Marianne Stokes: Folk Life and Fairy Tales in Victorian Art

We’ve been examining the links between folklore, mythology and art in the Victorian period over the last few posts. Yes, the Victorians have a lot to answer for more widely. Yet this was also a period in which mythology and folklore appeared a lot in art. Some artists used these myths to explore dangerous female sexuality or to reinforce other patriarchal and colonial ideals. But other artists also brought these legends to a wider audience. Marianne Stokes was one such artist!

Marianne Stokes was born Marianne Preindlsberger in Austria in 1855. She married the English landscape painter Adrian Scott Stokes in 1884 and moved to England with him. She started out painting landscapes, and portraits, but abandoned oil painting in favour of tempera and gesso as the Pre-Raphaelites did. This approach gives the feeling of a fresco, but we’ll come back to tempera later.

Stokes’ work is notable due to the amount of travelling she and her husband did. She and her husband visited Hungary several times between 1905 and 1908. While there, Stokes painted portraits in Hungary that act as a record of the local culture.

Stokes exhibited these paintings, but she also included them in a book with her husband, published in 1909. As Howard Oakley says, “they form a unique record of the country deep into the Austro-Hungarian Empire before it fell apart as a result of the First World War. Here is fine art as an ethnographic record, twenty-five years before practical colour photography” (2016). While she may not have always relied upon folklore as a theme within her work, these paintings allow her to act as a visual folklorist. Creating a visual record of customs and culture is just as valuable as writing about it.

So how did folklore itself appear in her work? Let’s find out! Hit ‘play’ to hear the podcast episode or keep reading.

‘Sweet Dreams’ – 1875

I chose this simple and very sweet picture thanks to the flowers in the painting. So we’ll start off with floriography, rather than folklore. The child’s basket contains pansies and roses, both red and white. In the Victorian language of flowers, pansies often represented thoughts (Valentine 1867: 81). Roses traditionally meant love, while white roses meant ‘I am worthy of you’ (Valentine 1867: 85). They might seem like a strange message for a child’s bouquet, but red and white roses together meant unity (Valentine 1867: 86).

We don’t know if the child is selling the flowers, or carrying the basket between adults. But we can ‘read’ the message as perhaps saying one partner is thinking of the other and their relationship. Or one partner is thinking of being reunited with the other. Either way, it’s a very sweet image!

‘The Frog Prince’ – c. 1890

This rather lovely painting is an illustration of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the same name. Their two volumes of fairy tales were published in 1812 and 1815, so by 1890, people were more than familiar with them. ‘The Frog Prince’ appears in the first collection, and usually appears as the first tale.

In the story, a princess drops a golden ball in a pond. A frog in the garden agrees to fetches it for her, as long as she’ll be friends with him. The princess doesn’t realise that he’s actually a prince in the form of a frog, labouring under a curse. Once he retrieves her ball, she runs back to the palace and leaves him behind.

The frog doesn’t leave things there, so he goes to the palace himself. The King finds out about the bargain and insists that his daughter honour her promise. She isn’t very happy about this, especially when he insists she shares her dinner with him. The frog wants to sleep in her room, so she puts him in the corner. When he asks to sleep on her bed, she throws the frog against a wall. This breaks the spell and the frog turns back into the prince. He forgives her for throwing him at a wall and the pair live happily ever after.

No Kiss?

The more famous modern version sees her kiss the frog. According to Heidi Anne Heiner, this appeared in English translations because the translator, Edgar Taylor, preferred a romantic princess to one who threw tantrums. He didn’t create this himself, because the Grimms included this version in their notes. But this is the version that became famous (Heiner 1998-2021). Wolfgang Mieder disagrees with this, saying there is no kissing scene in the works of the Brothers Grimm. He points to an alternative version in which the frog sleeps at the bottom of her bed for two nights, and under her pillow on the third. In the morning, the prince appears (2014: 105). Mieder suggests this version was omitted during the process of sanitising the stories to make them suitable for children.

Essentially, whether she’s kissing the frog or sharing her dinner, the princess needs to show humanity towards the frog. In doing so, she helps him to regain his own humanity and break the spell. There has been a lot of scholarship regarding which came first, the story or the proverb that you need to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. For more information on this, I recommend Mieder’s article, linked below.

