ART FOR ART'S SAKE

Here is one of Waterhouse's last paintings.

His art continues to bring joy and inspiration to so many.

The Enchanted Garden
J.W. Waterhouse 1916

'He created this haven of warmth in the winter of his life, but almost unwittingly imbued it with a deeper meaning.

Past the Dantesque guardian at the entrance, the snow is falling on the steps: it gathers on the entablature above the rounded Renaissance arches which evoke the Italy of his birth, and a few flakes are seen against the shadows of the arcade.

But in the garden the roses bloom; one of the girls bends to inhale their scent, and the poppies presage a quiet oblivion. Roses and snow together sum up the duality of desire and restraint in all his work, and because poetry was ever-present in his life, he must also have had Tennyson's Arthur in mind, and 'the island-valley of Avilion, where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow. Nor ever wind blows loudly'.'

(Anthony Hobson, J. W. Waterhouse, Phaidon 1989}

Yesterday Waterhouse presented us with a wood nymph and today he brings us another tree figure - Daphne.

The interesting story behind the painting is from ancient Greek mythology.

John William Waterhouse
Apollo and Daphne - 1908

The curse of Apollo, the god of the sun and music, was brought onto him when he insulted the young Eros for playing with bow and arrows.

Since Apollo could no longer take her as his wife, he vowed to tend her as his tree, and used his powers of eternal youth to render her ever green. Since then the leaves of the Bay laurel tree have never known decay.

One traditional symbolic meaning of the female nude is a Nature spirit. One of these, the Hamadryad, represents a stand of oaks.

The Hamadryad is noble, robust, and fertile, full of potential: She oversees the health and wisdom of her trees. The trees are a domain - a place - a graceful, wild, wise, and magic place where people go to meet God, to meet themselves. Hamadryads were depicted as Nature's seductive playmates; humans partook of their pleasures, solace and wisdom.

Hamadryads perish when their trees die, or suffer when their trees are defiled - their context destroyed, they lose their purpose. Because of rampant overdevelopment, our endowment - the Nature Symbols - is being systematically disembodied, along with Nature itself.

(Alzofon Art Institute: Explanatory Comment)

A Hamadryad

John William Waterhouse 1895

This painting by Waterhouse illustrates the poem 'Echo and Narcissus by Ovid.

Echo was a nymph. She was in love with Narcissus but he became so enamoured with his own reflection in a stream that he was fixated by the image, and Echo wasted away through unrequited love, all that remained was the 'echo' of her voice.

To punish Narcissus he was transformed into a flower of the same name by the gods.

Echo and Narcissus
John William Waterhouse 1903

"One year Narcissus, the son of Cephisus, had reached sixteen and might seem both boy and youth.

Many youths, and many young girls desired him. But there was such intense pride in that delicate form that none of the youths or young girls affected him.

One day the nymph Echo saw him, driving frightened deer into his nets, she of the echoing voice, who cannot be silent when others have spoken, nor learn how to speak first herself.

By chance, the boy, separated from his faithful band of followers, had called out "Is anyone here?" and "Here" Echo replied. He is astonished,
and glances everywhere, and shouts in a loud voice "Come to me!"

Flat on the ground, he contemplates two stars, his eyes, and his hair, fit for Bacchus, fit for Apollo, his youthful cheeks and ivory neck, the beauty of his face, the rose-flush mingled in the whiteness of snow, admiring everything for which he is himself admired. Unknowingly he desires himself,"

(Ovid)

"Diogenes of Sinope, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher, born in Sinope (modern day Turkey) about 412 BC.

Believing that virtue was better revealed in action and not theory, his life was a relentless campaign to debunk the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society." (From Wikipedia)

DIOGENES
J.W. Waterhouse 1905

In Diogenes we again see the force of the aesthetic ideal on Waterhouse.

Diogenes, an ancient ascetic philosopher dressed in dull rags, contrasts heavily with the richly decorated, colorful, frivolous looking young ladies on the steps.

Yet, amidst the accurate classical architecture and symbolically
constructed costumes, Waterhouse places strangely Japanese parasols.

Indeed, it appears as though Waterhouse may have chosen this round sun shade to echo and contrast with the circular tub in which Diogenes sits.