Home 'Be It Ever So Humble, George Smith (1867)

I REALIZE this is just a painting and many Victorians did not live like this. I also realize you may consider this domestic coziness cloying, even obnoxious. But this is one more bit of evidence for the ideals to which the Victorians aspired. Try to imagine a modern painter portraying three generations together like this. He would be laughed out of every gallery in America.

                                                  — Comments —

Gail Garrasi Aggen writes:

Thanks once again for pointing out another example of the ideals of those ridiculous Victorians.

Wow, I guess that is unfashionable to portray a family enjoying just being together. After all, that place is a dump! There is the young mother, surrounded by domestic drudgery, and despite her sad plight, she is casting a loving glance upon her busy family. How contrived is that? And imagine her having to endure the company of those two old people. Did they not condemn her to this life by bringing her up to conform to that patriarchal society? I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t boot them out the door!

Look at those children, playing with toys and interacting with each other, looking happy, no less! How cliche. The most unrealistic thing in that picture, however, is the presence of the young father. Not only is he present, but he is actually interested in what the baby is doing!! The grandfather has something laying across one knee (a toy, perhaps or a piece of clothing) and appears to be crafting or repairing something he holds in his hands. Oh come on, grandfathers are useless. They are just self-centered, dirty old men, and everyone knows that!

Cloying though it might be to some, this is essentially the scene you would have seen if you peered through a kitchen window into my parents’ little white cottage. My husband might be sitting with a cup of coffee that my mother poured for him while she and I buzzed about the kitchen, making food. My father would probably have been sitting next to the baby’s highchair, literally peeling seedless grapes and breaking them up to put into baby’s mouth. Or else he would be doing corny magic tricks for the other kids, who would be all around us, chattering away as they played with their toys. If my brother and his family were there at the same time, it would be sheer pandemonium, what with 11 excited children, and six adults laughing over this, or fussing over that. My parents home was 1100 or so square feet, but for all of us, it was the center of the universe.

I could not make a better wish for anyone else, than that they would be able to enjoy many such moments as we did at the old homestead, or one such as you have shown here.

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