1890년대의 워터하우스 그림 모음

At Capri

painting date: 1890
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 84 x 47 cm

 

Also known as 'Alfresco Toilet at Capri' or 'The Toilet'.

 

 

 

 

 

Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses

painting date: 1891
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 149 x 92 cm
location: Oldham Art Gallery, Oldham, England

 

On his return from the Trojan War, Ulysses sailed to the fantastic island of Aeaea inhabited by Circe, a beautiful but powerful sorceress. The land was crawling with swine, the metamorphosed forms of men seduced by her potent herbal brews.

Ulysses lost his entire crew to her charms, but armed with moly, a herb given to him by Hermes, he was able to withstand her spells and force her to release his men from their bestial shape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flora

painting date: 1891
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 73 x 33 cm (28 3/4 x 13 in)

 

Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1891.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ulysses and the Sirens

painting date: 1891
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 100 x 201.7 cm
location: National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

A siren in Greek mythology was a creature half bird and half woman who lured sailors to destruction by the sweetness of her song. According to Homer there were two Sirens on an island in the western sea between Aeaea and the rocks of Scylla. Later the number was usually increased to three, and they were located on the west coast of Italy, near Naples. They were variously said to be the daughters of the sea god Phorcys or of the river god Achelous.

The Greek hero Odysseus (English: Ulysses), advised by the sorceress Circe, escaped the danger of their song by stopping the ears of his crew with wax so that they were deaf to the Sirens; yet he was able to hear the music and had himself tied to the mast so that he could not steer the ship out of course. Another story relates that when the Argonauts sailed that way, Orpheus sang so divinely that none of them listened to the Sirens. In later legend, after one or other of these failures the Sirens committed suicide. In art they appeared first as birds with the heads of women, later as women, sometimes winged, with bird legs.

The Sirens seem to have evolved from a primitive tale of the perils of early exploration combined with an Oriental image of a bird-woman. Anthropologists explain the Oriental image as a soul-bird--i.e., a winged ghost that stole the living to share its fate. In that respect the Sirens had affinities with the Harpies.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Circe Invidiosa

painting date: 1892
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 180.7 x 87.4 cm
location: Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Danaë

painting date: 1892
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 84 x 130 cm

 

B/w only. This painting was stolen from the home of its New York owner in October 1947.

In Greek mythology Dana? was the mother of the Greek hero Perseus and the daughter of Acrisius, king of Argos in the Pelopennese. It had been foretold that her son would cause the death of Acrisius, so he locked her in a bronze tower. But Zeus visited her as a shower of golden rain and Perseus was conceived. The king banished the mother and son by locking them in a chest which he then cast out to sea.

Waterhouse's painting illustrates their rescue from the chest by King Polydectes.

The myth continues that later, seeing Perseus as an obstacle to his love for Dana?, King Polydectes sent him to fetch the head of the Gorgon Medusa. The gods aided Perseus, and he slew Medusa. Fleeing from the other Gorgons, Perseus was refused aid by Atlas who was turned into a stone mountain by Medusa's head. on his way home, Perseus rescued Andromeda and married her. Later, while competing in a discus contest, Perseus accidentally killed Acrisius, thus fulfilling the prophecy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mermaid (Study)

painting date: 1892

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hamadryad

painting date: 1893
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 160 x 61 cm
location: City of Plymouth Art Gallery, Plymouth, England

 

In Greek mythology, nymphs were any of a large class of inferior female divinities. The nymphs were usually associated with fertile, growing things, such as trees, or with water. They were not immortal but were extremely long-lived and were on the whole kindly disposed toward men. They were distinguished according to the sphere of nature with which they were connected. The Oceanids, for example, were sea nymphs; the Nereids inhabited both saltwater and freshwater; the Naiads presided over springs, rivers, and lakes. The Oreads (oros, "mountain") were nymphs of mountains and grottoes; the Napaeae (nape, "dell") and the Alseids (alsos, "grove") were nymphs of glens and groves; the Dryads or Hamadryads presided over forests and trees.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Naiad

painting date: 1893
medium: Oil on canvas
location: Private Collection

 

Also known as 'Hylas with a Nymph'.

