The crisis

Thank you to Sheila Butler for sending me her thoughts on a painting at the NGV:

In our current predicament my mind has turned to works in the NGV collection that might have some resonance. I recalled this work, sometimes on display in the 19^th Century Salon Room. A heart wrenching bedside scene of a man watching his critically ill wife as she reaches the ‘crisis point’: all in the 19^thc would have known as that turning point, for better or worse, in an acute disease or fever.

We know the scenario well from many period dramas on film made in the 1930s & 40s – well you would if you spent as much time as I did watching the ‘midday movie’ when I was a student. The film family gathered around the bed watching the semi-conscious loved one toss and turn and hoping for them to come through ‘the crisis’. This might be evidenced by a turn for the better such as sudden abatement in the severity of symptoms or an abrupt drop in temperature. At which point the doctor who had been standing gravely in the background would step forward and give a reassuring nod and pick up his bag. If things did not go so well, I leave the scene to your imagination. We did recently have that experience again when watching ‘Little Women’, not to overlook La Bohème or La Traviata.

The use of the term ‘crisis’ in this context was first recorded in the 15^th century but has undergone something of a semantic drift. We now talk about a dangerous situation like the ‘Corona virus crisis’ or the ‘global financial crisis’ but not the medical connotation referenced in this affecting painting.

Frank Dicksee attended the RA Schools from 1870–75 and won a gold medal in 1875. He went on to have a very successful career painting romantic genre subjects and social dramas in a style influenced by painters such as Millais and Watts. 1891, the year he painted The crisis, was notable for Dicksee as his work received a great deal of attention in the press and he was elected a full Royal Academician before the exhibition of that year closed. Sir Hubert von Herkomer purchased The crisis for the NGV directly from the RA exhibition. Although his views on art were archly conservative, Dicksee was elected President of the Royal Academy in 1924.

There is a description of the painting in the NGV handbook 19^th Century Painting and Sculpture. The online reference also goes into considerable detail about the frame.