How Paintings Depict Time
By: Christopher P Jones
Tags: Painting, Creativity, Art, Time, Art History

On the surface, Thomas Cole’s painting The Oxbow shows a natural wonder: the winding course of a river across a low-lying valley. It has the dramatic addition of changing weather conditions, giving a sense of the artist having captured a fleeting, single moment. Yet there is more to this picture than first impressions.

Painted in 1836, the American artist produced a vision of a landscape in a state of transformation. Not only is there a storm, but in the distance the land is being converted into farmland by human settlers.

In fact, the painting supplies three overlaid time-frames: the rapid onset of a storm, which arrives and departs in a matter of minutes or hours; the clearing of trees and wilderness to be replaced by agriculture and towns, a process that occurs over years and decades; and the far slower geological process of a river flowing over flatlands and slowly silting up, so creating curves that eventually turn into oxbows, the great horseshoe meander that gives the painting its subject matter.

Time having long passed

The Long Engagement (1859) by Arthur Hughes. Oil on canvas. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK. Image source Birmingham Museums Trust (open access)

Arthur Hughes’ painting, titled The Long Engagement, made in 1859, has within it a wonderful and somewhat poignant detail that visually describes the onset of time. On the trunk of the tree, the name “Amy” has been scored into the bark, only to be half-covered by growing ivy leaves.

Detail from ‘The Long Engagement’ (1859) by Arthur Hughes. Oil on canvas. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, UK. Image source Birmingham Museums Trust (open access)

This delicate symbol hints at the wider subject of the work: How time can overtake the first flush of romantic love.

It is unlikely that the name “Amy” was chosen by chance. The name comes from the Old French, Amée, meaning “beloved”, a vernacular form of the Latin Amata.

The wider the image shows two engaged sweethearts meeting beneath the boughs of a tree. Some time before, the man scored her name into the tree trunk. Yet, from the growth of the ivy leaves, we know that their betrothal is a long one. From his clothing, the man can be identified as a member of the clergy — a curate, who assists the work of the parish priest. It is a low-paid position and provides the reason for the extended engagement, since the parents of the girl have not allowed her to marry until he has secured a better paying position in the church.

What the artist has depicted is an aspect of English Victorian society (one that is perhaps not so foreign to us today) that reflected the importance of financial stability as a basis for marriage.

Will the curate eventually achieve a salary to match the expectations of his sweetheart’s parents? Only time will tell.

Past, present and future

An Allegory of Prudence (between c. 1550 and c. 1565) by Titian. Oil on canvas. Image source Wikimedia Commons

Titian’s Allegory of Prudence offers a picture of time based on the three stages of life: youth, maturity and old age. In art history, this is a popular subject and is often depicted in using the same motif of a youth, a middle-aged man and an old man together.

In this painting, the oldest face (looking left) is in fact a self-portrait of Titian himself. His son Orazio, is thought to be the middle-aged face looking forward. For the third generation — youth — we might expect to find Titian’s grandson, yet since the painter had no grandson at the time of the work, it is thought that a cousin by the name of Marco Vecellio was depicted instead.

Titian’s painting has long engaged art historians because of the intriguing connection between the three human faces and the triple-headed creature below them. The wolf, lion and dog combined offers a symbol of prudence, as confirmed by the inscription at the top of the painting, which reads (from Latin) “From the experience of the past, the present acts prudently, lest it spoil future actions”.

And so, we may read the painting as a visual description of the facets of prudence: looking back, which remembers and learns; the intelligence of the present, which judges and acts; and foresight, which anticipates future events.

Time and death

Et in Arcadia ego (1628) by Nicolas Poussin. Oil on canvas. The Lourve, Paris. Image source Wikimedia Commons

This painting, by the French artist Nicolas Poussin, shows four figures gathered around a tomb. They are pointing to an inscription carved in the stone. The inscription reads “Et in Arcadia Ego”, which can be translated as “Even in Arcadia, there am I”.

The four figures are in a place called Arcadia, a region of Greece that has long been celebrated in art and poetry. As an idealised setting, Arcadia is a place of classical, unsophisticated existence. Shepherds roam the landscape singing love songs; nymphs wander through the woods and rivers.

Poussin’s painting gives us this romantic landscape but it also poses a question: what about death in Arcadia? In this regard, the inscription may refer to the occupant of the tomb, understood as “I too once lived in Arcadia.” Or it may have a wider message, the poignant thought that even in the idyllic setting of Arcadia, the present moment will inevitably pass and death will come to us all.

My name is Christopher P Jones and I’m an art historian and critic. I’m also the author of How to Read Paintings. Read more about my art writing here.

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