George Frederic Watts

Of all the ‘symbolical’ paintings Watts donated to Tate, he said that ‘probably Love and Life best portrays [my] message to the age.’ Love is represented by the woman on the left, and Life by the winged figure. He described the painting as ‘frail and feeble human existence aided to ascend ... by Love with its wide wings of sympathy, charity, tenderness and human affection’. Watts further explained that the two figures are ‘unclothed for they are only symbols’. In 1893, Watts gave versions of the painting to the national collections in France and the United States.