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Delphi Complete Paintings of John William Waterhouse (Illustrated)
The late Victorian artist John William Waterhouse produced stunning paintings of women from ancient mythology, Shakespearean drama and Arthurian legend. The darling of the Royal Academy, where he exhibited almost every year throughout his long career, Waterhouse completed artworks that were celebrated for their rich, glowing colour and veiled eroticism. Embracing the style of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had split up several decades before, Waterhouse depicted dramatic, beautiful and haunting female figures, perfecting his own vision of the all-powerful femme fatale. His paintings embrace a dreamy, romantic manner, with a sensuous handling of paint that gave them a unique identity. Delphi’s Masters of Art Series presents the world’s first digital e-Art books, allowing readers to explore the works of great artists in comprehensive detail. This volume presents Waterhouse’s complete paintings in beautiful detail, with concise introductions, hundreds of high quality images and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)
* The complete paintings of John William Waterhouse – over 250 images, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order
* Includes reproductions of rare early and late works
* Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information
* Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Waterhouse’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books
* Hundreds of images in colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smartphones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the paintings
* Easily locate the artworks you wish to view
The Highlights
Sleep and His Half-Brother Death (1874)
Miranda (1875)
After the Dance (1876)
Dolce Far Niente (1879)
The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius (1883)
Saint Eulalia (1885)
The Magic Circle (1886)
The Lady of Shalott (1888)
Ulysses and the Sirens (1891)
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1893)
Hylas and the Nymphs (1896)
A Mermaid (1900)
Echo and Narcissus (1903)
Penelope and the Suitors (1912)
The Decameron (1916)
The Paintings
The Complete Paintings
Alphabetical List of Paintings
* The complete paintings of John William Waterhouse – over 250 images, fully indexed and arranged in chronological and alphabetical order
* Includes reproductions of rare early and late works
* Features a special ‘Highlights’ section, with concise introductions to the masterpieces, giving valuable contextual information
* Enlarged ‘Detail’ images, allowing you to explore Waterhouse’s celebrated works in detail, as featured in traditional art books
* Hundreds of images in colour – highly recommended for viewing on tablets and smartphones or as a valuable reference tool on more conventional eReaders
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the paintings
* Easily locate the artworks you wish to view
The Highlights
Sleep and His Half-Brother Death (1874)
Miranda (1875)
After the Dance (1876)
Dolce Far Niente (1879)
The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius (1883)
Saint Eulalia (1885)
The Magic Circle (1886)
The Lady of Shalott (1888)
Ulysses and the Sirens (1891)
La Belle Dame sans Merci (1893)
Hylas and the Nymphs (1896)
A Mermaid (1900)
Echo and Narcissus (1903)
Penelope and the Suitors (1912)
The Decameron (1916)
The Paintings
The Complete Paintings
Alphabetical List of Paintings
- GenresArt
423 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 5, 2022
39 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Peter Russell
290 books79 followersPeter Russell M.A., D.C.S., is a British author of ten books and producer of three films on consciousness, spiritual awakening and their role in the future development of humanity. He has designed and taught personal development programs for businesses, and has remained a popular public speaker.
In 1965 he was awarded an Open Exhibition to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to study Mathematics. In 1969, he gained a First Class Honours in Theoretical Physics and Experimental Psychology. He then went to Rishikesh, India, where he trained as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In 1971, he gained a post-graduate degree in Computer Science. From 1971 to 1974, he studied for a Ph.D. on the psychophysiology of meditation at Bristol University.
In 1965 he was awarded an Open Exhibition to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, to study Mathematics. In 1969, he gained a First Class Honours in Theoretical Physics and Experimental Psychology. He then went to Rishikesh, India, where he trained as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In 1971, he gained a post-graduate degree in Computer Science. From 1971 to 1974, he studied for a Ph.D. on the psychophysiology of meditation at Bristol University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2022
I absolutely love John William Waterhouse's paintings, there are way too many to single out. He has many beautiful women in his themes that are mystical and romantic reminding me of John Everett Millais but indeed a master of his own.
