Unseeing and Unseen

The bright, intense range of colors in this watercolor is characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelite style, as is its extreme attention to naturalistic detail, which includes a careful description of the individual grains of the pomegranate on the ledge and the dots on the dominos scattered around the end of the wine barrel. The profound visibility of individual details provides a metaphorical contrast to the varying kinds of blindness, both physiological and moral, exhibited by the figures in the image. Smallfield’s vivid angel moves unseen through a collection of unseeing individuals that includes a blind musician and a drunkard who has fallen asleep in his wine.