“Ophelia” (1889)
This lovely oil on canvas painting is by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist, John William Waterhouse, from 1889 and is titled “Ophelia”. Ophelia is, of course, the potential love interest in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. She famously goes mad after the death of her father and suffers an untimely death herself after she climbs into a willow tree and a branch breaks, dropping her into a brook in Denmark where she drowns.
She was a favorite subject for many nineteenth century artists including Richard Redgrave, John Everett Millais, Arthur Hughes, Thomas Francis Dicksee, and of course, John William Waterhouse.
This particular painting depicts Ophelia lying in a field with a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers in her hand. In Ophelia’s last scene in the play, after she goes crazy, she is handing out flowers and singing, which this painting is likely in reference to. The stream which she ends up drowning in is visible in the background.
Waterhouse was deeply interested in rendering his own interpretations of literary and mythological figures. This piece was the painting that Waterhouse submitted to the Royal Academy of Art in order to graduate.
The Academy recorded notes on “Ophelia” after it was submitted which read:
“Ophelia lying in the grass, with the wild flowers she has gathered in the folds of her dress. In one hand she holds a bunch of buttercups; in her rich brown hair, which half hides her face, is a coronet of daisies; in the background through the willow-stems a stream winds, and swallows fly low in the air.”
Ophelia was a favorite subject of Waterhouse, and he painted her three times, in 1889, 1894, and 1910. Waterhouse had planned to paint a fourth in what he called the ‘Ophelia series’. Each version gets the viewer closer to her tragic end. When Waterhouse died, he was actively working on the fourth Ophelia painting. The English composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, is a huge collector of John William Waterhouse works and Victorian art in general, and his collection includes this 1889 rendition of Ophelia as well as the 1910 version.
“Ophelia” (1889) is currently in a private collection.
For more on John William Waterhouse, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
