| Art Sunday, Feasts and Celebrations,The Penny Wedding, 1818, David Wilkie |
The Penny Wedding 1818
My chosen painting for today is ‘The Penny Wedding’, 1818, by David Wilkie. This is realistic portrayal of wedding celebration held in a rapidly changing Scotland at the end of the eighteenth century. David Wilkie (1785 -1841 ), was one of the great Scottish painters who is perhaps not as well known as he should be outside of Scotland. Wilkie was born in Fife, Scotland, he studied at The Trustees’ Academy in Edinburgh and later at the Royal Academy in London.
He is recognised as a Scottish portrait painter but also as a great
interpreter of Scottish history. To appreciate the significance of this
painting it’s necessary to understand a little of the history and social
context in which it was painted and so, I hope you will bear with me
while I do my best to explain.
Change
is the key word of the late eighteenth early/nineteenth century
Scottish society, its people were experiencing social and political
change on all levels. This period falls between the enlightenment and
early industrialisation, Enlightenment ideas, new thinking, radical
philosophical writings, discoveries in science and a better
understanding of the world had, influenced peoples lives; then came
industrialisation and the move towards urbanisation. For the majority of
people things would probably not have changed for the better. For the
most part the excitement of the enlightenment was reserved for the elite
and many of the changes caused by industrialisation had a detrimental
effect on ordinary people. Scotland was subjected to the Union
at the beginning of the century, the revolts and revolutions during the
first half of the century, then the suffering imposed by land reforms
and de-skilling of traditional trades. There were changes within the
church, bedrock of Scottish society, which caused more dissidence by the
increasingly alienated people. The people resented having their Church
Minister chosen and foisted upon them by the local landowner. Those
who had lost land could not always find their rent, their hand-to-mouth
existence was dependent on both the surplus they were accustomed too as
agricultural workers, and the cheap supply of locally produced goods
available from the markets. Their surplus disappeared with their land
and the market suppliers began to favour other outlets offering better
prices for their produce. For the highlanders, the loss of traditional
dress was despised (it was banned by the governing English), viewed as
another change eating into their fast disappearing lifestyle. The loss
of this must have been exacerbated when, just a short time later a
sanitised version of their cultural identity was to be found adorning
the landowners and their entourage. Changes from above even affected the
people’s leisure activities, land that had been used for recreation and
celebration could, at the whim of the landowner, be out of bounds to
ordinary people. Community activities within small towns and villages
could be curtailed by the more powerful. The one element of Scottish
life that displayed continuity is the affinity with dance and music of
the people. Dance and music could even, on occasions; break free of the
restraints of class and status that dominated other aspects of Scottish
life.
And,
in Scottish painting of this period, all of the above is portrayed.
Sometimes these paintings of ordinary life were painted by the artists
who were paid handsomely to deliver quite another type of social
statement; portraits of the elite, their families, their houses, their
lands and even their family pets. The wealth and
opulence portrayed in the one would have been paid for by the fading
fortunes of the other. Images from both sides of life in Scotland
now hang side by side in our galleries, a testament to the different
experiences of different sections of Scottish society all within one
short period.
The Penny Wedding, 1818, by David Wilkie[1]
shows the wedding celebrations of an ordinary couple, called ‘penny
weddings’ because everyone who attended paid one penny which entitled
them partake of the food, drink and merriment. Music and dance were an
important part of the celebrations but this event is not portrayed as a
drunken brawl, rather as a happy occasion celebrated by ordinary people
according to their own traditions. Those traditions may have been
adapted to fit the changing circumstances of the people, but the essence
of it remained intact. The people at this
wedding are not wealthy and the venue is not grand, but it does seem to
be a joyous affair attended by at least three generations and their
dogs. They are attired in their ‘Sunday best’, the girls have braids in
their hair, the music plays, the people dance, food and drink can be
seen on the table, on the floor and even tucked away, almost hidden
under a young girls skirts. There is no way of knowing absolutely if
this was a realistic portrayal of ordinary people, showing life as
fairly pleasant and comfortable or, if the artist was attempting to show
life of the lower classes as being better than it really was.
(The Blind Fiddler 1806)
The
clue could lie in some of Wilkies’ other works, Distraining for Rent,
1815 and The Blind Fiddler, 1806, are both by Wilkie and neither balks
at the reality of the situation, this indicates that Wilkies
reproductions of everyday life were fairly realistic.
(Distraining for Rent 1815)
The
fiddler in The Penny Wedding is a posthumous portrayed of, and a
tribute to, Neil Gow. Carse, a contemporary of Wilkie exhibited his own
version of ‘The Penny Wedding’ in 1818, indicating that this was a
popular topic and that some exchange of ideas took place among the
contemporary artists of the time.
For me, I think this painting is an excellent, and specifically Scottish example of this weeks theme. I hope you enjoy it
try this for a bigger picture of the Penny Wedding;
and this one for The Blind Fiddler;
And this one for Distraining for Rent;
and for more of his work
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greenwytch wrote on May 12, '08
i love the sepia tones of these paintings. wonderful stuff there, thanks for sharing these.
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vickiecollins wrote on May 11, '08
I
found it amazing, and believe totally that it is true, a story where
many of the so-called improvements were counter productive for those of a
particular class or ethnic background. It seems that the more things
change, the more they stay the same. And of course, since art is the
expression of the feelings of the people--that would have to be
expressed in the art of the era.
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wickedlyinnocent wrote on May 11, '08
Very interesting paintings and history, lol @nemo, he has been dancing all day.
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lauritasita wrote on May 11, '08
I love all the history that you provided for all these beautiful paintings ! Thank you.
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forgetmenot525 wrote on May 11, '08
Yep
so do I!!........... I am so sorry but I just don't seem to be able to
figure out how to make them bigger. I had big pictues on my computer but
they failed to download on to the site, I tried to save them into
multiply pictures but that failed too. The pictures I do have here are
all the same size but only the one at the start will enlarge if you
click on it, the other two just stay the same. My appologies, you do
need to see these pictures and if you tell me the secret of successful
'putting pictures in blogs' I will happily oblige next time. (I'd quite
like to kow how to put videos into blogs too) Anyway thanks for looking
glad you enjoyed what you could see of it.
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jayaramanms wrote on May 11, '08
Beautiful
story and good blog. I saw the paintings (bigger size) in some other
site and they are depiction of Brilliant art. Thank you for sharing.
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starfishred wrote on May 11, '08
very nice
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