Arab Prisoners [A Rest by the Wayside], by John Evan Hodgson (1831-1895). 1870. Oil on canvas. 37 x 73 1/8 inches (94 x 185.7 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Christie's, shown here by kind permission (right click disabled; not to be reproduced).
Hodgson exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1870, no. 1023. It was purchased that same year by the National Gallery of Victoria in Australia but was subsequently de-accessioned at some point. Hodgson had first visited North Africa in 1868. As Tom Taylor explained: "In the autumn of that year Mr. Hodgson visited Tunis and Tangier, and was captivated, as painters always are, by the simple, picturesque life of the Moors, the freedom and ease of their actions and groupings, the graceful and antique hang of their draperies, and the breadth and clearness of African light and shadow. Since then he has exhibited every year pictures of North African life" (18). Hodgson had finally found his niche and was the only member of the St. John's Wood Clique to focus on Orientalist paintings. He never was regarded as one of its principal English practitioners, however, like J. F. Lewis, Frederick Goodall, or William Holman Hunt, but he nonetheless made an important contribution to this genre of Victorian painting.
The Architect described this painting, even prior to it being exhibited at the Royal Academy, when it was then known under a different title: "Mr. J. E. Hodgson, who has recently taken up the illustration of 'Oriental Life,' has painted A Rest by the Wayside"; a party of Arab soldiers, who are conducting two prisoners, are resting on their way, while their unfortunate charge are receiving water to drink from the pitcher of a passing country-woman" (116).
When it was shown at the Royal Academy a reviewer for The Art Journal felt it was the most artistic work Hodgson had yet exhibited:
We cannot, however, dismiss summarily the most artistic work we have yet met with by J. E. Hodgson; Arab Prisoners (1023) is marked by the originality and independence which are seldom wanting to a work of talent. And yet the manner seems to owe somewhat of its merit to Fromentin, Belly, and other French artists, who, like Mr. Hodgson, have chosen the northern coast-line of Africa as a sketching-ground. The style is the reverse of heavy, prosy, or commonplace; it reaches even brilliance: the picture has the freshness and the freedom of the desert and its nomadic peoples. The atmosphere is full of daylight, and the accessories of trees, cactuses, mountains, and blue sea, are literal, yet pictorial, in vegetative growth and local colour. We have not yet spoken of the "prisoners" themselves, for whose sake the picture exists. As studies of Arab character they are true: the heads are strongly impressive; the suffering of desert-thirst is upon them; a fountain has been reached; they must drink or they will die. We congratulate the painter on the advance made since he has betaken himself to foreign climes. [171]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum was impressed with Hodgson's technical skills but not his sense of composition: "Arab Prisoners (1023) shows such a luckless party at a halting-place, with their captors, on a road by the coast of Algiers. A fountain pours among rocks that are shaded by cacti and tall foliage; a blue gleam of the sea and a headland are in the distance, with a warm sky above all. The figures are designed with respectable power; their characters are carefully diversified. The workmanship is, on the whole, excellent; but the whole looks too much made up to be more than a good piece of artistic furniture. Mr. Hodgson has done and can do better than produce upholstery of such a kind" (681).
A reviewer for The Illustrated London News praised Hodgson's careful study of the locale and its inhabitants: "No painter of our school brings home more faithful records of travel than Mr. Hodgson. He sends two pictures, fruits of recent experiences in Algeria, The Basha's Black Guards (923) and Arab Prisoners (1023). Both are singularity masculine, vivid, and strong in characterization of the various types scattered along the African seaboard; both are replete with internal evidence of strenuous study on the spot" (503). A critic for The Saturday Review noted the influence of French Orientalist painters on Hodgson's work:
One of our painters, Mr. Hodgson, has certainly of late profited by distant travel. Heretofore he has never approached the excellence of two works now produced, The Basha's Black Guards (923) and Arab Prisoners (1023)… Arab Prisoners come no less as a novelty in an English Exhibition. Here again the heads are strongly pronounced, and the agony of thirst adds intensity to the expression. Accessories such as trees, cactuses, mountains, sea, are thrown in with freshness and freedom. How the artist has gained his manner it were hard to conjecture, except on the not improbable presumption that an admiring eye has been cast on M. Fromentin, M. Belly, and other Frenchman, who have also chosen the African shores of the Mediterranean as their sketching-ground. It is evident that Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Elmore, when severally working in Algeria, fell under very different guidance. Mr. Hodgson, in common with the French painters we have named, has caught the atmosphere and sunlight of lands wherein the Arab dwells. [676]
Bibliography
19th Century European Art Including Orientalist and Spanish Art. Christie's, London. 14 June 2006. Lot 43. https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4737148
"Fine Arts. Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LVI (14 May 1870): 503.
"Forthcoming Pictures at the Royal Academy." The Architect III (5 March 1870): 116.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series IX (1 June 1870): 161-72.
"The Royal Academy." The Saturday Review XXIX (21 May 1870): 675-76.
Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2221 (21 May 1870): 680-82.
Taylor, Tom. "English Painters of the Present Day. XIX - J. E. Hodgson." The Portfolio II (1871): 17-19.
Created 17 January 2024