TitleThe Revised Version
Artist
Thomas Hovenden
(1840 - 1895)
Date1881
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 19 7/8 × 12 1/8 in.
Framed: 23 3/8 × 15 1/2 × 2 1/4 in.
SignedSigned at lower right: "Hovenden / 1881"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, April 2, 1883
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number595-P
Label TextShortly after returning from France, Hovenden executed a series of small American genre scenes that included "The Old Version" (1881, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco) and "The Revised Version." Anne Terhune has shown in her analysis of these works that Hovenden makes a topical reference to the publication of the American version of the revised King James Bible. While "The Old Version" depicts an elderly couple reading a large bound volume, "The Revised Version" shows only a single old man. His well-thumbed, heavy book of Scripture lies on a table beside him, weighty not only in pounds but also in implied authority. He has taken up the smaller Revised Version, which appears all the more flimsy in his massive, oversized hands. The figure himself seems strangely at odds with his surroundings-- a bit too large to move easily through the room.The contemporary press saw "The Old Version" as a celebration of the traditional marriage, a simple life partnership based on devotion and loyalty. It may well be asked, then, whether "The Revised Version" offers a corresponding point of view. A clue to the elderly man's solitude might lie in the framed picture on the wall, which shows a woman reading. The glass protecting it is cracked, symbolic perhaps of some misfortune involving the figure depicted. The man's simple worker's garb and the copy of the Farmer's Almanac that hangs behind him suggest Hovenden's desire that the subject be perceived sympathetically as an embodiment of traditional values. The painting thus has little to do with the "modern" broken marriage decried in the press at the time but rather, as Terhune suggests, deals with the plight of a widower who must "revise" his life.
Hovenden produced a watercolor version of the Academy's painting that was included in the American Water Color Society's annual exhibition of 1882.
Collections
- 19th Century Highlights from the Collection
