‘Sleep’, illustration [for an anonymous poem] by Frederick Sandys (1832

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Sleep

Frederick Sandys

1863

Wood engraving by the Dalziel Brothers

5 7/8 x 4 ½ inches

Illustration for Good Words (1863): facing p.589.

One of the artist’s death-bed scenes, exemplifying his central concern with suffering. It illustrates a sentimental poem on mortality by an unknown poet, but represents its maudlin lines in an image of genuine feeling [continued below].

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Scanned image and text by Simon Cooke.

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Sandys’s sensitive showing of psychological drama is focused in the tender gaze between the two main characters, and in the holding of their hands . The intense emotion is contained and expressed, as usual, in drawing of high quality which unites bold areas of blocking, notably in the treatment of the crinoline dress, with microscopic details of house-roofs and boats. Timeless in effect, the image also provides a vivid representation of mid-Victorian manners and settings. Though realistic, it deploys a number of emblematic tokens. The opened window is both a naturalistic device to ventilate the scene and a symbol, used throughout Victorian art, of the soul’s escape from its earthly bounds. The tiny river similarly acts as a mapping of a real place and a sign of the ever-flowing tide that leads from life to death: a commonplace used throughout Victorian culture.

Last modified 11 May 2013