John William Waterhouse: The Complete Story
John William Waterhouse was the English painter of doomed heroines and enchantresses, the last great romantic of the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. The Lady of Shalott drifting to her death, Circe offering a poisoned cup, nymphs luring a young man into a pool. He painted myth and poetry with such dreamy beauty that his pictures are still some of the most reproduced in the world.
He arrived a generation after the original Pre-Raphaelites, and fused their jewel like detail with a softer, moodier touch all his own.
Born: Rome, 1849, to English painters
Known for: literary and mythological women, dreamy romanticism
Died: London, 1917
The last Pre-Raphaelite
The original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had formed back in 1848. Waterhouse came later, but carried their love of literature, nature and beautiful melancholy into the new century. Critics call him a modern Pre-Raphaelite. See what is Pre-Raphaelite art.
He painted detailed flowers and fabrics like them, but loosened his brush, giving his scenes a soft, atmospheric haze closer to Symbolism.
Women from myth and verse
His great subject was the heroine from poetry and legend, usually at a moment of fate. The Lady of Shalott, from Tennyson, floats down the river to her death. Circe and the Sirens use beauty as a weapon. Ophelia sinks among the flowers.
He returned again and again to the same red haired, faraway eyed woman, a type so recognisable it is simply called the Waterhouse woman.
Hylas, and a modern controversy
His Hylas and the Nymphs shows a young man being pulled into a pond by a circle of beautiful water spirits. In 2018 a Manchester gallery briefly removed it to spark debate about how such images present women, then put it back after public uproar.
The episode showed how alive these century old paintings still are, and how differently each age reads them.
Common questions about Waterhouse
What is John William Waterhouse famous for?
Dreamy paintings of women from myth and poetry, like The Lady of Shalott and Circe.
Was he a Pre-Raphaelite?
A later one, often called a modern Pre-Raphaelite.
What is the Waterhouse woman?
His recurring red haired, wistful female type, drawn from a favourite model.
Why Waterhouse still casts a spell
Waterhouse turned old stories into images so beautiful they bypass the brain and go straight to the mood. Put The Lady of Shalott on a wall and a whole world of doomed romance comes with it. That is why the posters never stop selling.
A final detail. He exhibited at the Royal Academy for over forty years, yet kept almost no record of his own life, leaving the wistful women on his canvases to speak for a man who stayed in the shadows.