllic landscapes and rural scenes. As the narrator of Far From the Madding Crowd elaborates:

"The rain had quite ceased, and the sun was shining through the green, brown, and yellow leaves, now sparkling and varnished by raindrops to the brightness of similar effects in the landscapes of Ruysdael and Hobbema, and full of all those infinite beauties that arise from the union of water and colour with high lights." (Chap. 46)

Unlike Poussin, the Dutch painters often paint landscapes without people, and use fewer classical subjects. However, they are similar to Poussin in that humanity is still the subject of the pictures. This is still true of the landscapes, which are usually constructed to show off some achievement of man, some beautiful piece of architecture or comforting rustic hovel, as in Ruysdael's "The Mill," or "View of the Town."

Hardy refers to Rembrandt's pictures in the context of his interiors: rustic images lit by the contrast of golden light and shade: "The interior was shadowy with a peculiar shade. The strange luminous semi-opacities of fine autumn afternoons and eves intensified into Rembrandt effects the few yellow sunbeams which came through holes and divisions in the canvas, and spirited like jets of gold-dust across the dusky blue atmosphere of haze pervading the tent, until they alighted on inner surfaces of cloth opposite, and shone like little lamps suspended there" (Chap. 50). The references to Dutch painting put the reader in mind of a more recent kind of pastoral.

Finally, Hardy refers to Victorian landscape painting itself in Far From the Madding Crowd. Although this school had much in common with the pastoralism of the past, there are also differences. Paintings still portray idyllic natural scenes, but in paintings by Victorian landscape painters, mankind is often shown as a tiny speck in the corner, overpowered by the grandeur and majesty of nature. When Hardy describes a certain color in a dog's fur, he does it with a reference to Turner: "slaty grey; but the grey, after years of sun and rain, had been scorched and washed out of the more prominent locks, leaving them a reddish-brown, as if the blue component in the grey had faded, like the indigo from the same kind of colour in Turner's pictures" (chap. 5). J. M. W. Turner was one of the most popular artists of the Victorian Era. 1807-1809 were the years his paintings and sketches show the strongest interest in agriculture. Turner's name has become synonymous with Victorian landscape painting, and his paintings show the powerlessness of man compared to the romance and glory of the natural world. In this thematic way he is very similar to Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy wanted to generate certain impressions in his readers' minds. One of his means to this end was reference to works of visual art. If the reader is familiar with the painters and styles of painting to which Hardy refers, it can aid generation of the mental pictures Hardy is so good at making, and support the themes of his novels.

Bibliography

Denvir, Bernard. The Early Nineteenth Century Art, Design and Society 1789-1852 New York: Longman Group Limited.

Galassi, Peter. Before Photography: Painting and the Invention of Photography. New York: The Museum of Modern Art.

Hardy, Thomas. Far From the Madding Crowd: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. Ed. Robert C. Schweik. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986.

Miller, J. Hillis. "Point of View." In Far From the Madding Crowd: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds, Criticism. Ed. Robert C. Schweik. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1986.

Needham, Gerald. Nineteenth Century Realist Art. New York: Harper & Row.

Schultze, Jurgen: Art of the Nineteenth-Century Europe. Harry N. Abrams, Inc.