George Frederic Watts
![](/Images/godic/202502/20/Watts_George_Frederic1838.jpeg")
![Miss May Prinsep](/Images/godic/202502/20/Miss_May_Prinsep_by_George_Frederic_Watts1838.jpeg")
![Hope, painted in 1886 and given to the nation in 1897](/Images/godic/202502/20/Assistants_and_George_Frederic_Watts_-_Hope_-_Google_Art_Project1838.jpg")
![Detail of Physical Energy at Rhodes Memorial in Cape Town, South Africa.](/Images/godic/202502/20/Cape_Town_Rhodes_memorial_energy_statue1838.jpg")
- Not to be confused with George Fiddes Watt.
George Frederic Watts OM RA (London 23 February 1817 – 1 July 1904) was a popular English Victorian painter and sculptor associated with the Symbolist movement. He said "I paint ideas, not things." Watts became famous in his lifetime for his allegorical works, such as Hope and Love and Life. These paintings were intended to form part of an epic symbolic cycle called the "House of Life", in which the emotions and aspirations of life would all be represented in a universal symbolic language.