The Painting

Whether you go with wall-throwing or kissing, Stokes’ painting focuses on the moment the princess meets the frog. She sits in the garden, yet here she’s reading, rather than playing with a ball. Note the open book in her lap. The frog sits on a branch, his front foot stretched out in a most human gesture. He does also wear a crown, reminding the viewer that he’s supposed to be a prince. (I’m assuming he gets a human-sized crown when he regains his true form).

The princess looks more curious than afraid or disgusted, and the frog appears quite articulate through his pose. I can’t help thinking the change of the ball into a book is an important one for the overall feel of the painting. It creates a more studious and thoughtful princess, who’s less likely to injure a creature by throwing it at a wall. The addition of the crown seems like a strange one but I feel it’s there for the benefit of the viewer, rather than the princess.

‘Candlemas Day’ – c. 1901

This painting was influenced by both the Pre-Raphaelites and Johannes Vermeer. It’s also notable since it was painted using egg tempera paint. This is a medieval technique that underwent a revival at the turn of the 19th century. Stokes adopted the technique in 1895 and joined the Society of Painters in Tempera in 1905. It involves mixing paint pigment with egg yolk, rather than oil. The colours don’t fade over time, so they retain their brightness.

Tempera is also not a forgiving medium. Rosemary Treble describes it as “an intractable, demanding and consequently now little-used medium”, that could not hide “faulty technique or anything less than absolutely confident handling and composition” (1980: 784). Using it was seen as a way to return to the simplicity of early periods.

In the painting, we see a young woman reading by candlelight. She holds a rosary in her hand, reflecting the nature of Candlemas. It falls on February 2nd and marks the presentation of Jesus at the Temple. If you didn’t take your Christmas decorations down at Twelfth Night, Candlemas is the date by which you’d do so.

Candlemas and Candles

The candles are important since it’s a day associated with light. While this is a Christian festival, which lies somewhat outside of folklore, it’s still an important date. It’s the day after St Brigid’s Day, or Imbolc, on February 1st. It even had weather folklore associated with it:

“If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another flight
But if it be dark with clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.”

(Johnson, no date)

Candlemas was associated with purification, something in keeping with its roots in the Roman purification ceremonies at this time of year (Hutton 1996: 139). Yet the addition of candles appears to be of Christian origin. Some writers try to link the candlelit processions of Candlemas with Imbolc, but that’s only because the two feasts fell one after the other in Ireland (Hutton 1996: 140). Ronald Hutton even points out that the Viking sagas don’t feature any festivals between Yule and April (Hutton 1996: 140). This makes it hard to find links between the Christian rituals and ancient European pagan practices.

Hutton does point out that the festival held different significance in northern Europe compared to the Mediterranean. So in the south, Candlemas was a time of purification. In the north, it was a time to celebrate light returning (Hutton 1996: 140). People brought candles to the feast and the priest blessed them. Lighting these blessed candles could chase away the devil, or be used to chase away sickness (Hutton 1996: 140). Knowing this makes you wonder why the woman in this painting has lit the candle. Is it to help a sick loved one? To chase away the devil? Or purely to read by?

‘Snow White’ – c. 1902

This painting is also known as ‘Snow White in Her Glass Coffin is Mourned by the Dwarfs’. It depicts the moment in the Snow White fairy tale when the dwarfs place her in a glass coffin, rather than burying her in the ground. Stokes’ original title for this painting comes from the Brothers Grimms’ title for their story, ‘Schneewittchen’.

In the original story, the Evil Queen tries to kill Snow White three times, first by tightly lacing her into a bodice, and second by putting a poisoned comb in her hair. Both times, the dwarfs return home and intervene. They can’t revive her after Snow White eats the poisoned apple, and hence she ends up in the coffin.

But here’s where it differs from the more famous Disney version. The prince comes across the coffin and insists on taking it back to Snow White’s father. During the journey, a servant trips and jolts the coffin. This shakes loose the apple stuck in Snow White’s throat and she wakes up. The prince proposes, and a wedding is planned. Yet at the wedding feast, the Queen attempts to kill Snow White again, and this time, the prince intervenes. He forces the Queen to don a pair of iron slippers, held in a fire until they’re red hot, and to dance in them. She does so until she drops dead, and Snow White is finally free. It’s a better ending than a stranger kissing some random dead woman he finds in the forest.

