Why This Is Hell

JW Waterhouse
Royal Academy, London
W1
Until 13 September

John William Waterhouse was born in 1849 in Rome, and came to maturity in the second half of the 19th century, the period that Arnold is presumably talking about in Culture and Anarchy - ongoing struggles over home rule in Ireland, the dominance of the Anglican church of public life (including the universities), a series of bill extending the franchise and riots in Hyde Park and so forth.

Initially Waterhouse turns to Biblical, Classical and supernatural themes - the ruins of Rome and Greece can be restored as backdrops for obscure emperors (with the Visigoths ready to sack Rome off stage) or Diogenes. He clearly feels no need to be faith to details - his martyrdom of St Eulalia is far too clean. There are striking images - Magic Circle, although its framing seems off with the circle off the edge of the canvas, and bird chopped in half. (Waterhouse likes painting birds, I assume.)

Most famous is the Lady of Shallott, although I only remember the bit about the mirror and the tower, not the boat, although that takes up a third of the poem. There are other painting of classical scenes, some inspired by Tennyson, others by Shelley or Keats. The brush strokes are often broad, the sailors with Ulysses almost more suggested more than depicted. There's a circle motif being repeated - the Magic Circle, the barrel, and here a mirror showing the back of the head of Circe and the gazing figure, Odysseus. (There's a painting of Narcissus, too.) At this point, there is an overwhelming sense of ... Athena. But without the tennis player scratching her bum.

There's a turning here to a sense of Edward Burne-Jones as an influence - quasi-medieval scenes, with repeated pictures of the same woman. I think I prefer the Burne-Jones and the William Morris.

What is shocking here, is a sudden realisation of the dates which is emphasised by my current as yet unexplained interest in 1910-1940 painting. Take these two images:

It's the middle of the First World War, Waterhouse is dying of cancer and - one of these images seems awkwardly consolatory. And the two seem centuries apart.


I'm glad I saw this exhibition - which was cramped and crowded, certainly compared to the excellent Summer show - but his paintings really don't do it for me.