Frederick W. Elwell

The Wedding Dress, 1911, Oil on canvas, 128 x 103 cm, Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston Upon Hull; Gift, 1914, KINCM:2005.4894, ©️ Ferens Art Gallery / ©️ Estate of Frederick Elwell. All rights reserved 2024 / Bridgeman Images

Grief

Commentary by Heather Macumber

Cite Share
Read by Ben Quash

Frederick Elwell’s The Wedding Dress juxtaposes light and shadow, pointing up the disparity between life and death, hope and despair.

A white wedding dress and shoes lying on the floor draw one’s attention to the figure of a grieving woman dressed in dark clothes. With her face buried in her hands, she is bent over a chest from which the edge of a bridal veil spills out. Shadows dominate the muted, panelled bedroom walls in the background while at bottom right they merge with the wedding chest and the woman’s clothes. There is a haunting quality to the painting as it highlights the absence or trace of something that cannot be retrieved.

Elwell was known for his other works centred on domestic subjects, particularly The First Born (1913) where a father leans over to view his wife and newborn child. Bright tones dominate that painting in stark contrast to The Wedding Dress where the domestic setting no longer harbours life but death.

The identity of the grieving woman in The Wedding Dress is unknown. She may be a widow, or a prospective bride who has lost her fiancé. The wedding chest, a symbol of hope for one’s future, takes on a more ominous tone as it bears an uncanny resemblance to a funeral casket.

The book of Ruth also opens with the intersection of familial hope and despair.  It is a domestic tale focused on the daily lives of a single Israelite family. Naomi with her husband and her sons seek refuge in Moab from a famine in Bethlehem. Although known as ‘the house of bread [or 'food']', here is a terrible and ironic reversal for this family as Bethlehem becomes a place of scarcity.

More reversals follow. Their initial security in Moab is upended by the death of Naomi’s husband and two sons. Both Naomi and her daughters-in-law Ruth and Orpah are widows, left childless after the passing of their husbands. With no explanation for the death of the men, the book of Ruth, like Elwell’s The Wedding Dress, leaves the audience to fill in the gaps.

Yet, though this chapter opens with famine and despair, the narrator anticipates a hopeful change to their situation as Naomi and Ruth return to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest (Ruth 1:22).

See full exhibition for Ruth 1

Ruth 1

Revised Standard Version

1 In the days when the judges ruled there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to sojourn in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. 2The name of the man was Elimʹelech and the name of his wife Naʹomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilʹion; they were Ephʹrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3But Elimʹelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. They lived there about ten years; 5and both Mahlon and Chilʹion died, so that the woman was bereft of her two sons and her husband.

6 Then she started with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food. 7So she set out from the place where she was, with her two daughters-in-law, and they went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8But Naʹomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9The Lord grant that you may find a home, each of you in the house of her husband!” Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices and wept. 10And they said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11But Naʹomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Have I yet sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say I have hope, even if I should have a husband this night and should bear sons, 13would you therefore wait till they were grown? Would you therefore refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, for it is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone forth against me.” 14Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.

15 And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16But Ruth said, “Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God; 17where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if even death parts me from you.” 18And when Naʹomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more.

19 So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them; and the women said, “Is this Naʹomi?” 20She said to them, “Do not call me Naʹomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naʹomi, when the Lord has afflicted me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

22 So Naʹomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

More Exhibitions