John William Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse is by far one of my favourite artists. He was a Pre-Raphaelite painter from Britain; born in 1849 and died in 1917. Most of his paintings focus on characters from literature and mythology; he painted well over 200 paintings in his life. His most well known pieces are probably his paintings of the Lady of Shalott and Ophelia.

Waterhouse studied at the Royal Academy schools, proceeding to become a member of the Royal Academician in 1895. He also taught at the St. John's Wood Art School.

Waterhouse painted this interpretation to Tennyson's Lady of Shalott poem in 1888. It depicts Elaine of Astolat, a figure familiar to those who know their Arthurian legends. She is a cursed woman - if she looks directly at Camelot, she will meet her doom, so she spends her time looking at the reflection of the outside world through her mirror. When she sees Lancelot through, she decides to leave her tower, even though to do so will bring about her death; thus she floats in a boat towards Camelot, where she ends up dying. This painting shows Elaine on her way to Camelot.

You can tell that she knows she's on her way to her death; the emotion depicted in her posture and her facial expressions are raw. You can practically feel the breeze on the water as it's lightly blowing her hair. The attention to detail in this work is fascinating - it makes you feel as if you were really there witnessing the Lady of Shalott floating past you on the river.

This is the first of three versions of the Lady of Shalott that Waterhouse painted in his life.

This is one of Waterhouse's depictions of Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is oil on canvas, 49"x29", dated at 1894.

Ophelia is another one of those characters who is fairly universally recognizable in literature. She was the love interest of Hamlet, a man who wasn't only mad but who also kills her father; she is driven to insanity only to end up drowning herself.

Waterhouse has excelled at portraying the emotions that this young girl must be feeling; there is a hint of chaos in the way she is holding herself after learning about her father's death.

The colours in this painting really help to bring it all across; the blue of the dress and the muted greens and browns present you with a sense of calm, which is thrown slightly out of balance by the bright, vibrant red of the flowers in Ophelia's hair.

A good portion of Waterhouse's paintings portray the same sort of women; a reoccurring theme with him is women who are doomed to die or who made tragic mistakes - Ariadne, Pandora, Juliet and Narcissus are a couple of other examples.

It should come as no surprise that Waterhouse was an influence for many other artists in the Pre-Raphaelite era.

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