Springville Museum of Art's Victorian collection can 'pierce the very soul'

A father sits by the bedside of his son, both sound asleep, as the dawning day sends a stream of light into the room.

It is a simple scene, one to which any parent could relate. As the artist describes it, "the picture represents a working man who has been watching his little boy far through a restless night. The child holding his father's shirtsleeve has fallen asleep; daylight finds them both at rest, worn out."

Yet in this one painting, done by Thomas Faed in 1868, is captured the heart and soul, the very essence of Victorian art, says Vern Swanson, director of the Springville Museum of Art.

"In terms of design, it is remarkable. It is the most beautifully composed scene imaginable. The values and tints and gradations of color that echo through the scene are magnificent. There is the Victorian love of detail in the mouse nibbling at leftover food, in the scarf hanging over the chair, the violin on the wall."

But beyond the technical excellence, there is an overall spirituality to the piece, he says, and strong emotional currents that run throughout it.

It is quite possible, he says, to see in this carpenter, who has set aside his tools to care for his son, and in the angelic demeanor of the boy, a representation of the Christ child and his father, Joseph. "It was quite common in 19th century art to paint religious figures in contemporary clothing and settings," Swanson notes.

If you take time to study this painting, he says, you see something that is "subtle in message but emphatic in dealing with the human condition. You see something that both asks and answers questions, that is both enigma and clarity."

And that, he says, is what Victorian art is all about.

Faed's "Worn Out" is one of 38 works of Victorian art from the John H. Schaeffer collection on display at the museum.

"Every one of them is a masterpiece," Swanson says. "They are done by the greatest painters of the age."

Whether it's "Reposing on God's Acre," painted in 1875 by Thomas Sidney Cooper, where you "never will see better sheep"; or Ary Scheffer's 1851 "Paolo and Francesca," which shows the ill-fated lovers swirling in Dante's Inferno as Dante and Virgil look on; or the 1885 "Chivalry" by Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee, which is still so popular that a million prints are sold every year, "this collection can pierce the very soul of people who come to spend a little time with it," Swanson says.

There's romanticism; there's spirituality; there's technical excellence and a clear sense of who these Victorians were and what they prized.