The Heir Cast out of the Vineyard. c.1855-56. Oil on canvas. 45 1/2 x 57 1/4 inches (116 x 146 cm). Collection of The World of Glass, Merseyside, accession no. SAHMG.1994.085. Image reproduced via Art UK for the purpose of non-commercial research.
Thomas exhibited this work at the Royal Academy in 1856, no. 610, accompanied in the catalogue by verses from Matthew XXI, verses 38-39. He later lent it to the Art Treasures Exhibiton in Manchester in 1857, no. 568. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy in the same year as Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat. As George P. Landow has pointed out, Thomas's picture, like Hunt's, uses typological symbolism. Typology is a Christian form of interpretation of the scriptures that claims to discover divinely intended anticipations of Jesus Christ in the laws, events, and people of the Old Testament. In Thomas's case, however, he employed one of Christ's own parables as a type to foretell Christ's passion and death. Thomas's religious paintings tend to be markedly idiosyncratic. In the case of The Heir cast out of the Vineyard, the artist combines an almost chaotic composition with a Pre-Raphaelite attention to detail.
The critic of The Art Journal was well aware of the fact that Thomas was employing typological symbolsim in this picture, pointing out the appearance of the prominent cross in the background and the individual cutting a thorn to the right of Christ:
No. 610. The Heir cast out of the Vineyard, W. C. Thomas. "But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir, come let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him." We see accordingly the Saviour driven forth, followed by a crowd who scourge and insult him. The spirit of parable is sustained in an allusion to the crucifixion by the appearance of the cross in the tumultuous procession. One remarkable figure, on the right, stoops to cut a thorn wherewith to beat Christ. The mediaeval costume of this figure is discordant with that simplicity which should characterise the more loosely draped attire of impersonations in religious composition. [173]
A reviewer for The Athenaeum found the treatment of this work imaginative but decried his colouring and anachronisms:
Mr. W. C. Thomas is original in his treatment of the Heir cast out of the Vineyard (610), but his colour is weak and ineffective; and surely since the Dutch painter made Abraham attempt his son's life with a tremendous bell-mouthed blunderbuss, never was there so daring an anachronism as the foreground figure in the Elizabethan breeches. The attitudes are varied, and we may expect more truth and more determined painting from Mr. Thomas. [622]
W. M. Rossetti in The Spectator again stressed the symbolic nature of this work:
The Heir cast out of the Vineyard, by Mr. W. Cave Thomas, is remarkable for the intellectual aim controlling the treatment of the symbolic subject throughout. The parable being a type of Christ's mission and rejection, various incidents of the passion are used in its embodiment: one of the rebellious husbandmen plies the scourge, one brings a cross as the instrument of death, one plucks thorns for the crown of scorn and anguish, while a woman, whose figure suggest the Madonna, pleads with the tormentors. In the distance appear the avengers come to execute judgment upon them. The chief figure among the husbandmen has a face strong, set, and hard, – the face of a man of mind "without God in the world." It is probably also with a symbolic view that the costumes of different periods are brought together, and that, while though all the personages are in action, the composition presents a certain appearance of fixity, which interferes with its effect as a work of art. Mr. Thomas's eminence as one of the first draughtsmen in the country is visible in this picture, which, though it may not gain sympathy from many, ought to command the respect of all. [591]
Bibliography
"Fine Arts. Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 1490 (May 17, 1856): 620-22.
The Heir Cast out of the Vineyard. Art UK. Web. 1 February 2024.
Landow, George P. William Holman Hunt and Typological Symbolism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.
Rossetti, William Michael. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy Exhibition." The Spectator XXIX (31 May 1856): 591-92.
"The Royal Academy." The Art Journal XVIII. (1 June 1 1856): 161-74.
Created 1 February 2024