Burne-Jones original
treatment of this subject was as a watercolour. It was displayed
at the Royal Watercolour Society in the early 1870s, where it was
widely held to be indecent, & the painter withdrew the picture,
& resigned from the Society. The portrayal
of nudes at this time in the nineteenth century was a minefield,
& it is not easy for us to understand today why certain pictures
were acceptable, & others were not. To attempt to explain why
this picture was not acceptable, there are three points to be made.
Firstly the woman appears as the sexual aggressor. Secondly male
& female nudes are shown together. Thirdly the female is obviously
modelled on Maria Zambaco, with whom the painter had a scandalous,
& well known affair in the 1870s. Incidentally Burne-Jones as
an honourable, & decent man, found himself in far deeper water
than an habitual Lothario would have done. In this version of the
picture the male nude, Demophoon, has his modesty preserved by a highly improbable piece of gauze! For all
this, the picture remains a supreme example of the artists work.
Buy
print on canvas from Illusions Gallery
Buy print from Easyart (UK)
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