Simeon Solomon
​Secondary Sources 1858-1872

This first section of secondary sources contains reviews of Solomon's prose-poem A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep and ends a year before  Solomon's arrest for attempted sodomy in 1873. 

​For reviews of his early exhibitions between 1858 and 1872 click HERE.
Thackeray, William Makepeace. "Roundabout Papers (V): Thorns in a Cushion." Cornhill Magazine, 2 (July 1860): 122-128.

ANNOTATION
Thackeray's jocular account of opposing viewpoints regarding the same image cites Solomon's Mother of Moses as an example.   While he finds the painting pleasing and true to life, he cites the negative review it received in an unnamed magazine, since identified as the Westminster Gazette.
REPRINTED
In The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1868-1869.§ "Exhibition of the Royal Academy     [continued]." The Art-Journal, 1 July 1861: 196.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: [Full Text]

"Jewish Ceremonies, by Mr. S. Solomon." The Jewish Chronicle and Hebrew Observer, 1 August 1862: 8.

ANNOTATION
This is a review of A Series of Photographs after Drawings of Jewish Ceremonials, by Simeon Solomon (Publishers, Cundall,           Downes and Co. 168, New Bond-street, London). The reviewer is disappointed by the illustrations he had believed would better represent Judaic religious traditions. Despite the negative criticism, the reviewer acknowledges in the end that Solomon has enormous talent for "truth and depth of feeling...how much soul he can throw into" Jewish subjects.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: [Full Text]

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. "Erotion." Poems and Ballads. London: Moxon & Co., 1866.

ANNOTATION
Swinburne wrote this poem based on Solomon's picture Damon and Aglae.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: [Full Text]

Colvin, Sidney. "English Painters of the Present Day. IV. Simeon Solomon." Portfolio, 1 (March 1870): 33-35.

ANNOTATION
Colvin has the highest praise for the Aesthetic movement and Solomon, particularly in regard to his Biblical and                     Greco-Roman subjects, although he warns the artist to be wary of the effeminacy in his work. The drawing Until the Day     Break and the Shadows Flee Away is illustrated.
REPRINTED
In English Painters of the Present Day, London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 1871.


Payne, John. "Sleepers and One That Watches." Intaglios, Sonnets. London: B. M. Pickering, 1871, 65-68.

ANNOTATION
Payne wrote three poems based on Solomon's 1870 watercolour The Sleepers and the One That Watcheth.
UPDATED ANNOTATION:
17 Feb 2002 - According to Gayle Seymour (1986), the poem is based on Solomon's 1867 drawing "Sleepers and one that     Watches" of 1867.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: [Full Text]
REPRINTED
In The Vision of Simeon Solomon by Simon Reynolds, Stroud: Catalpa Press, 1984, 99-100.

Samuel, S. M. "Literature." The Jewish Chronicle 14 April 1871: 4-5.

ANNOTATION
The Jewish Chronicle's review of Solomon's prose poem A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: [Full Text]

[Lloyd, E. M.]. Rev. of A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep. Athenaeum, 25 March 1871: 368.

ANNOTATION
Lloyd is unsure of Solomon's intent and thus interprets the allegory as an extension of Socrates's palinode to Eros from the Phaedrus, the evolution of love from the physical to the spiritual. Spiritual love is a victory for which Lloyd ultimately is grateful, as it shows that the narrator has been saved from the vice of physical love between men. Lloyd praises the         individual illustrations, and wishes there were more, as they might work laterally to clarify both the text and Solomon's     oeuvre.
UPDATED ANNOTATION
1 Sep 2007 - According to Thomas J. Tobin, Pre-Raphaelitism in the Nineteenth-Century Press: A Bibliography (Victoria,                 BC, Canada: University of Victoria, 2002), the author of this review is Thomas Watson Jackson (cit. 1871.080, p.80).

Symonds, John Addington. Rev. of A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep. Academy, 1 April 1871: 189-190.

ANNOTATION
Symonds wrote what is perhaps the finest review, praising Vision as a beautiful allegory which reveals the meaning behind the artist and his work. Solomon's character of Love is a combination of classical perfection, medieval mysticism, and         Oriental exoticism. Together these three aspects produce an idealized figure who can only be understood by reading         Solomon's allegory and by connecting Solomon's illustrations to one another.
 REPRINTED
 In A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep by Simeon Solomon, Portland, ME: T. B. Mosher Press, 1909, 57-64.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. "Simeon Solomon: Notes on his ‘Vision of Love’ and Other Studies." Dark Blue, 1 (July 1871): 568-577.

ANNOTATION
Solomon asked his friend Swinburne to write this review in the Oxford periodical to which they both contributed regularly. The essay is rich in poetic abstraction, referring to Solomon's art as "music made visible." He opens with a discussion of the prose-poem and praises its ethereal achievements, but he wishes there were more transitional passages and illustrations to help clarify the meaning. He spends more time praising Solomon's paintings for their exotic appeal. Swinburne's  criticism sparked an angry reaction in Solomon, but their friendship continued at least for the next year.
REPRINTED
In The Complete Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Eds. Edmund Gosse and Thomas James Wise, London: W.                     Heinemann, Ltd., 1925-1927.

Maitland, Thomas [Robert Buchanan]. "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D. G. Rossetti." Contemporary Review, 18 (October 1871): 334-350.

ANNOTATION
Buchanan's infamous review, and the subsequently revised pamphlet in 1872, primarily attacks Rossetti's and Swinburne's poetry; Solomon's work is mentioned pejoratively in correlation to Rossetti's work. It is less helpful in elucidating                 Solomon's style of painting than in historically marking the first contemporary attempt to mock Solomon's work.