Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on loan
General Collection
The Watts Gift
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-frederic-watts-586" aria-label="More by George Frederic Watts" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">George Frederic Watts</a>
AllPervading
Presented by the artist 1899
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
angel
crystal ball
fortune telling
looking / watching
magic and occultism
mandala
mysticism
objects
people
religion and belief
religious and ceremonial
sitting
spirituality
universal religious imagery
woman
<p>In this painting Watts wanted to express the spirit governing the system he called ‘the immeasurable expanse’. A heavily-draped figure, enveloped by large wings, gazes deep into a globe or crystal ball held at the centre of the composition. Despite its weighty robes the figure appears to defy gravity as it hovers mysteriously in space. Like Michelangelo’s sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Watts’s figure appears monumental and androgynous, qualities which suggest a higher knowledge of the universe.</p><p><em>Gallery label, March 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
8 October 2001 – 25 July 2004
2004-07-25
8 October 2001 – 25 July 2004
2004-07-25
2001-10-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-08
John Martin and Visions of the Apocalypse
Collection based display
18 August 2009 – 14 November 2010
2010-11-14
18 August 2009 – 14 November 2010
2010-11-14
2009-08-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-18
Sublime
Collection based display
1 March 2011 – 31 December 2011
2011-12-31
1 March 2011 – 31 December 2011
2011-12-31
2011-03-01
Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village (Compton, UK)
http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk
2011-03-01
Watts Gallery Re-Opening
Loan-out
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
2012-09-15
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham, UK)
http://www.bmag.org.uk
2012-09-15
Love and Death: Victorian Paintings from Tate
Loan-out
28 July 2014
28 July 2014
2014-07-28
Watts Gallery - Artists’ Village (Compton, UK)
http://www.wattsgallery.org.uk
2014-07-28
Long loan to Watts Gallery
Loan-out
The All-Pervading
support: 2135 × 1120 mm
frame: 2472 × 1457 × 85 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999783" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">the artist</a> 1899
<p>This is one Watts' most obviously <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/symbolism" title="Glossary definition for 'Symbolism'"><span>Symbolist</span></a> works. One of a group of mysterious winged figures which the artist produced during the mid to late 1880s, the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> develops the ideas expressed in the <i>Dweller in the Innermost </i>(<i>c.</i>1885-6, Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/watts-the-dweller-in-the-innermost-n01631" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01631</span></a>) and relates closely in design to <i>The Recording Angel</i> of <i>c</i>.1890 (London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham). According to his wife, Watts was given the idea for <i>'The All Pervading'</i> while observing the play of light on the glass drops of an elaborate chandelier in the drawing room he used as his studio when staying at Sliema on Malta. This experience evidently inspired the green globe or crystal ball with its dots and trails of light like shooting stars. Watts was fascinated by astronomy and the mysteries of the universe, and was a friend of the astronomer Sir John Herschel.  He was also interested in spiritualism and was elected to the Society for Psychical Research in 1884.

</p><p>There is something almost womb-like about the way that the woman is cocooned by her golden wings.  She is suspended in a misty expanse of space, and despite her heavy robes - reminiscent of the draperies on the Parthenon frieze - appears weightless as she floats in space.  The globe seems to hover in her hands, its edges dissolving in a green haze. Despite the figure's calm demeanour, the picture has a disturbing quality, created by the shadowy forms, spectral lighting and dark background. Watts described the winged figure, in the catalogue of his retrospective show at the New Gallery in 1896, as 'the all-pervading Spirit of the Universe  seated, holding in her lap the "Globe of Systems"' (quoted in Wilton and Upstone 1997, p.268).  Like one of Michelangelo's monumental Sibyls on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, her 'all-pervading' vision gives her the power of prophecy, the knowledge of the future and of infinite space. The position of her legs and the arrangement of the draperies in the lower half of the picture make her appear like a giant Earth Mother, about to deliver forth the secrets of the universe.

</p><p>Watts completed a smaller version of <i>'The All-Pervading'</i> in 1904.  Set within an arched compartment, it served as a secular <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/a/altarpiece" title="Glossary definition for 'Altarpiece'"><span>altarpiece</span></a> for the Watts Chapel at Compton.

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Andrew Wilton and Robert Upstone (eds), <i>The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones &amp; Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860-1910</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.267-8, no.125, reproduced p.267, in colour.<br/>Christopher Wood, <i>Victorian Painting</i>, London 1999, pp.196-204.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>November 2000</p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>In this painting Watts wanted to express the spirit governing the system he called ‘the immeasurable expanse’. A heavily-draped figure, enveloped by large wings, gazes deep into a globe or crystal ball held at the centre of the composition. Despite its weighty robes the figure appears to defy gravity as it hovers mysteriously in space. Like Michelangelo’s sibyls on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Watts’s figure appears monumental and androgynous, qualities which suggest a higher knowledge of the universe.</p>

Display caption
2010-03-19T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults angel crystal ball fortune telling looking / watching magic and occultism mandala mysticism objects people religion and belief religious and ceremonial sitting spirituality universal religious imagery woman