WATERHOUSE, John William - b. 1849 Roma, d. 1917 London

English painter. His father was a minor English painter working in Rome. Waterhouse entered the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1870. He exhibited at the Society of British Artists from 1872 and at the Royal Academy from 1874. From 1877 to the 1880s he regularly travelled abroad, particularly to Italy. In the early 1870s he had produced a few uncharacteristic Orientalist ‘keepsake’ paintings, but most of his works in this period are scenes from ancient history or classical genre subjects, similar to the work of Lawrence Alma-Tadema (e.g. Consulting the Oracle, c. 1882; London, Tate). However, Waterhouse consistently painted on a larger scale than Alma-Tadema. His brushwork is bolder, his sunlight casts harsher shadows and his history paintings are more dramatic.

In 1883 he married Esther Kenworthy, the daughter of an art schoolmaster from Ealing who had exhibited her own flower-paintings at the Royal Academy and elsewhere. They did not have any children. In 1895 Waterhouse was elected to the status of full Academician. He taught at the St. John’s Wood Art School, joined the St John’s Wood Arts Club, and served on the Royal Academy Council.

He was known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century, leading him to have gained the moniker of “the modern Pre-Raphaelite”. Borrowing stylistic influences not only from the earlier Pre-Raphaelites but also from his contemporaries, the Impressionists, his artworks were known for their depictions of women from both ancient Greek mythology and Arthurian legend. One of Waterhouse’s most famous paintings is The Lady of Shalott.

The Lady of Shalott

Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott depicts a scene from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s 1832 poem of the same title, in which the poet describes the plight of a young woman isolated under an undisclosed curse in a tower near King Arthur’s Camelot. It is typically Pre-Raphaelite in that it illustrates a vulnerable and doomed woman and is bathed in natural early-evening light. The lady is portrayed staring away from the crucifix, which sits beside three candles. During the late nineteenth century, candles were often used to symbolise life: in this image, two have blown out.

According to legend, the Lady of Shalott was forbidden to look directly at reality or the outside world; instead she was doomed to view the world through a mirror, and weave what she saw into tapestry. One day the Lady saw Sir Lancelot passing on his way in the reflection of the mirror, and dared to look out at Camelot, bringing about a curse. The lady escaped by boat during an autumn storm. As she sailed towards Camelot and certain death, she sang a lament. Her frozen body was found shortly afterwards by the knights and ladies of Camelot, one of whom is Lancelot, who prayed to God to have mercy on her soul. The tapestry she wove during her imprisonment was found draped over the side of the boat.

Waterhouse painted three different versions of this character, in 1888, 1894 and 1916.

Tennyson’s verse was popular with many of the Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters, and was illustrated by such artists as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Maw Egley, and William Holman Hunt.