"A leading member of the Royal Academy of Arts, John William Waterhouse was the son of two English painters, William and Isabella Waterhouse. He was born and baptised in Rome in 1849. As a child he had the Italian nickname ‘Nino’ (little John), which remained with him for the rest of his life. When he was five years old, the family returned to England and settled in Kensington, London, where his mother and two younger brothers later died of tuberculosis. In 1860 his father remarried and Waterhouse was sent to school in Leeds, where he became familiar with the world of Roman history for the first time. During this early period, he entertained hopes of becoming an engineer, due to his fine technical abilities in design work. On his return to London, he helped his father with portraits and by 1870 he had enrolled at the Academy Schools as a Probationer in sculpture. Six months later he was admitted as a full student and he began exhibiting at the Dudley Gallery. However, his submissions were not sculptures, but paintings. His destined path was finally settled."
"Sleep and His Half-Brother Death" 1874
"The painting was clearly important to Waterhouse, still in his early twenties, after the recent loss of two younger brothers to tuberculosis."
"In more ways than one, 1883 would prove to be a momentous year for Waterhouse. He married Esther Kenworthy (1857-1944), a woman eight years younger than him, who was from Ealing, West London, and an artist that specialised in flower pictures. Her father was also an artist and her mother was a school mistress. They were married at the parish church in Ealing and from then on she used the name Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse. Initially, they lived in a purpose built artistic colony in Primrose Hill, where the houses had studios. They remained childless and in 1900 they moved to St John’s Wood, a couple of miles northwest of central London. Esther continued to work, exhibiting her flower paintings at the Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of British Artists in London."
"In 1890 Waterhouse’s father died and for the first time in sixteen years the artist chose not to exhibit at the Royal Academy. As with so many aspects of Waterhouse’s life, there is no surviving documentation of what he did during this sudden break from tradition. It appears that the time was spent in quiet deliberation and soul-searching, as he set about a process of self-reinvention and reappraisal of the direction that his art would take. Aided by an enlightening visit to Italy the following year, on his return to London and the Academy exhibition in 1891, he presented the curious critics a fascinating new vision of a scene from Book XII of Homer’s Odyssey. Again it reveals the artist’s interest in the theme of a classical enchantress, set against the backdrop of a water scene."
"Waterhouse controversially presents the Sirens as bird-like creatures with women’s heads, differing from the contemporary practice of illustrating them more as mermaid-like nymphs. Capri was famous for its plentiful bird-life and so it is likely that studies in this area helped the artist in his original sketches. One of the sirens, occupying the most engaging section of the canvas, directly before the viewer in the lower centre, hovers closely over the red-turbaned crew member. He looks helplessly up at the creature, as her mouth opens with a cruel smile, preparing to either kiss or bite him. The choice is left to the uncertain viewer. Instead of graceful and seductive fairy like creature, many members of the original Victorian audience were horrified to be greeted by women presented as bird-like predators. In support of the artist at the time, the art critic Marion H. Spielmann pointed out that the idea of a Siren being a creature of a half-bird, half-woman appearance was actually found in extant depictions of Sirens on classical Greek vases from Athens. Waterhouse, ever the abstruse scholar, had done his work well. At the 1891 Royal Academy exhibition the canvas duly won critical acclaim for its novel and chilling representation of a time-old subject."
"La Belle Dame sans Merci was a popular subject for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, being illustrated by Frank Dicksee, Frank Cadogan Cowper, Arthur Hughes, Walter Crane and Henry Maynell Rheam. It concerns the 1819 ballad by the Romantic poet John Keats. The title was derived from the title of a fifteenth century poem by Alain Chartier. Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats’ poetic preoccupation with love and death. It tells of a fairy seductress, who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she enslaves him with her enchanting eyes and singing. The image of the fairy inspired several prominent examples of nineteenth-century femme fatale iconography."
Unbelievable! Good for Elizabeth Prettejohn! The madness to just cancel culture because it offends some!
"In January 2018 the Manchester Art Gallery temporarily removed the painting from public display, after a decision taken by gallery staff and the artist Sonia Boyce. This was influenced by recent movements against the objectification and exploitation of women, such as the MeToo campaign and the Presidents Club controversy. A furious backlash followed, when the art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn, who had previously curated a Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy, loudly called for the painting’s return. After one week, the Manchester City Council acceded and the canvas was placed on display once more."
I enjoyed Boccaccio's Decameron and love Waterhouse capturing the spirit!
"In 1916 Waterhouse exhibited his last painting at the Royal Academy, the year before his death. It was inspired by a scene in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353), which involves seven maidens and three youths that have fled the horrors of the Florentine plague of 1348 for a series of idyllic country retreats, where they pass the time by telling stories to one another. Clearly, this theme would have been comforting for the aged artist, suffering from cancer and embroiled in the horrors of World War I. The composition depicts the storytellers themselves, assembled in a beautiful garden described in Boccaccio’s introduction to the third day, where they gather by an ornately decorated fountain. As always, Waterhouse rejects a slavish replication of the source text, opting for a less grandiose garden, with a simple marble urn, conveying a more personal and relaxed mood. Boccaccio tells that for each day one of the characters acts as king or queen, wearing a laurel crown."
