Victorian Art in Britain

  The Lady of Shallott 1894  by J W Waterhouse

 

 
General opinion seems to be that the nineties were the peak of Waterhouse’s career, though the writer sees little evidence of decline in his later work. The subject of this picture is an earlier verse than the one I mention above, actually from Part 111 of the famous Tennyson poem, which is its pivotal climactic moment. The lady decides to join the real world, and of course to die. The verse is reproduced in full below  

‘She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water- lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;  
The mirror cracked from side to side;
‘The curse is come upon me,’ 
cried The Lady of Shalott.’

The Lady has left her loom, and is rising from her seat and looking towards the viewer, and is, of course, heading for the window to see the world at first hand. Sir Lancelot can be seen riding past in the infamous mirror.  The dramatic image of the Lady, still with the threads around her legs from the loom dominates the painting.

Buy print on canvas from Illusions Gallery

 

Location :  Leeds City Art Gallery