'The Naiad has just risen, nude, from the stream, and peers between the willow stems at a sleeping youth, who lies half covered with a leopard skin on the bank. Two green water-lily leaves confine the water-nymph's red tresses. Harmony of pink and green, relieved by blue light on the water. Large oblong picture.'
(From catalogue notes written by Henry Blackburn when the painting was exhibited at the New Gallery in 1893).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

painting date: 1893
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 112 x 81 cm
location: Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany

 

This painting is based on La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats.

It illustrates the lines:

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz'd and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes - 
So kiss'd to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Field Flowers

painting date: 1894

 

This is an 1894 etching by André & Sleigh of the original oil painting of 'Field Flowers' (1894, 29 x 17 in) by Waterhouse (unlocated).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mrs. Charles Newton-Robinson

painting date: 1894
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 56 x 39 in (142 x 99 cm)

 

The current location of this painting is unknown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ophelia

painting date: 1894
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 49 x 29 in
location: Private Collection

 

Ophelia is the daughter of Polonius, sister to Laertes, and rejected lover of Hamlet in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. Ophelia is a symbol of innocence gone mad. A dutiful daughter, she is manipulated into spying on Hamlet and must bear his humiliating and brutal remarks. She believes him to be mad, commenting sadly "O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown." Having lost Hamlet's affection, she herself goes mad when her father is killed by Hamlet. Her mad scene (act IV, scene 5) is one of the best known in Western literature. Her madness and death and Hamlet's behaviour at her graveside further inflame Laertes to vengeance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lady of Shalott

painting date: 1894
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 142 x 86 cm
location: City Art Gallery, Leeds, England

 

This painting is based on The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

It illustrates the lines:

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
    She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
    The Lady of Shalott. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lady of Shalott (Study)

painting date: 1894
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 47 x 27 in
location: Falmouth Art Gallery, Falmouth, Cornwall, England

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phyllis, younger daughter of E A Waterlow, Esq

painting date: 1895
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 156 x 90 cm
location: Private Collection

 

When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, its title was 'Phyllis, younger daughter of E.A. Waterlow, Esq., A.R.A.'. By 1909, in the Christmas number of the Art Journal dedicated to Waterhouse, it was listed as 'Phyllis, younger daughter of Sir E.A. Waterlow, R.A.'. In Peter Trippi's recent Waterhouse monograph, it's listed simply as 'Phyllis Waterlow'.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Cecilia

painting date: 1895
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 46 x 77 in
location: Private Collection (Lord Lloyd Webber), UK

Cecilia lived in Rome around 230 AD. She is famous for taking a lifelong vow of chastity which she kept despite her enforced marriage. She converted her husband to Christianity and both suffered martyrdom. In medieval times, a misreading of her Acts led to her connection with church music and when the Academy of Music was established at Rome in 1584, she was adopted as its patroness. Her saint's day is celebrated on 22 November.

This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1895, with the quotation from Tennyson's 'The Palace of Art':

'In a clear walled city on the sea.
Near gilded organ pipes - slept St. Cecily'.

A reviewer in The Art Journal wrote:
'.. in St Cecilia, the important work which represents nearly two years unremitting toil and experiment, the aim is wholly decorative, the colour superb, and the painting swift and direct; that of a man who has reached his goal. The feeling is entirely mediaeval... The effect is decorative first, then somewhat ecclesiastic; entirely removed from realism and the world of our daily life.'

This painting was auctioned in June 2000 and fetched a world-record price for a Victorian painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Shrine

painting date: 1895
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 88 x 42 cm
location: Private Collection

 

 

 

 

Hylas and the Nymphs

painting date: 1896
medium: Oil on canvas
size: 38 x 64 in
location: Manchester City Art Galleries, Manchester, England

 

When the ship of the Argonauts reached the island of Cios, Hylas, the young and handsome companion of Hercules, was sent ashore in search of water. He discovered a fountain, but the nymphs of the place were so enchanted by his beauty that they pulled him to the depths of their watery abode, and in spite of the cries of Hercules which made the shores reverberate with the name Hylas, the young man was never seen again.

The Magazine of Art thought this painting equalled 'the highest qualities of Sir Edward Burne-Jones at his most delightful period ... a spirit of real poetry pervades the canvas'.

The Art Journal thought it 'a combination of the better attributes and intentions of Leighton and Burne-Jones.