"In the novel, to pass the evenings, each member of the party of ten tells a story each night, except for one day per week for chores and the holy days during which they do no work at all. This results in ten nights of storytelling over the course of two weeks. By the end of the fortnight, they have told 100 stories. Hence, the title of the novel, which shows Boccaccio’s fondness for Greek philology: Decameron combines δέκα (ten) and ἡμέρα (day) to mean “ten-day event”. As we have seen before, Waterhouse was also interested in the significance of numbers. The storytellers in the foreground total up to the magic number of seven, but the painting shows only nine figures in all (with two in the background) — one short of Boccaccio’s group of ten. A memorandum preserved at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, where the painting hangs today, reveals that when Waterhouse was still at work on the composition, the dealer Arthur Tooth, who was handling its purchase by the soap magnate W. H. Lever, expected it to have ten figures on completion. It is still unclear if Waterhouse intended to only feature nine. A letter survives from the artist to Lever, dated 31 March 1916, warning him that it might not be ready for the exhibition, due to a model fleeing London for the country. Perhaps the artist decided to settle for nine figures to ensure it was ready for the exhibition; or, he may have been too unwell to add in the final figure."
"Waterhouse died on 10 February in 1917 after a long fight with cancer, leaving his final work, The Enchanted Garden, unfinished."
Can beauty ever be old-fashioned? I say not!
"His widow held a 100 lot studio sale at Christie’s in 1926, when Waterhouse’s work was deemed so old-fashioned that the 1889 Ophelia sold for only £450. His almost unchanging style and subject matter had gone out of vogue with the Modern trends of the early twentieth century."
"A leading member of the Royal Academy of Arts, John William Waterhouse was the son of two English painters, William and Isabella Waterhouse. He was born and baptised in Rome in 1849. As a child he had the Italian nickname ‘Nino’ (little John), which remained with him for the rest of his life. When he was five years old, the family returned to England and settled in Kensington, London, where his mother and two younger brothers later died of tuberculosis. In 1860 his father remarried and Waterhouse was sent to school in Leeds, where he became familiar with the world of Roman history for the first time. During this early period, he entertained hopes of becoming an engineer, due to his fine technical abilities in design work. On his return to London, he helped his father with portraits and by 1870 he had enrolled at the Academy Schools as a Probationer in sculpture. Six months later he was admitted as a full student and he began exhibiting at the Dudley Gallery. However, his submissions were not sculptures, but paintings. His destined path was finally settled."
"Sleep and His Half-Brother Death" 1874
"The painting was clearly important to Waterhouse, still in his early twenties, after the recent loss of two younger brothers to tuberculosis."
"In more ways than one, 1883 would prove to be a momentous year for Waterhouse. He married Esther Kenworthy (1857-1944), a woman eight years younger than him, who was from Ealing, West London, and an artist that specialised in flower pictures. Her father was also an artist and her mother was a school mistress. They were married at the parish church in Ealing and from then on she used the name Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse. Initially, they lived in a purpose built artistic colony in Primrose Hill, where the houses had studios. They remained childless and in 1900 they moved to St John’s Wood, a couple of miles northwest of central London. Esther continued to work, exhibiting her flower paintings at the Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of British Artists in London."
"In 1890 Waterhouse’s father died and for the first time in sixteen years the artist chose not to exhibit at the Royal Academy. As with so many aspects of Waterhouse’s life, there is no surviving documentation of what he did during this sudden break from tradition. It appears that the time was spent in quiet deliberation and soul-searching, as he set about a process of self-reinvention and reappraisal of the direction that his art would take. Aided by an enlightening visit to Italy the following year, on his return to London and the Academy exhibition in 1891, he presented the curious critics a fascinating new vision of a scene from Book XII of Homer’s Odyssey. Again it reveals the artist’s interest in the theme of a classical enchantress, set against the backdrop of a water scene."
