In the polarizing streets of west London, William Powell Frith found inspiration for one of his early genre paintings, The Crossing Sweeper. The simplicity of Frith’s painting conceals a powerful message about the growing problem of poverty and the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor within Victorian England. {i}
The painting portrays a poor crossing sweeper coming into contact with an affluent young lady attempting to cross a London street. In Victorian England, travel by horse-drawn carriage tended to be the main mode of transportation throughout Great Britain. As a result, the “streets” were literally a filthy mix of dung, dirt, and mud. This made crossing the street quite the filthy task, especially for wealthy women wearing lengthy gowns. Looking for an opportunity to add change to their extremely shallow pockets, poverty stricken Londoners, like this boy, found employment clearing debris from the streets for wealthy pedestrians, bringing the crossing sweeper into existence.
The crossing sweeper stood out as an urban type because he was not simply a beggar. Crossing sweepers offered a service, albeit a meager one, in return for a small fee. This created an image of the crossing sweeper as a poor, but honest and hard working laborer just trying to survive by doing small and tedious tasks. This evoked a sense of sympathy from the public that could not be caused through the portrayal of a poor beggar or thief.{ii}
The pitifulness of the sweeper commonly became amplified through the use of a child as the archetypal representative of the type. Hundreds of these child sweepers would scour the streets of London in their downtrodden attire constantly asking wealthy residents to allow them to sweep the filthy streets as they crossed, in order to limit the filthiness of the endeavor. The crossing sweeper’s role as an urban type peaked the interest of many authors and artists; making frequent appearances in paintings and even literature like the character Jo in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House.{ii} Frith followed suit and picked an actual young crossing sweeper of London as the model for his painting. Ironically, the model greatly defied the commonly held notion that crossing sweepers had more honesty and virtue in comparison to other poverty stricken individuals. The model managed to steal a gold watch chain that belonged to Frith.{iii}
However, Frith did not allow this slight mishap to deter him from portraying the poignant collision of the affluent and poor in the London streets. Frith deeply desired to pull the heartstrings of the people of England and hopefully inspire them to step towards alleviating the prevalent social injustice of that era. In order to achieve thought-provoking sympathy in the hearts and minds of the on-looker, Frith masterfully used minute but extremely important details to highlight the economic disparity between the social classes of that time period. The painting focuses on the meeting between the wealthy woman and the dirt-poor sweeper. This presents a striking visual depiction of the large gap between the social classes at the time. The woman’s pretty face and adornment in excess fabric consisting of a striped petticoat and decorative skirt convey her affluence.
In contrast, the crossing sweeper wears torn pants, an oversized shirt, and has no shoes to protect his young feet from the harsh streets. Besides his clothes, the crossing sweeper only owns a meager broom. A broom covered in filth from constant use on the dirty London streets. The boy’s body language, such as his hand placement on his forehead, conveys his humble plea to the woman of the wealthy class to allow him to sweep for her.{ii} The otherwise charming lady chooses to ignore the boy by looking off into the distance with a slight grin on her face, calmly ignoring the plight of the young boy even though her attire suggests that she has the financial capability to provide some assistance with his situation. Echoing her indifference, the men in the background, dressed in tall top hats and overcoats, go about their privileged business. Directly behind the affluent woman, a coach driver leads a carriage while wearing a greatcoat with numerous capes.
Frith actually witnessed a coach driver wearing this elaborate attire on one of his first trips to London and Frith used the greatcoat to echo the horizontal stripes of the gentlewoman’s attire in the painting.{iv} Interestingly, none of the coach drivers are making eye contact with the crossing sweeper as they are all looking away similarly to the wealthy lady. This creates a sense of isolation as the wealthy individuals, traveling underneath the stucco facades of the buildings in the affluent section of west London, act as if the boy does not exist.
The boy seems extremely misplaced among the hustle and bustle of the wealthy Londoners on the streets. The sweeper’s lowly stature even creates the sense that the great carriages that frequent the streets could crush him. Unfortunately, the overcrowded and dangerous streets of this area are truly his home and not just a mode of transportation to reach another destination. A sad injustice that exists as a striking testament of the deep social injustice that occurred along with the great prosperity of this time period. Frith personally witnessed such injustice and strongly desired to bring about change through his art. His decision to use a genre painting that would bring about commercial success while having an emotional impact would soon convict an audience with the power and financial ability to initiate philanthropic acts. Slowly but surely helping alleviate some of the social injustice of that prosperous but extremely imperfect era.
DAB
{i} “Genre Painting (c.1500-1960).” Genre Painting: Definition, Characteristics. Accessed July 15, 2015. http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/genres/genre-painting.htm
{ii}. Bills, Mark. “William Powell Frith’s ‘The Crossing Sweeper’: An Archetypal Image of Mid-Nineteenth-Century London.” Burlington Magazine 146, no. 1214 (2004): 300-07. Accessed July 14, 2015. doi:May, 2004.
{iii}. Wood, Christopher. “Derby Day.” In William Powell Frith: A Painter & His World, 68. Stroud [England: Sutton Pub. 2006.
{iv}Bills, Mark. “Frith And Fashion.” In William Powell Frith: Painting the Victorian Age, 115. New Haven [Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006.