THE ENCHANTED INTERIOR

12 October 2019 - 22 February 2020

The Enchanted Interior will explore the sinister implications of a popular theme in nineteenth-century painting: the depiction of the interior as a ‘gilded cage’ in which women are pictured as ornamental objects.

The exhibition contextualises this idea by examining the role of the interior in art – and art in the interior – from 1850 to the present. Iconic Pre-Raphaelite paintings by artists such as Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman-Hunt will be shown alongside works by their female peers such as Emma Sandys, Elizabeth Burden and Evelyn De Morgan, who challenge and subvert the idealisation of women as captive damsels or passive beauties. Meanwhile, works by modern and contemporary female artists reveal more complex ideas of enclosure and enchantment, from Surrealist works that blur the boundary between woman and object, to the work of feminist artists who recognise the home as a potentially dangerous place.

The majority of works in the exhibition appear at first glance to be charming visions of opulence and leisure, capturing in exquisite detail interiors adorned with iridescent silks, intricate mosaics, ornate gilding, and elaborate tapestries. Yet they also speak to how the sinister and the beautiful are inherently intertwined in the very idea of enchantment. Although generally understood as something positive, synonyms of ‘enchanting’ include captivating, hypnotising, bewitching, and entrancing. To enchant is not just to charm, but to intoxicate, entrap or coerce.

Seductive as they may appear, many of the artworks included in the exhibition picture the interior as a stage for stories, myths and morality tales which reflect cultural anxieties about the private realm and women’s place in it. From medieval towers to a 1920s palace; from the artist’s studio to the White House; from the Victorian nursery to the asylum; and from the Drawing Room to the enchantress’ lair, the exhibition highlights how issues of power and control are encoded into depictions of the interior, and how such imagery in turn influences the world we inhabit now. 

The Enchanted Interior will include more than 85 oil paintings, watercolours, sculptures, films, installations, photography, prints and decorative art by 58 artists – almost half of which are women – including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Frederic Leighton, John William Waterhouse, J.A.M Whistler, Walter Crane, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning, Penny Slinger andHayv Kahraman. Key lenders include Tate, V&A Museum, Royal Academy of Art, De Morgan Foundation, Guildhall Art Gallery, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, and Leeds Art Gallery, as well as private collections and direct from artists.

The Enchanted Interior is built around three significant works in the Laing collection where women are trapped -psychologically or physically – in the environments we see them pictured in: Edward Burne-Jones’ Laus Veneris (1873-75) shows Venus in her subterranean lair; John Frederick Lewis’ Hhareem Life, Constantinople (1857) portrays two women in a harem, one gazing out of the window at the open spaces denied to her, and the other playing languidly with a domestic cat, a symbol for her own captivity; and a new acquisition, Nele/Nellie by Indonesian-born artist Fiona Tan (2013) shows the illegitimate daughter of Rembrandt Van Rijn pacing unhappily around the house where she was kept hidden from society until her father’s death.

The exhibition examines the interior as a site in which women become ornamental objects, drawings on classical myths that feature imprisoned women and share compositional traits- the space is oppressive and lacking in depth, there is often a window (a view on to an inaccessible world) but never a door or an open path to reach it. Highlights will include Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Marigolds (The Bower Maiden, Fleur-de-Marie) (1874, Nottingham City Museums), William Holman Hunt’s Past and Present (1868, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums), The Lady of Shalott (from the poem by Tennyson) by John William Waterhouse (c.1894 Falmouth Art Gallery), Emma Sandys’s Viola (c.1865–1877, Walker Art Gallery),A Moorish Girl with a Parakeet by Henriette Browne (1875, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum) and The Gilded Cage by Evelyn de Morgan (1900 – 1919, The De Morgan Foundation).

Another theme is the dual-edged tendency to depict real women as if they are objects and to make objects in the image of women. A key loan is Pygmalion and Galatea by Ernest Normand (1881, Atkinson Art Gallery Collection)which depicts the Greek myth of the sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved out of ivory. Also included The Chosen Five by Edwin Long (1885, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum) which showcases the Victorian fascination with the myth of the artist Zeuxis, who in his pursuit of the ideal model for his depiction of Helen of Troy, selects characteristics from five different female models. Sir George Frampton’s Lamia (1899-1900, Royal Academy) is not only a mythical femme fatale (from the Keats poem about a beautiful serpent-like creature who assumes female form to win the love of a mortal)but the polychrome materials and realist depiction of the sculpture also give the illusion that it is a real woman frozen in stone.

The Enchanted Interior will foreground works in which female artists resist the tropes of the gilded cage, or appropriate them for their own ends. Hatoumappropriates objects related to the domestic kitchen, traditionally a feminine domain, and gives them a menacing, uncanny edge – potentially lethal electrical currents coursing through wires connected to items such as a colander, a whisk, a ladle and a heart-shaped pastry cutter. A work that has been key to the creation of the whole exhibition is Mona Hatoum’s sculpture Home (1999, Tate).

“Although beautiful to behold, in many of these works, the interiors we see women inhabiting are governed by invisible but unbreakable rules, oppressive expectations, and in some cases, unseen tyrants. Through remarkable works by female artists, the allure of the enchanting interior is complicated, cutting through the outer illusion of opulence to the complex realities beneath, and offering alternatives ways of seeing the world and women’s place in it.” Madeleine Kennedy, Curator, Laing Art Gallery

“As is the case for many museums, some of the most beloved pieces in our collection are also among the most problematic, in this case harbouring thinly veiled expectations about women that we now recognise as harmful. Rather than shy away from showing such works because of the prejudices, they reflect, in ‘The Enchanted Interior’, our intention is to confront them with contemporary artists’ work that calls out their intoxicating effects, resulting in powerful dialogues between works that speak from radically different perspectives.” Julie Milne, Chief Curator of the Laing, Hatton and Shipley Art Galleries,

The loans are supported by the Weston Loan Programme with Art Fund, and was made possible by grants from the John Ellerman Foundation, The Henry Moore Foundation and a Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Research Grant from Art Fund. The Enchanted Interior has been developed by the Laing Art Gallery and will tour nationally. It will be accompanied by an illustrated publication made possible by a grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

“We are delighted that these incredibly beautiful works of art are coming to Tyne & Wear as part of our loan programme. When we started the Weston Loan Programme, we hoped it would help bring national treasures to many different communities across the UK and we are thrilled that the people of Newcastle will get to enjoy these masterpieces. We hope they will inspire the next generation of artists.” Sophia Weston, Trustee of the Garfield Weston Foundation,

To find out more visit www.laingartgallery.org.uk