One more unfortunate...Gone to her death!

           Found Drowned by George Ferederic Watts is one of the many Victorian paintings that focus on the fascination with “fallen women”. During this time period, prostitution was an easy way for women to make money, but at the price of being ostracized by society. Being branded as a “Fallen Woman” meant that a woman could not go on to enjoy a normal life. She was considered “stained”, unfit to marry into a good family or to raise one. These women were left with little options and as such, many chose to end their lives.

            The painting’s setting takes place at night time, with London’s landscape shown in the background. The woman’s isolation from society is apparent and she chooses to take her life during the night so that her actions will be hidden. The tragic circumstance of her being cast away by the city leads her to take this action. In an ironic way, in this solitude, she finally gains a sense of peace away from the city that stigmatizes her.  

          Death by drowning in the Thames River is symbolic of these “fallen women” being baptized and cleansed. Water has a purifying element; it is reminiscent of how John the Baptist would baptize people and absolve them of their sins. By portraying these women in this fashion, Victorian artists are showing mercy to these women and forgive them of their past transgressions. Their faces in these paintings show a serene, peaceful visage attained only in death and with peace of mind.

           The woman portrayed in this painting is beautiful, which is quite far from how drowned bodies would look. During this time period, suicide by drowning was a common thing and people were quite aware of the bloated and grotesque conditions these bodies were found in. Yet, Victorian painters chose to embellish these women’s tragic deaths. More people could sympathize with a tragic drowned maiden with an angelic face, rather than a hideous, decaying body.

            She is modest in clothing, a style the artist chooses to portray her in to emphasize that she is just a simple woman with tragic circumstances. In her life, she may have worn fanciful, colorful clothing that marked her as a prostitute, but in death, these plain clothes show that she is no different from the other women of society. In her hand so holds on to a necklace, perhaps a memento from a loved one that she could not part with even in death.

            The unfortunate lives of these women were made popular in paintings such as this and in poems like “The Bridge of Sighs” by Thomas Hood. Victorian society had popularized the notion that many “fallen women” would throw themselves off the London Bridge due to their shame and guilt. Painters and poets of this time period sympathized with these women, adorning their tragic fates by romanticizing their situations and deaths. They provide a criticism of society, bringing to light how these women are forced to choose this way of life: live in poverty, working in dangerous factories where they faced a crippling future or walk London’s nightly streets, offer themselves up to men for easy money and be branded a prostitute.

This painting can be found at: http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/watts/paintings/2.html

For more paintings on fallen women, visit: http://www.victorianweb.org/gender/fallen.html