"Waterhouse has been
wrongly called Pre-Raphaelite, but he was a Romantic Classicist:
he had the northerner's love of legend and mystery, but his
Italian birth lent a warm personality to his
rendering of the classical myths".
-Anthony Hobson-
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
school days, 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 the boy's ability as a
painter emerged and he gained entrance as a scholar into the Royal
Academy. Throughout his career he won acclaim as a masterful
story-teller, 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 canvas with haunting compositions of young,
waif-like models. He continued to paint until
his death in 1917, leaving a rich legacy of archetypal Victorian images-
particularly of wistful female beauties.
