John William Waterhouse

Artist

• Born: April 6, 1849
• Birthplace: Rome, Italy
• Died: February 10, 1917
• Place of death: London, England

Education: Royal Academy of Arts

Significance: English painter John William Waterhouse was known for his Pre-Raphaelite style, an artistic technique that emulated the bright colors and noble themes of late medieval and early Renaissance art. Although the popularity of Pre-Raphaelite had peaked by the mid-nineteenth century, Waterhouse brought the style into the twentieth century with his popular images of Greek mythology and Arthurian romance.

Background

John William Waterhouse was born on April 6, 1849, in Rome when Italy still had a State of the Church ruled by the pope. He moved to England at age five, growing up in the South Kensington area of London. His family lived near many museums, and Waterhouse was exposed to a wide range of art from a very young age. Out of all the art he viewed, Waterhouse was especially attracted to classical imagery. His parents were artists and encouraged their son to draw and paint at a young age. Waterhouse often studied at his father's studio. When his mother died of tuberculosis in 1857, Waterhouse's father remarried Frederica Mary Jane Perceval, granddaughter of the assassinated British prime minister Spencer Perceval.

Waterhouse entered the Royal Academy of Arts in 1870 where he began studying sculpture. Some of his classmates included future renowned sculptors Alfred Gilbert and Hamo Thornycroft. Waterhouse exhibited some sculptures at the Society of British Artists in 1872, but he decided sculpting did not suit him and switched his focus to painting. He exhibited his first painting at the Royal Academy in 1874. Titled Sleep and His Half-Brother Death, the work depicted the figures of sleep and death from Greek mythology, and Waterhouse included symbolic objects throughout the painting. The subjects of Waterhouse's paintings often came from the poems and stories of writers such as Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, playwright William Shakespeare, and classical Greek author Homer. The artist took stylistic cues from the Pre-Raphaelite painters, whose bold colors and classical and medieval subject matter appealed to Waterhouse's tastes.

Life's Work

By the time Waterhouse was elected an associate member of the Royal Academy in 1885, he had earned many positive reviews for his work and even sold several of his paintings to collectors. His paintings toward the end of the decade often reflected the tragedies of love and death. His 1888 painting Ophelia depicted the tragic heroine of Shakespeare's Hamlet as she lies among flowers moments before drowning herself. Waterhouse presented this painting of Ophelia as the diploma piece for his graduation from the Royal Academy that year. The character of Ophelia became the subject of many of Waterhouse's paintings throughout his career, with later renditions being considered among his finest pieces.

The artist also exhibited his most famous painting to date, The Lady of Shalott, at the Royal Academy in 1888. The painting features a red-haired woman sitting in a boat as it floats through a marsh. The woman is the Arthurian figure Elaine of Astolat, whose unrequited love for Lancelot made her die of a broken heart. The Lady of Shalott is often praised for its precise detail and tragically romantic imagery. Waterhouse's career became known for such moving romanticism, and many of his paintings feature similar images of beautiful, idealized young women. The female beauty depicted in many of Waterhouse's paintings earned its own designation within popular culture, and critics often referred to similar artistic representations as "Waterhouse Girls."

Waterhouse became a full member of the Royal Academy in 1895. Although many artists had abandoned the themes and style of the Pre-Raphaelite movement by this time, Waterhouse continued to draft his work in the tradition. Alongside his romantically symbolic artistic compositions, Waterhouse also became a respected portrait painter for hire across the city. His portraits were featured in some of the most prominent households in England. Many of Waterhouse's artistic creations throughout the latter half of the 1890s featured depictions of famous dramatic heroines such as Shakespeare's Juliet and Ophelia. He also produced multiple works featuring female figures of Greek mythology including Pandora, Danae, the Nymphs, and the Sirens. His penchant for mythological themes multiplied throughout the twentieth century. He also began to include biblical themes in his repertoire.

Waterhouse was a definitive success throughout his career. Despite earning critical and commercial praise, some Victorian art critics found his work too sentimental and derivative of other artists' works. His style was often compared to earlier Pre-Raphaelite-inspired artists such as Frederic Leighton and Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who were also fond of using mythology as an artistic subject. Waterhouse continued to paint in his characteristic style until his death from cancer in 1917. He created more than two hundred paintings throughout his lifetime. He was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery in London. His wife continued to lend out his works for exhibit after his death.

Impact

Although a popular figure among Victorian artists and critics, Waterhouse has been repeatedly critiqued for his lack of originality. After falling into relative obscurity, Waterhouse's art regained popularity following World War I (1914–1918). By the twenty-first century, his paintings had become some of the most reproduced pieces of Victorian art, gracing the surfaces of thousands of commercial posters and postcards. In 2009, the Royal Academy of Arts staged a major retrospective of the artist's work.

Personal Life

Waterhouse married Esther Kenworthy in Ealing, West London, in 1883. The couple did not have children.

Principal Works: Paintings

• Sleep and His Half-Brother Death, 1874
• Consulting the Oracle, 1884
• Saint Eulalia, 1885
• The Lady of Shalott, 1888
• Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891
• Hylas and the Nymphs, 1896
• Echo and Narcissus, 1903
• Listening to His Sweet Pipings, 1911
• Tristan and Isolde, 1916

Bibliography

Dorment, Richard. "Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite, at the Royal Academy – Review." Telegraph, 29 June 2009, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/5688056/Waterhouse-the-modern-Pre-Raphaelite-at-the-Royal-Academy-review.html. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017.

Goldhill, Simon. Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity. Princeton UP, 2011.

"John William Waterhouse." Art Renewal Center. www.artrenewal.org/pages/artist.php?artistid=79. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017.

Meagher, Jennifer. "The Pre-Raphaelites" Metropolitan Museum of Art,www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/praf/hd‗praf.htm. Accessed 17 Feb. 2017.

Palmer, Allison Lee. Historical Dictionary of Romantic Art and Architecture. Scarecrow Press, 2011.