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Home and the Homeless A woman holding a large bowl is the visual center of this rustic cottage interior. Two distinct groups are contrasted in light and shadow. In the center and holding a large earthenware bowl, a robust woman wears a red loose fitting garment. Immediately above the earthenware bowl, her white ruffled bonnet frames the woman’s rosy and smiling face. A clean white tablecloth covers the table in front of her. The table is set for one and has a filled dish and covered pitcher on it. The family grouping in the left foreground focuses on a man holding a young girl on his lap. Wearing well-worn clothing, he smiles as he holds an object for the young child’s attention. Both the man and the child are cast in a warm light. The child wears a pink dress with a clean white pinafore and holds a doll on her lap. Further left, two children are grouped with a mother dog and her puppy. A key is placed on the wall above the family group. Right of center, a young child stands next to the table. His large clothes are wrinkled and torn. Looking sad, his head leans toward the table, and holds on to it with his right hand. A small puppy sits underneath the wooden table and looks towards the family grouping. An empty bowl rests on the opposite side. To the right, near the window, a woman holds a sleeping child and huddles in the corner. The cottage interior is sparse. Stones and brick flooring in the left foreground is balanced with a cabbage and shovel on the right. Several household items hang from rough-hewn wooden ceiling beams. A partially covered birdcage hangs near the window. A teapot and bowl rest on the table in front of the window. A plain wooden cupboard, directly behind the centrally placed woman, creates a neat visual rectangle with the table in front of her. A large metal teapot, tray and bowl balance a large book placed horizontally on top of the cupboard. Background A contrast of the poor and the poorer is a theme that is expressed within this rustic interior. Bathed in sunlight, the poor inhabitants of the cottage maintain a sense of family unity and well being. Their clothes, although worn, are clean. Their pleasure comes from simple things such as a hand made rag doll and newborn puppy. Their meager meal will feed many, as indicated by the large, filled bowl. The cottage family’s virtues are seen in the details; a key hung on the wall to indicate___, clean clothing and tablecloth, a large Bible on the back cupboard, a mother dog and her puppy. Contrasted with the happy and virtuous cottage family, a destitute woman and her family huddle in the shadow. Physically separated from the cottage family, her poverty is further emphasized by the cabbage lying on the floor in front of her. Although she sits near the cottage hearth, a symbol of Victorian domesticity, she is wary of the hospitality offered by the cottage family. The unifying factor of the composition is the child standing near the table. The colors are vivid in his ragged clothes; his face is bathed in sunlight. His sad face reveals his hunger and want of a meal, no matter how meager. This is further emphasized with the puppy and empty, unreachable bowl underneath the table. The Bible symbolically joins the two families. Resting behind both groups, the contour lines of the cupboard where it sits joins the mother and child. Henry Melvill, a 19th century preacher, argued that as one of the special blessings intended by God, simple people were more receptive to the message of the Bible. (Payne, p 19) Intended for a middle class audience, the message of rural piety was reassuring. Adult and child laborers, who worked in the mines and/or factories, and lived in horrible conditions, did not have such pictorial connotations. The severity of urban problems was often viewed as a temporary situation, therefore clouding the reality of it. His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnily Robert Burns; The Cotter’s Saturday Night Cottage children are far from being objects of my compassion, for they live in the ‘country,’ which comprehensive word conveys delicious ideas of sun, fresh air, exercise, flowers, shady trees... My pity is reserved for their forlorn little brethren, doomed to breathe the unwholesome atmosphere of crowded manufactories, and close narrow alleys in populous cities. William Hone; Every-Day Book, 1826 The years 1788 – 1803 are described as ‘the golden age of this great trade” (cotton).
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