William Holman Hunt's 'The Awakening Conscience'
unspoiled beauty that presumably lies outside the picture's plane. It seems that Hunt is creating a barrier for the girl which may very well suggest that redemption and perhaps forgiveness, in Hunt's eyes is not easy to achieve.
The geometrics of the composition , which again support the male dominated construct, are discussed in length by Chris Brooks who provides a map to the symbols. He illustrates with a grid how the symbolism in the work becomes concentrated in the foreground suggesting the 'real world of Victorian materialism'.33 In such a light, the girl is then seen as rising out of the chaos of her sin into a patterned and well-organised world; if one studies Brook’s graph, we are able to see how closely associated the girl becomes to the garden as they share the upper two quadrants whilst we see the lover physically linked to the outside light. Perhaps Hunt is playing with the eighteenth century convention which linked men with reason and knowledge symbolised here by the light; the female sitter becomes associated with the emotions represented here by the garden. The colours found in the girl’s dress are picked up in the palette Hunt chose for the garden; we see the creams and browns echoed in the foliage of the tree. The dark colours found in the lover's attire parallels the colours found not only in the overall decoration of the room, but closely resembles that of the cat thus linking the lover to predator image.34
Hunt's symbolism is such that supports the inevitable fall that the girl is to take should she continue with her promiscuous and immoral lifestyle. Hunt includes in the composition what FG Stevens considers 'gawdy furniture; new...to the domesticities by long use; large mirrors... ornaments, all in a flashy; splendid, and showy taste'.35 Such 'unconsecrated' furnishings not only suggest the shallowness of the relationship, but also reflect itssterility.36 One could almost contemplate how far the relationship has been taken sexually as the newness of the furniture may indicate a virginal relationship; however, Stevens points out that the motif of the wallpapers suggest a ‘significant' previous 'repentance' with its '...corn mingled with the vine' and the '(sleeping) boyguard' which suggests a neglected duty.37 It is interesting to note that Stevens places the girl's sexuality under the duty of a 'Boyguard', again reinforcing the male construct and equates the loss of one’s virtue as a neglected
Latest Articles