William Stott of Oldham : Le Passeur (The Ferryman)

Interesting display at Tate Britain focusing on a newly purchased picture by William Stott of Oldham and using it to look at his work and that of other Victorian symbolic pastoral painters.

Stott was always known as William Stott of Oldham as there was another William Stottt working out of Rochdale at the same period painting similar subjects. Both were also moving away from the detailed brush work to looser strokes.

Le Passeur (The Ferryman) took centre stage in the show and was a large picture of two girls at dusk waiting for a ferry to cross a river. It had shades of the river Styx and the stages of life. I liked the flat line of houses on the horizon.

The work sat well with one by Henry Herbert La Thangue “Return of the Reapers” showing farm workers leaving the field and setting a young girl in front of an old man with a scythe. Age, death, get it! I like my symbolism quite obvious!

Closes winter 2017.

 

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