ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the influences and intentions associated with George Frederic Watts's augmentation of sculptural scale and, in particular, and offers an alternative reading of Watts's admiration for Pheidias, who is constantly eulogized in his writings and recorded utterances. Watts's interest in sculpture also coincided with notable developments in sculptural production and criticism during the 1860s. Time and Oblivion never materialized as sculpture, remaining an isolated indication of an alternative plan for the House of Life. The heads and arms that are missing from the sculpture are replaced by Watts's own inventions. If Hugh Lupus was a questionable figure, Tennyson was irreproachable, and the sculpture more closely matched Watts's vision of public monuments of gigantic stature and national significance. The sculpture, of the Poet Laureate with his wolfhound Karenina, was also the first of Watts's offers to undertake public works for expenses only to be accepted.
