The Two Extremes - the Pre-Raphaelite

Henry Nelson O'Neil was an active member of The Clique, a group of artists in the 1840s who held meetings to discuss one another's work, as well as facilitating a forum for broader discussions on art. The Clique’s members were Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, Richard Dadd, William Powell Frith, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward. One of the key commonalities amongst the members was their opposition to the art of the Pre-Raphaelites.

O’Neil’s views on the subject are articulated in this satirical painting. The young artist in the painting is depicting one of Tennyson’s poems, Love and Duty. The Pre-Raphaelites were ardent supporters of Tennyson’s poetry, and often depicted poems with themes of anguished lovers, similar to the one in O’Neil’s painting.

The painting formed an entertaining pendant to The Post Raphaelite, exhibited at the British Institution of 1857, no. 483, under the joint heading, The Two Extremes. The Art Journal, commenting on The Post Raphaelite, explained that, 'This and The Pre-Raphaelite by the same artist, illustrate these opponent Art-theories, with some causticity of allusion to the latter'.

In the painting O’Neil also presents his artistic mastery as he appropriates with ease the style of the Pre-Raphaelites within the painting on the easel, and contrasts it by painting with a mimetic precision in the 'real' scene of the two sitters.