Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn

Mr. Stuart Pivar

Against a dark-blue background of craggy hills and star-studded midnight sky, a woman emerges from the shadows, her nude body illuminated by moonlight, covered only by the long flowing tresses of her hair, which tangle a jet-black bat. A seductive, mysterious, Symbolist scene, made all the more intriguing by the signature of the British painter Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn. Today de Glehn is remembered as one of England's leading Impressionists of the early twentieth century, whose vibrant landscapes brilliantly capture the shifting qualities of sunlight and shadow. Indeed de Glehn and his painterly style are often mentioned in conjunction with John Singer Sargent, a close friend, travelling companion and mentor (Laura Wortley, Wilfred de Glehn: A  Painter's Journey, London, 1998, p. 5). Placed against the larger production of breezy landscapes of his later work, Night may seem an aberration in the artist's career.  Yet in its compelling composition, de Glehn's early experimentation with Symbolism exemplifies how tempting this movement was for so many emerging artists at the end of the nineteenth century. 

It is not surprising that de Glehn would become interested in the invigorating aesthetic possibilities Symbolism offered.  Born in London, de Glehn (then known as von Glehn, the "de" adopted later, possibly during the World War) had a cosmopolitan upbringing, enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1890, where he studied under Jules Elie Delaunay and then Gustave Moreau (Wortley pp. 5-8). In particular, Moreau's teaching inspired his students to consider history painting one of the noblest forms of art, Moreau expected his students to explore folktales and mythologies of past ages. Symbolist ideals were then assimilated into these original sources in idiosyncratic ways, adding distinct elements of swarming, visual details in bold color, loose brush strokes, and energized feeling.  The suggestive power of decoration in tandem with dramatic compositions was an essential influence on Moreau's students. In particular Joris-Karl Huysman's appraisal of Moreau's Fairy and Griffins provides an intriguing parallel to de Glehn's work as "an impression of repeated spiritual onanism in a chaste flesh; the impression of a virgin endowed with a solemnly graceful body, with a soul exhausted by solitary secret thoughts" (as quoted in Henri Dorra, ed. Symbolist Art Theories, Berkeley, 1994, pp. 45-56). De Glehn's work incorporates the same swirling surfaces and high finish to support the figure's intriguing air of otherworldly beauty.

Night's first exhibition was held at the New Gallery in Regent Street, London. These events began in 1888 when two Grosvenor Gallery directors left to form their own venue, taking with them the major Grosvenor exhibitor, Edward Burne-Jones. At this time Burne-Jones stood alongside Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes as a major European Symbolist, admired as much in the Paris Expositions of 1878 and 1889, as in London. In the New Gallery, Burne-Jones attracted a school of followers and in 1897, the year before his death, he exhibited The Pilgrim of Love, the most talked about canvas in the exhibition.  Prior to this event, de Glehn certainly would have been aware of Burne-Jones's work and the delicate and otherworldly detachment of his female figures, often informed by Renaissance masterworks. Additionally, French and Belgian Symbolists were welcomed in Britain and de Glehn would most likely have seen The Studio magazine’s opening article in February 1897, illustrating Lévy-Dhurmer’s Nocturne, in which Night is symbolised by a pale beauty, her hair unfurled and her eyes closed in sleep—a motif that was echoed in Fernard Knopff's Sleeping Medusa on exhibition along with de Glehn's work. Such Symbolist paintings of mythological or magical women explored the ambivalent relationship of death, sleep, and night in haunting "portraits".  These works were not meant to hold complete narratives, but rather serve as a starting point for the imagination, a way to bring out what was hidden in the subconscious.  The strange trance-like state of the nude woman of Night, capturing "blind bats" in her hair, suggests that one part of the hidden feeling might be the inexplicable (and often feared) power of female beauty. 
As visitors and fellow artists explored the intriguing works of the 1897 exhibition, it was obvious that the Gallery was playing host to an international phenomenon. While the presence of such works encouraged critics to view the New Gallery as a ‘friendly rival’ to the Academy (Magazine of Art, 1897, p. 136), their reviews overlooked the gallery’s mission to promote ‘imaginative’ or ‘idealist’ art, which led to a full-scale revival of Pre-Raphaelitism in the early years of the century (Kenneth McConkey, "The Renaissance of the Imagination" in Memory and Desire, 2002, pp. 157-181).  Indeed, the present work exemplifies de Glehn's allegiance to this last phase of Symbolism—in which many symbolists incorporated a new understanding of Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics. Yet even as de Glehn's Symbolist masterwork was first revealed to the public, the artist, as many others, had already begun to move toward an Impressionist style, closer to artists like Sargent – a relationship which the astute critic of The Magazine of Art noticed was already incubating in his portrait of Mrs Austin Oliver, which accompanied Night to the New Gallery.