Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
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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>
Dweller in Innermost
Presented by the artist 1897
adults
angel
clothing and personal items
contemplation
Crane, Walter, ‘The Sirens Three’
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
fine arts and music
headdress
instrument, trumpet
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
mystery
objects
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religion and belief
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<p>Watts described this painting in 1896 as ‘Conscience ... seated facing, within a glow of light; on her forehead she bears a shining star, and on her lap lie the arrows that pierce through all disguise, and the trumpet which proclaims truth to the world’. With its mystical and ethereal character, this is one of Watts’s most Symbolist works. He painted the imagery without the meaning of the work being fixed. It took him seven years, and the advice of his friends, to settle on a title.</p><p><em>Gallery label, June 2021</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
1 November 2011 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
1 November 2011 – 19 February 2012
2012-02-19
2011-11-01
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
3 July 2012 – 21 October 2012
2012-10-21
2012-07-03
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2011-11-01
Blake Exhibition
Loan-out
1 January 2014 – 31 May 2014
2014-05-31
1 January 2014 – 31 May 2014
2014-05-31
2014-01-01
Mitsubishi Ichigokan (Tokyo, Japan)
2014-01-01
Art for Art's Sake
Loan-out
26 May 2021 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
26 May 2021 – 25 September 2022
2022-09-25
2021-05-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2021-05-26
Watts’s Symbolical Paintings
Collection based display
The Dweller in the Innermost
support: 1060 × 698 mm
frame: 1390 × 1028 × 77 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999783" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">the artist</a> 1897
<p>This mystical figure is one of 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 and an example of his fresh, original approach to <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/allegory" title="Glossary definition for 'Allegory'"><span>allegory</span></a>. A winged female figure fixes us with her intense gaze.  A brilliant white star, attached to a delicate fillet, shines at the centre of her forehead.  Red wings sprout from her headdress and larger wings rise behind her. She is dressed in a greenish robe trimmed with feathers and at her neck she wears a heart-shaped brooch. On her lap is a row of arrows, but no bow, and she is also guarding a silver trumpet. Watts has enhanced the picture's mystical qualities through the feathery brushstrokes, creating an atmospheric halo of iridescent light, from which the figure appears to emerge.

</p><p>In 1896, when the picture was exhibited at the New Gallery, Watts provided a catalogue description, which gives some indication of the figure's meaning: 'Conscience, winged, dusk-faced, and pensive, seated facing, within a glow of light; on her forehead she bears a shining star, and on her lap lie the arrows that pierce through all disguise, and the trumpet which proclaims truth to the world' (quoted in Wilton and Upstone 1997, p.200.)  He also added, in the introduction to the same catalogue, that 'the vague figure may be vaguely called conscience'.

</p><p>Watts struggled for seven years to find a suitable title for the mysterious picture. He asked the opinion of a few friends, including Walter Crane, who was inspired to write a sonnet, which begins as follows:

</p><p>Star-steadfast eyes that pierce the smouldering haze<br/>Of Life and Thought, whose fires prismatic fuse<br/>The palpitating mists with magic hues<br/>That stain the glass of Being, as we gaze,<br/>And mark in transit every mood and phase,<br/>Which, sensitive, doth take or doth refuse<br/>The lights and shadows Time and Love confuse,<br/>When, lost in dreams, we thread their wandering maze.

</p><p>The sonnet's reference to 'prismatic fires' appears to have inspired the picture's first title, <i>The</i> <i>Soul's Prism</i>. Since a geometrical prism is nowhere to be seen in the work, the title was frequently misquoted as <i>The Soul's Prison</i> and Watts considered changing it to <i>Spirit of the Ages</i>. By 1890 he had decided on <i>The Dweller in the Infinite</i>, and by the time the picture was exhibited in Munich in 1893, the title had taken its final form.

</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.199-201, no.75, reproduced p.199, in colour.<br/>Christopher Wood, Victorian Painting, London 1999, pp.196-204.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>November 2000<br/></p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>Watts described this painting in 1896 as ‘Conscience ... seated facing, within a glow of light; on her forehead she bears a shining star, and on her lap lie the arrows that pierce through all disguise, and the trumpet which proclaims truth to the world’. With its mystical and ethereal character, this is one of Watts’s most Symbolist works. He painted the imagery without the meaning of the work being fixed. It took him seven years, and the advice of his friends, to settle on a title.</p>
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Display caption
2021-06-07T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults angel clothing and personal items contemplation Crane, Walter, ‘The Sirens Three’ emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas fine arts and music headdress instrument, trumpet literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) mystery objects people religion and belief universal concepts universal religious imagery woman