An Outcast 1910

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale painted this watercolor, titled 'An Outcast,' at the turn of the twentieth century. It speaks to Victorian notions of morality and womanhood. We see a woman, presumably unmarried, holding a baby, being ushered out of a snow-covered town by other women. The image creates meaning through the visual coding of the outcast woman's shame, and the ambiguous expressions on the faces of the other women who perform this act of rejection. Fortescue-Brickdale came from an upper-middle-class family and was educated at the Royal Academy. The late Victorian art world was deeply conservative, and images like this one reflect existing social norms and anxieties about female sexuality and illegitimacy. One wonders, for instance, whether it critiques the institutions of marriage and motherhood. To fully understand this piece, we need to delve into the social history of Victorian England, looking at census data, conduct manuals, and other documents that shed light on the lived experiences of women at this time. After all, the meaning of art is contingent on its social and institutional context.