The Bathers Alarmed

Genre scenes of figures surprised or startled were a popular subject in Victorian painting, providing an excuse to paint the human form in animated, unguarded poses that more formal subjects would not permit. The Bathers Alarmed belongs to a tradition stretching from classical bathing scenes through to Romantic-era compositions of nymphs disturbed at their leisure — a device that permitted the nude or semi-nude figure under the guise of narrative. Solomon Joseph Solomon was well positioned to work in this mode: his academic training gave him technical command of the figure, while his participation in the Royal Academy exhibitions meant he understood how to make such subjects palatable to mixed Victorian audiences. The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth, with its eclectic collection of Victorian figurative painting, is a fitting home for a work that captures the drama of interruption and the conventions of period bathing subjects.

The composition would rely on contrasting the smooth flesh tones of the bathers against a natural landscape setting. Animated poses require careful anatomical drawing underneath the paint, and Solomon's academic training in life drawing would have been central to achieving convincing movement.