Webmaster: Laurie L. Adams
| John
William Waterhouse has to be my favorite artist. Ever
since I visited a website years ago and viewed the haunting beauty
of the women Waterhouse painted of long ago, I have been a fan. I
have put together a gallery
on this site of some of my favorite works of his. John William Waterhouse was born in Rome in 1849. This early baptism in Italy's classical heritage was to have a profound effect on his life's work, immersing his art in ancient myth and literary allegory. Throughout his schooldays, Waterhouse's artistic talent lay dormant, but his young mind was constantly nourished on a diet of ancient history which he read voraciously. It was while working as an apprentice in his father's art studio that Waterhouse's ability as a painter emerged and he gained entrance as a scholar into the Royal Academy, London. Throughout his career he won acclaim as a masterful storyteller, with an instinctive gift for suspending the viewer at the most striking moment of the narrative. His numerous paintings of historical, mythical and literary episodes embroider the original tales with imagery from his own fertile imagination. Waterhouse's most productive years were spent at his Primrose Hill Studios in London, where he populated his canvases with haunting compositions of young, waif-like models. Once he had found his style, he stuck to it for the rest of his life. Waterhouse was a quiet and retiring man, not particularly ambitious for worldly honors. He lived a blameless and quiet life in St. John's Wood, happily married, and not seeming to care much for artistic factions, preferring to devote himself only to his work. He continued to paint until his death in 1917, leaving a rich legacy of archetypal Victorian images - particularly of wistful female beauties. His somewhat neglected grave can be found at Kensal Green Cemetery in London. |
