“Bloom where you are planted” is an adage we’ve all probably heard, and the sentiment is a positive one: do your best no matter what…
For me, myths are a touchstone, a framework that helps me work out some of life’s thorniest dilemmas. Recently, I’ve been dealing with a series…
When Waterhouse’s exquisite Hylas and the Nymphs was controversially removed from exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery recently, I wrote that it would be far more…
The Manchester Art Gallery announced this week that it has removed from exhibition the painting Hylas and the Nymphs by J.W. Waterhouse, and also the…
Sponsa de Libano is inspired by the Song of Solomon: ‘Awake O North wind; and come then south; blow upon my garden that the spices…
Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare, born on this day in 1564. Today is also the anniversary of the Bard’s death. Dare I say it? Dying…
The works of John William Waterhouse often blend feminine beauty and mystery. Above is Circe Invidiosa, his depiction of the goddess Circe. With a sumptuous blend…
“There’s always a siren singing you to shipwreck.” – Radiohead, “There, There” Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse depicts a scene from Jason…
This morning I shared on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood Facebook page Edward Poynter’s portrait of Georgiana Burne-Jones, wife of Sir Edward Burne-Jones who was an important…
Seen above is Lamia, the Serpent Woman by Anna Lea Merritt. Be wary of her beauty, for she means to consume you. In mythology, Lamia…
Above is a detail from Arthur Rackham’s illustration of Pan from The Wind in the Willows. I first became enchanted by Pan when, as a little…
For the title of his 1909 painting Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May, John William Waterhouse used a line from the poem To the Virgins,…
In 1900 John William Waterhouse painted Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus, which shows the discovery of Orpheus’ decapitated head floating next to his lyre. Orpheus…
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s portrayal of the Annunciation is a continuation of the theme begun in his painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. The moment that…
sib·yl: noun a woman in ancient times supposed to utter the oracles and prophecies of a god. literary a woman able to foretell the future.…
The sum total of our greatest fears is the death of the self or someone we love. Since the beginning of time, humans have had…
After posting about Evelyn De Morgan’s painting The Gilded Cage, I began to think about other paintings that depict women who are trapped and imprisoned…
Since it is now the beginning of Summer, Sweet Summer by John William Waterhouse seems a fitting painting to contemplate. Reclining in the grass, a…
In reality, Dante loved Beatrice from a distance and they had little to no contact with one another. The real Beatrice Portinari probably never had…
“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music.”-John Keats Several months ago I was diagnosed with a dermoid tumor on my ovary.…
Above is a version of John William Waterhouse’s The Flower Picker. In J.W. Waterhouse (2002, Phaidon Press), author Peter Trippi tells us that Waterhouse painted at…
Left to herself, the serpent now began To change; her elfin blood in madness ran, Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent, Wither’d at…
Myths are not dry, ancient tales. They are our earliest experiments with metaphor and language. They are truths nestled within layers of mystery and magic…
I was browsing a bookstore and found an aisle offering boxed sets of movies packaged with the books they were based on. A little girl…
The tale of Thisbe comes from book four of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In ancient Babylon, the families of Pyramus and Thisbe live in separate houses that…