"Waterhouse controversially presents the Sirens as bird-like creatures with women’s heads, differing from the contemporary practice of illustrating them more as mermaid-like nymphs. Capri was famous for its plentiful bird-life and so it is likely that studies in this area helped the artist in his original sketches. One of the sirens, occupying the most engaging section of the canvas, directly before the viewer in the lower centre, hovers closely over the red-turbaned crew member. He looks helplessly up at the creature, as her mouth opens with a cruel smile, preparing to either kiss or bite him. The choice is left to the uncertain viewer. Instead of graceful and seductive fairy like creature, many members of the original Victorian audience were horrified to be greeted by women presented as bird-like predators. In support of the artist at the time, the art critic Marion H. Spielmann pointed out that the idea of a Siren being a creature of a half-bird, half-woman appearance was actually found in extant depictions of Sirens on classical Greek vases from Athens. Waterhouse, ever the abstruse scholar, had done his work well. At the 1891 Royal Academy exhibition the canvas duly won critical acclaim for its novel and chilling representation of a time-old subject."
"La Belle Dame sans Merci was a popular subject for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, being illustrated by Frank Dicksee, Frank Cadogan Cowper, Arthur Hughes, Walter Crane and Henry Maynell Rheam. It concerns the 1819 ballad by the Romantic poet John Keats. The title was derived from the title of a fifteenth century poem by Alain Chartier. Considered an English classic, the poem is an example of Keats’ poetic preoccupation with love and death. It tells of a fairy seductress, who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she enslaves him with her enchanting eyes and singing. The image of the fairy inspired several prominent examples of nineteenth-century femme fatale iconography."
Unbelievable! Good for Elizabeth Prettejohn! The madness to just cancel culture because it offends some!
"In January 2018 the Manchester Art Gallery temporarily removed the painting from public display, after a decision taken by gallery staff and the artist Sonia Boyce. This was influenced by recent movements against the objectification and exploitation of women, such as the MeToo campaign and the Presidents Club controversy. A furious backlash followed, when the art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn, who had previously curated a Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy, loudly called for the painting’s return. After one week, the Manchester City Council acceded and the canvas was placed on display once more."
I enjoyed Boccaccio's Decameron and love Waterhouse capturing the spirit!
"In 1916 Waterhouse exhibited his last painting at the Royal Academy, the year before his death. It was inspired by a scene in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353), which involves seven maidens and three youths that have fled the horrors of the Florentine plague of 1348 for a series of idyllic country retreats, where they pass the time by telling stories to one another. Clearly, this theme would have been comforting for the aged artist, suffering from cancer and embroiled in the horrors of World War I. The composition depicts the storytellers themselves, assembled in a beautiful garden described in Boccaccio’s introduction to the third day, where they gather by an ornately decorated fountain. As always, Waterhouse rejects a slavish replication of the source text, opting for a less grandiose garden, with a simple marble urn, conveying a more personal and relaxed mood. Boccaccio tells that for each day one of the characters acts as king or queen, wearing a laurel crown."
"In the novel, to pass the evenings, each member of the party of ten tells a story each night, except for one day per week for chores and the holy days during which they do no work at all. This results in ten nights of storytelling over the course of two weeks. By the end of the fortnight, they have told 100 stories. Hence, the title of the novel, which shows Boccaccio’s fondness for Greek philology: Decameron combines δέκα (ten) and ἡμέρα (day) to mean “ten-day event”. As we have seen before, Waterhouse was also interested in the significance of numbers. The storytellers in the foreground total up to the magic number of seven, but the painting shows only nine figures in all (with two in the background) — one short of Boccaccio’s group of ten. A memorandum preserved at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, where the painting hangs today, reveals that when Waterhouse was still at work on the composition, the dealer Arthur Tooth, who was handling its purchase by the soap magnate W. H. Lever, expected it to have ten figures on completion. It is still unclear if Waterhouse intended to only feature nine. A letter survives from the artist to Lever, dated 31 March 1916, warning him that it might not be ready for the exhibition, due to a model fleeing London for the country. Perhaps the artist decided to settle for nine figures to ensure it was ready for the exhibition; or, he may have been too unwell to add in the final figure."
"Waterhouse died on 10 February in 1917 after a long fight with cancer, leaving his final work, The Enchanted Garden, unfinished."
Can beauty ever be old-fashioned? I say not!
"His widow held a 100 lot studio sale at Christie’s in 1926, when Waterhouse’s work was deemed so old-fashioned that the 1889 Ophelia sold for only £450. His almost unchanging style and subject matter had gone out of vogue with the Modern trends of the early twentieth century."
Displaying 1 of 1 review