W. B. Scott's fairy painting Ariel and Caliban, shows figures straight from Shakespeare's The Tempest: three men kneeling in muddy swamp water as a small opaque fairy hovers, almost tauntingly, in the air to the left of them. Stephano, presumed to be the butler, has his hand thrust towards the sprite while Trinculo, a very drunk jester, leans haphazardly on Stephano's shoulder and points a weak finger at Ariel as he gives her a drunken smirk. Caliban, depicted as garish brown monster, leads the way and keeps his head low as he reaches for Ariel's dainty white foot.

From the very first glance at Ariel and Caliban it is evident that Scott has bypassed the Victorian notion of sentiment and repressed lust in this particular — and according to some, hardly innovative — style of painting, and showed no hesitation in portraying a scene ripe with surprisingly provocative treatments of the human form.

Ariel, with her sheer skirt and gossamer wings, is seemingly typecast as the innocent fairy, but Scott has positioned her in a manner than suggests coyness, and the fact that the three men are reaching for her could very well be a diversion from her pure, light demeanor.

Questions

1. Many supposedly Fairy Painters, although popular and competent, were considered hardly innovative. Did this have anything to do with technique? Did they forgo creativity for cash? Is this evident in Ariel and Caliban?

2. Scott painted Ariel and Caliban with obvious sexual undertones in what was technically a childlike depiction of fairy tales and mythical creatures. Does this mirror dilemmas of the Victorian period? If so, what?

3. Compare this to The Eve of the Deluge, which shows three women surrounding a man. Do the pictures have any other obvious similarities?

4. The craft of painting improved — for example, in the development of brighter pigments in the 1850s. Then why did Scott choose to paint using such a dark and garish color scheme?

5. For all its hidden aggressiveness and implied undertones, what qualities of the painting might appeal to children?


Last modified 23 September 2018