John William Waterhouse's Painting 'Ophelia'
A Victorian Artist's Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Tragic Beauty
Feb 14, 2009
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) was an English painter who rendered the subject of Shakespeare’s Ophelia at least three different times. Influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, he began his career painting subjects from classical antiquity. His later work focused on literary themes, depicted in a characteristically dreamy and romantic style. Unlike most Pre-Raphaelite artists, he indulged in the sensuous qualities of the paint, applying it to the canvas with thick, luxuriant brushstrokes.
Waterhouse’s 1889 version of Ophelia shows the beautiful, tragic female figure positioned horizontally in the center of the composition. Emotionally dissipated, she lies in a waterside meadow with one hand lost in her hair, the other clutching a bouquet of buttercups. Her eyes gaze outward in almost hypnotic preoccupation. There is a sensitive, stunning treatment of nature in the painting; blades of grass and flower petals are carefully detailed, creating a lush and fertile backdrop. It is unsurprising that such obsessive attention to detail comes across, as Waterhouse kept this painting in his studio, reworking it many times over the years.
Waterhouse was renowned not only for his magnificent technical and compositional skills but also for his gift for capturing dramatic intensity—a heading under which Ophelia certainly belongs. He liked to paint doomed female figures, sometimes using his wife as a model, which deepened the emotional complexity of his works. Aside from the more subjective content, Ophelia would have had an impact on the Victorian viewer as a romantic and recognizable image of Anglo-Saxon beauty. She represents the cultural aesthetic of the period.
The Meaning of Ophelia
Ophelia is a principal character in Shakespeare's Hamlet, portrayed as a gentle maiden who sings songs about flowers. Not a tragic heroine—but, rather, pure tragedy—she is the Prince of Denmark’s (Hamlet’s) lover and experiences hopeless suffering as a result of her love. She witnesses the progression of his feigned madness, while enduring cruel and humiliating rejection.
She is set up as a pawn by her own father to manipulate Hamlet, but will eventually discover that the Prince has violently murdered her father. Unable to cope, Ophelia falls into true madness, and commits suicide by drowning. Shakespeare intensifies the tragic nature of her character, specifically her victimization by men, by making her die offstage. Even in death, she is marginalized. Ophelia simply fades, drops into the water, and drifts away—like flower petals.
The Pre-Raphaelites, as well as other artists of the nineteenth century, found Ophelia an irresistible subject for their paintings. The great tragic spectacle of her character and the iconography of the young maiden lost to madness are overpowering images. In the present day, Ophelia continues to inspire artists’ imaginations.
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