British Artist John William Godward
One of the Last Great Classicist Painters
© Meg Nola
May 23, 2009
John William Godward was born August 9, 1861 in Battersea, England. While his father would have preferred that John William go into the family business of insurance and banking, he agreed to let his son study architecture as long as he kept working as a clerk by day. Godward ultimately found art more exciting than architecture, however, and his studies veered off in that direction.
After formal coursework and mentoring by painter William Clarke Wontner, Godward’s The Yellow Turban was accepted by the Royal Academy's 1887 exhibition. Godward continued to submit entries to the Royal Academy for nearly twenty years, along with exhibiting as part of the Royal Society of British Artists.
Becoming a Classicist
While he was described as handsome, Godward was also shy and socially awkward. He was able to break away from his rather controlling parents and move into his own studio in 1889, although unlike the studio’s previous inhabitant — a free-spirited and outgoing journalist — Godward generally kept to himself and worked hard at building his artistic reputation.
Godward was of the Classicist or Neoclassicist school, and focused mostly on painting idyllic or myth-related Greco-Roman scenes. Godward is sometimes called an imitator of Victorian Classicist master Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with Godward’s works featuring many famed Alma-Tadema elements like marble columns, steps or tiles, Mediterranean backdrops and beautiful women in ancient garb. In terms of chronology, Alma-Tadema was indeed the elder painter, but rather than imitating his art it can also be said that Godward was merely furthering the tradition.
Though Godward continued to exhibit and sell works in England and had entries accepted in the Paris Salon, by the turn of the 20th century he was no longer regularly participating in such shows. Godward remained fairly withdrawn and sensitive throughout his life, and he surely found the cycle of public acceptance or rejection far too stressful.
Rome and Return to London
Godward made a trip to Italy in 1905, touring the area around Capri, Naples and Pompeii. He returned to Rome in 1911 and took up residence there, possibly to be with Dolcissima, an Italian model who posed for many Godward paintings. Though this relationship may have been a factor, the burgeoning climate of modernist thought in London was more likely what sent Godward away. Rome offered a pleasantly creative atmosphere for a while, but eventually the studio community that Godward was part of became disruptive and rundown. He was also beginning to have health problems and returned to London in 1921, noting cryptically that "Rome had lost its charm."
In his final months, Godward suffered from insomnia, gastric troubles, poor nutrition and depression. He felt that he was losing his artistic skills, and was overwhelmed by avant-garde movements which to him seemed incomprehensible. Modernists in turn found Classicist artwork to be full of outdated themes and passive women, and they did not value the technical expertise or escape to other worlds that it provided.
Suicide and Waiting for an Answer
In December of 1922, Godward committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide from a gas jet. Considerate to the end, he had put a note on his studio door warning of gas fumes and wrapped himself in a coat to keep the toxic odor contained. Godward’s mother was disgusted and shamed by her son’s death and destroyed nearly all photographs of the artist. The male figure in Godward’s 1889 Waiting for an Answer is perhaps a self-portrait, however, and one of the few personal traces of Godward’s quietly intense life.
Sources
John William Godward: The Eclipse of Classicism, Vern Grosvenor Swanson
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