Boreas, that is a strange sounding name, not often spoken these days, except in terms like aurora borealis. That of course conjures up images of the cold of the far north and the lands of the northern lights. In fact, Boreas is the name of the ancient Greek God of the North Wind, who carried off the daughter of the king of Athens. He took her off to live with him in Thrace, where they became the king and queen of the winds. In Waterhouse’s painting we see old Boreas at work in a late Victorian setting, where a beautiful young woman wearing a spring flower in her hair seems about to be lifted up by a strong wind. The angle at which her body cuts across the painting indicates that she might not long be standing. The grasses and flowers lean heavily to the left, and the trees in the background bend to that same strong wind. Her blue-violet wrap serves only to show the force of that wind as it billows out from her as she is about to be swept off her feet and taken away. The protective positioning of her arms is emphasized by her shawl in full sail.
Yet amid all this action, the woman maintains the solemn, appropriately melancholy face associated with the female subjects of the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites. She is a perfect heroine of one of the tragic tales that they often represented, somehow resigned to her inescapable fate. So dramatic is this painting, it could serve as a promotional clip for a Masterpiece Theatre drama.
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) was born around the time that the Pre-Raphaelites were getting started on their journey toward a romanticized realism based on the myths and legends of the past and the desire to break free of the academic dictates related to the art of Raphael (see the previous article on the Pre-Raphaelites). While John Everett Millais could be quite dramatic, his Ophelia being a prime example of that drama in storytelling, to me Waterhouse seems to take that storytelling into what could be called the cinematic. The advent of the camera and the photographic image, which toward the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th turned toward making pictures move, had effects that rippled through the visual arts on many levels.
Waterhouse was not alone in this move to action packed scenes in which every element was designed to tell a story. Across the Channel or La Manche, as the French say, Jean-Léon Gérôme, a leading academician and romantic painter, moved into near photographic storytelling, including doing paintings that later influenced movie images. Take a look at this painting, and tell me if you think this scene looks familiar.
Yes, of course, we have seen versions of this in countless movies, from Demetrius and the Gladiators to Spartacus. It is a painting that helped create that “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” idea about how life and death were determined in the Roman arena. The actual title means “turning the thumb,” but the interpretations of what was going on in this painting lead to the verdict that thumbs up meant to spare the life of the fallen gladiator. And speaking of gladiators, the Ridley Scott movie by that name, Gladiator, was inspired by this very painting by Gérôme.
Among Waterhouse’s most famous paintings of a legend involving a beautiful young woman doomed by a curious curse is his series on The Lady of Shalott. The artist did three versions of it over the years from 1888 to 1915. The story is told in three paintings, like a mini-series, and is based upon the 1832 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson with the same name. It is the retelling of an Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolet. In brief a beautiful young woman is confined to her home on an island because of a curse that will fall upon her should she ever leave. Her only view of the outside world is by looking at the mirror image of what goes on outside her windows. One day, though, she happens to see a handsome young man. From here let’s allow Waterhouse to tell the tale.
Act One: Here is the fair damsel sitting at her weaving, but dreaming of that world beyond what her mirror reflects. Isolated on an island, her only outlet is weaving what she sees into a tapestry. Her pose is one of ennui. Her scarlet dress a symbol of the underlying passions that stir in her soul. The contrast of that wistful pose full of longing and the brilliant red dress indicate an incipient conflict in her being, and the temptation of the forbidden fruit offered up by that world outside her windows. Then one day, she sees this handsome, noble knight, none other than Sir Lancelot of the Lake, himself.
Act Two: Elaine first sees the reflection of the handsome young knight and is moved to gaze directly upon him by leaving her accustomed place at her weaving. A bit of a change of costume is required as this lovely white gown symbolizes the purity of her sudden love for Lancelot. We can see that her movement to leave causes the balls of thread to go tumbling to the floor as she moves to free herself from the entangling strings of yarn. Her face is no longer dreamy, but in fact is quite determined to move out of her isolation. However, as she does, the mirror cracks from side-to-side just behind her, unleashing the curse, which is death.
Act Three: Here Elaine sets off on her fateful journey down the river that takes her away from her island. Not unlike Millais’ Ophelia, she has but little of life left, represented here by two of the three candles being already blown out. She is about to let go of the chain that moors the boat to venture into the real world, all the time carrying with her the tapestry that shows what she thought life to be like.
Waterhouse is credited by some modern art historians as presenting this as an allegorical painting, representing the women of his day as wanting to break free of the limitations that society imposed on them, regardless of the costs. Think of Lizzie Siddal from part one of this blog on the Pre-Raphaelites, who gave up her work selling hats to become an artist’s model, a job that put her morals in question. Waterhouse’s series of paintings, so full of age-old symbolism about female sexuality, and how male-dominated society seeks to inhibit it by inhibiting women in general, gives the viewer a colorful, skillfully painted mini-series with cinematic images worth being visualized in film. It is Waterhouse’s detail in the telling of the story, and the poses he gives the character of Elaine that make his work here look like elaborate storyboards for a film shoot. In a way it seems that his art was one of the forerunners of the cinema itself.
