"Diogenes of Sinope, also known as Diogenes the Cynic, was a Greek philosopher, born in Sinope (modern day Turkey) about 412 BC.
He was exiled from his native city and moved to Athens, becoming a beggar who made a virtue of extreme poverty.
He is said to have lived in a large tub, rather than a house, and to have walked through the streets carrying a lamp in the daytime, claiming to be looking for an honest man.
He eventually settled in Corinth where he continued to pursue the Cynic ideal of self-sufficiency: a life which was natural and not dependent upon the luxuries of civilization.
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.
jenray
Pro 
what more can I say about Waterhouse's pictures, except that I find them magical...
Not entirely at home with realism but his subject matter makes his realism entirely something else...moves you into another world brilliantly...GBHs...XXX