The Painting

So this painting depicts the point of death, which is in itself the eternal sleep. In the text at the bottom of the illustration, she’s referred to as Snowdrop. According to the text, three birds come to “bewail” her death. An owl, a raven, and a dove. I think the order they arrive in is quite telling. Owls are often considered harbingers of death, as well as being wise. Their arrival first would be a sign of Snow White’s ‘death’. We can even see the owl in the tree, watching the scene below.

Ravens are also harbingers of death but are more often associated with the carnage of the battlefield. Therefore, their arrival could indicate the loss of hope and deeper mourning for Snow White as time passes. Finally, doves represent peace and hope, so their arrival last hints at the happy ending of the fairy tale. (If you’re interested in the folklore of ravens and owls, you can hear my bonus episodes on each as a Patreon supporter).

‘Death and the Maiden’ – c. 1908

This was a popular theme in art at the time, though it first appears in visual culture in the 15th century. It evolved out of the Danse Macabre trope. This in itself was the dance of the dead, in which all took part. No one could escape their role in death, regardless of the power or authority they had in life.

In many of the earlier versions, the images seem almost erotic as a skeletal Death steals away an otherwise nubile young woman. Despite Death being depicted as a skeleton, we nearly always consider these versions to be male. Some of the earlier paintings and engravings show the women as shocked or horrified to be confronted with Death. There are also some fantastic ones in which the woman is incredibly excited to be so close to Death.

In a way, these paintings were used as a memento mori, which translates as ‘Remember you will die’. While it’s not exactly a cheerful thought, it’s also accurate, and intended to be motivational. As in, live while you’re alive. I also wonder if there is a link between the trope and the myth of Persephone and Hades. After all, Hades represents Death as the King of the Underworld. Persephone’s alternative name is Kore, which literally means The Maiden. His abduction of her is the epitome of Death claiming the Maiden.

Evelyn De Morgan painted her own version of the trope. It’s a lot softer, and the figures seem more in tune with each other. The young woman even welcomes the female angel of death.

The Stokes Painting

Here, Stokes borrows the idea of Death as an angel, featuring huge black wings. One wing wraps around the girl’s shoulder, a signal that she is already in Death’s embrace. Death is also a more androgynous figure than De Morgan’s, carrying a lantern rather than a scythe. Some of the blossoms from the flowers lie on the floor, another sign that Death is here. Death only brings loss and sorrow, reflected in the girl’s reaction.

One thing that is a little ambiguous is whether or not Death intends to take her now, or it’s merely a warning. The hand held up between them seems more of a warning gesture than a welcoming one.

What do we make of Marianne Stokes?

Marianne Stokes is a fascinating artist and it’s frustrating that she’s not better known. It’s also annoying that so little has been written about her work. She’s important to the revival of the tempera painting medium, yes. But more than anything, her collection of traditional dress in pictorial form should grant her a place among the folklorists of her time. Stokes created a valuable, visual record of Slavic culture, which is certainly more useful today than the nubile nymphs of John William Waterhouse or the latent sexism of Edward Burne-Jones. Perhaps for this reason, Stokes is the best example of the link between folklore and art. The fact she was a phenomenal painter is a bonus!

References

Heiner, Heidi Anne (1998-2021), ‘Frog King | Annotated Tale’, SurLaLune Fairy Tales, https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/a-g/frog-king/frog-king-annotations.html#EIGHT.

Johnson, Ben (no date), ‘The Folklore Year – February’, Historic UK, https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Folklore-Year-February/.

Mieder, Wolfgang (2014), ‘“You Have to Kiss a Lot of Frogs (Toads) Before You Meet Your Handsome Prince”: From Fairy-Tale Motif to Modern Proverb’, Marvels & Tales, 28:1, pp. 104-126.

Oakley, Howard (2016), ‘Into the Light: Marianne Stokes, a major woman artist’, The Eclectic Light Company, https://eclecticlight.co/2016/05/05/into-the-light-marianne-stokes-a-major-woman-artist/.

Stokes, Adrian and Stokes, Marianne (1909), Hungary, London: A & C. Black.

Treble, Rosemary (1980), ‘London. Victorian and Post-Victorian Paintings’, The Burlington Magazine, 122:932, pp. 784-788.