Finally, in this detail of Elaine’s face, we have what Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond would have wanted, a close-up worthy of Cecil B. DeMille.
Sources for this article: “John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott” Tate Britain Art and Artists tate.org.uk
“Painting of the Week: John William Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott” from Daily Art Magazine dailyartmagazine.com
“Lizzie Siddal, Pre-Raphaelite Muse and Artist” marinamade.me
Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.
Wines of Anglophonia: U.S.A.
As the previous article on the British Pre-Raphaelites included the beginning of our world tour of wines made in Anglophone countries, it must continue with the biggest producer, the U.S.A. When talking about wine in the U.S., the mind immediately goes to California, and its neighboring states on the Pacific Coast. However, the story of wine in the U.S. has a much more varied history. While we think that America’s first western name came from that of Americo Vespucci, the Italian explorer whose last name was given to the continents of the Western Hemisphere, the first Europeans to explore what is now the east coast of the U.S. called it, “Vinland” because of the numerous grape vines they found there. The first actual vineyards were planted in New Mexico in the early 1600s. The oldest still operating winery in the country, however, is in New York State. The Brotherhood Winery was founded in 1839 by a religious order to make sacramental and “medicinal” wines and still produces wine and maintains a restaurant and wine tasting rooms.
Ohio used a native grape called Catawba to make wines starting in 1802. They even made a rather celebrated sparkling wine and had a thriving wine-growing region until it was hit by a fungus. They moved off to the area around Lake Erie in New York State known as the Finger Lakes, which turned out to have a perfect climate for growing grapes to make high quality Riesling and Gewurtztraminer wines. It was also not affected by the “mildew” as they called the fungus, so the industry grew. In fact, one third of all wines produced in the U.S. come from New York State. New York even has vineyards on Long Island, which contains the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn, but also Suffolk and Nassau counties, which is where one finds the wineries. Remember that the next time you visit New York City.
Speaking of American wine growing ventures interrupted by nature and its various “mildews,” Missouri may actually have been the source of the phylloxera contagion, a fungus that got transported to France in the late 1800s and devastated the vineyards there. The fungus that rots the roots of the vines is native to North America. Now not to cast aspersions on Missouri and its wine culture, it must be noted that it was German settlers there in the 1840s who even set up their first towns with lots designed to grow grapes. Hermann, Missouri, is still the center of Missouri wine country. Notably, it was industrious American viticulturists who worked with the phylloxera resistent root stocks that some American grapes had to create a hybrid that helped save the wine industry in France.
While the Spaniards brought wine culture to North America by planting vines in New Mexico, that culture spread to the perfect wine-growing areas on the Pacific Coast. One immediately thinks of California’s Napa Valley and of its neighbor, Sonoma. Sadly both the Napa and Sonoma Valleys suffered great devastation in September of 2020 because of the Glass Hill fire which destroyed many homes, several wineries, and some fine restaurants in the area around St. Helena and many homes in Sonoma. Much, however, is still there. For a more thorough look at the wines of that region in California, look at this post, “Wayne Thiebault’s San Francisco and Napa Valley Wines” ofartandwine.com.
Just to the north of California is Oregon, which is making its mark by specializing. It is one of the foremost producers of Pinot Noir. The wine drew special attention after Paul Giamatti’s character in the movie, Sideways, praised its qualities to the detriment of Merlot. Oregon has become a “monograpist” region, but what a region. The Willamette Valley is a perfect location for growing Pinot Noir grapes and the production of that most drinkable of wines.
While Oregon specializes, Washington State has varied micro-climates that allow it to diversify. The Columbia River Valley has made Washington the U.S.A’s second largest wine growing state. Washington produces high quality Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah, as well as Riesling, Gewurtztraminer and Chardonnay. It’s Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery in Woodinville, just outside of Seattle, not only has a long history of fine wine making, but also has a calendar of wine-tasting events and jazz concerts, which will hopefully once again be in full-swing as the COVID-19 virus is calmed by vaccines.
Finally, one of the elements in the local wine culture of Washington is Cellars Wine Club which operates an online wine club. Its experts travel the country and the world to select the wines for its various wine clubs. It has a club for every level of wine enthusiasm and budget. From the Single-Bottle Club to Premium Case Club, there is something for everyone. Take a look at the page on this blog which is dedicated to Cellars Wine Club ofartandwine.com.
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©marjorie vernelle 2021
Coming Soon: Goya’s Maja, the Duchess of Alba, and Sherry from Andalucia.
Two of Francisco Goya’s famous Majas, this one clothed, the other one nude, are reputed to have used the Duchess of Alba, Maria Cayetana de Silva, as his model. For sure he did paint several pictures of her as herself. The story of this relationship between painter and this model from Spanish nobility has even been the subject of movies, like The Naked Maja. However, the life of the duchess, as model and duchess, is better than any Hollywood movie. And then there are the wines of Andalucia where her country estate was.