Talk:The Awakening Conscience

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Yomangani, here's my explanation for removing the hyphens you put back here [1]: I don't think "oil on canvas" is an adjective in an infobox. It's an implied declaration that "the painting is oil on canvas". Art book captions don't hyphenate these. Just in case my hyphenation sensibilities have caused offense, I explain myself. –Outriggr § 02:28, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Query...

"Initially the painting would appear to be a momentary disagreement between husband and wife or brother and sister..."

Husband and wife, maybe — but brother and sister? Hmmm. Absurdtrousers (talk) 14:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My sense from Ruskin's comments and in general is that it's neither. Yomangani? Outriggr (talk) 01:01, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, now that I've read the whole sentence, I'm not sure it's problematic. Outriggr (talk) 01:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Husband and wife is fine, given the sexually charged nature of the painting (as is, of course, master and servant) but as siblings they would have to be very close to engage in the activity the painting is clearly hinting at. Just an observation. Absurdtrousers (talk) 09:27, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reference to what audiences at the time are said to have assumed about the painting. Paul B (talk) 16:18, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly right, although we might think the same thing on first viewing as the "sexually charged nature of the painting" isn't instantly apparent. Of course, you can't see it for a first time more than once, so you can't look at it with such innocent uneducated eyes again. I wonder though that if the look of horror on the woman's face was enough to put Fairbairn off his dinner whether contemporaneous viewers would have been thinking "momentary disagreement" or something stronger. Yomangani ^talk 01:27, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not convinced, to be honest. I think the first audiences were probably a lot more savvy than you give them credit for. Look at the lascivious grin on the man's face and the way he pins his hands around the girl's waist (not to mention the fact that she's sitting on his knee, which certainly demonstrates a less than familial connection between the pair). I don't mean to bleat on about this, but it doesn't seem feasible that anyone would initially consider them brother and sister — and Hunt was very outspoken about the interpretation of his work. Absurdtrousers (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's not us, it's the reviewers at the time who say this. It was The Athenaeum reviewer who wrote that "innocent and unenlightened spectators suppose it to represent a quarrel between a brother and a sister". I'm not sure that the bloke's grin looks "lascivious" unless you expect it to. I've been practicing my own lascivious grin for a while, but I still can't get it right. Actually he looks to me as though he's opening his mouth for a dentist, with a wild fear in his eyes because of his knowledge that effective anaesthetics have yet to be adequately introduced. Also, it's worth noting that Hunt was not very outspoken at the time. It was really only much later that he gave detailed accounts of his works. Even then, he often refused to explain things, wanting his compositions to retain an element of ambiguity and mystery. Paul B (talk) 16:01, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, you've convinced me! Absurdtrousers (talk) 13:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]