Edited: Veronica Franklin Gould
Exhibition catalogue linked to the Watts centenary exhibition in 2004 at Watts Gallery that explored his visionary works. Seen as 'England's Michaelangelo' Watts revolutionised the treatment of nudes and reinvented allegory with a modern iconography. His poetic landscapes, mythologies, paintings of love, life, death, hope and progress were more mystical and didactic than paintings by Leighton and more expansive than their Pre-Raphaelite contemporaries. Watts pioneered a visionary approach to art that provoked and fascinated the nation, and the later Continental Symbolists. He forged a unique path to raise the tone of British art to the level of poetry and music, painting cosmic pictures on issues of human life, to arouse the nation. This richly illustrated book includes five essays by eminent Watts scholars.
