Carel Weight was inspired to paint the subject when he read William Gaunt's book The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy (Jonathan Cape, London, April 1942). It had been republished in 1948 and had captured the mood of the times, became rather celebrated, and was extensively reprinted. The one image that had stayed in the artist's mind was that of Rossetti's painting Found; the romantic story of how Rossetti had struggled throughout his life to complete his only 'moral' painting, but without success as he had failed to finish it. Rossetti's image is that of a farmer who has come up to London from the country to market and comes across a prostitute kneeling, slumped against a brick wall, only to discover she had once been his beloved. Describing his painting A Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy, Carel Weight explains that, while mulling over the subject, he came across a dark and rather forbidding lane at the back of a terrace of houses near Kew, close to his studio. The lane had made such an impression upon him that he had felt a compelling urge to return to the same spot on several occasions. He made numerous sketches of the place, entranced by the way that the steep diagonals of the lane and brick wall heightened the drama of the composition. Carel Weight confessed how crucial it was for him to charge his pictures with emotions and physical dynamism. My pictures are about movement... I like something that will swing right the way round the picture.(1) Carel Weight's paintings are have a distinct character because they focus on the moralities and the predicament of man, revealing both compassion and delight in human life. My art is concerned with such things as anger, love, hate, fear and loneliness.(2) He revealed that the underlying meaning of his paintings is drawn from the figures and their relationship to the environment. It is hardly surprising, then, that he acknowledges the influence of L. S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer, and for dramatic potency, Caravaggio. Carel Weight's paintings draw their meaning from the setting; the places he paints are real yet the figures are imaginary characters. In this way he creates his own reality; ... a new world, superficially close to the real one, but a world of greater tension and drama.(3) 1. Linda Saunders, `Carel Weight', Modern Painters, Summer 1994, vol. 7, no. 2, page 43. 2. Carel Weight, `The Way I work: A Statement by The Artist', The Painter and Sculptor, Vol.IV, No. IV. 3. Linda Saunders, `Carel Weight', Modern Painters, Summer 1994, vol. 7, no. 2, page 41
The Zwemmer Gallery, London Dame Rebecca West