J.W. Waterhouse

The Secretary then laid before the meeting the following prizes which had been awarded at the annual meeting...

It is noted that a Mrs. Abbott wins 'an oil painting in frame, by J.W. Waterhouse'.

On the line is an important and characteristic Spanish picture--No. 552, "The Scramble at the Wedding," by Mr. Burgess, A.R.A. No. 553, "The Rev. Canon Bradley," H. Herkomer, A.R.A.; and in the centre, No. 559, "Consulting the Oracle," the best work both in colour and composition we have yet seen from Mr. Waterhouse.

No. 450, "The Magic Circle," J.W. Waterhouse, A.R.A. Prevailing tones of blue. A girl, witch or sorceress, in blue robes, stands by a cauldron, describing a circle on the ground with her divining rod; snakes coil round her neck, and she is surrounded by ravens and the weird instruments of her craft. This is one of the few powerfully imaginative pictures in the Exhibition. Mr. Waterhouse, one of the new Associates, was the painter of a remarkable picture, "Consulting the Oracle," in 1884.

Mr. WATERHOUSE in his 'St. Eulalia' (503) lying dead on the pavement of the Forum at Rome, whilst the miraculous snowstorm covers her from the gaze of the populace, is another striking work of which the execution is very praiseworthy. In this, however, as in so many other works round the walls, one feels that artists nowadays too frequently have recourse to books to furnish them with subjects for their pictures, instead of finding them in their own imagination or by the adaptation of what they see around them.

Among outsiders, Mr. J.W. Waterhouse is the man who has again made a decided hit. "St Eulalia" ranks first-class, whether judged as a dramatic poem or as a picture. The saint lies out-stretched and half-clad in the Roman Forum, and the miraculous fall of snow which came after her martyrdom to shroud the loveliness of her form, already whitens the ground. Roman guards ward off the passionate approach of the Christians pressing forward to the martyr, and among a flock of gentle doves, one on the wing is supposed to hear the spirit of the saint heavenwards. The whole conception rises out of the common, and the treatment is eminently artistic. If we mistake not, Mr Waterhouse has won his election into the Academy. Since these words were written, the prophecy is fulfilled.

At a general assembly of the Royal Academy, held on the 4th of June, Mr. Alfred Waterhouse was elected a Royal Academician, and Messrs. E. Burne-Jones, Henry Moore, and J. W. Waterhouse, Associates. A more satisfactory election could hardly have been made. Mr. Alfred Waterhouse was made an Associate seven years ago, and in that period has over and over again shown his worthiness and right to be accorded the full honours. The selection of Mr. Burne-Jones is even more satisfactory; it shows a desire to conciliate a class of artists whose work has hitherto been deemed antagonistic to Academic teaching; as to his deserts there can be no question. The exhibitions will be immensely strengthened by the presence of his pictures, and a corresponding blow will fall upon those of the Grosvenor Gallery. Mr. Henry Moore’s election has been long delayed, but it still finds the artist at his best, and this long-deserved encouragement should add vigour even to his strong brush. Mr. J. W. Waterhouse is still young both in years and as an exhibitor, and we can only hope that the honour thus early granted to him may not have other effect than to stimulate him to continue in his endeavours to paint for fame only. The election of two persons of the same name is a curious coincidence.

"Mr. Waterhouse's "Gossip" (319) is gaudy."

"Mr Waterhouse has a clever picture of an Italian girl stooping to smell a bunch of violets on a flower-stall in a sunny court, the plastered walls of which remind one somewhat of the white marble beloved of Mr. Alma Tadema. Giving reminders of other artists is quite a speciality with Mr. Waterhouse, except when he paints sorceresses..."

"In this year's Academy five pictures, by Mr. Orchardson ('The First Cloud'), Mr. Alma Tadema ('The Women of Amphissa'), Mr. Waterhouse ('Mariamne'), Mr. S. J. Solomon ('Samson and Delilah'), and Mr. Nettleship ('Caliban and Setebos'), stand out most notably from a background of fourteen hundred and thirteen.
...
Mr. Waterhouse shows us "Mariamne, wife of King Herod the Great, going forth to execution after her trial for the false charges brought against her by the jealousy of Salome, the King's sister." Mariamne, a white-robed figure in the middle of the picture, is descending a stair that leads nearly straightforward out of the frame, so that she is prominent and close upon you as she turns her head to look a last reproach at Herod, who, cowering in his judgment-seat to the right, at some distance behind, needs Salome's eager grip of his arm to keep his resolution firmly screwed. Mariamne has evidently been studied as a nude figure: her drapery, flat and fresh from the wardrobe, hardly looks as if it has been worn by a woman of passionate temperament during her trial on a capital charge. Mr. Waterhouse conceives the situation as a commonplace historial romancer might; but the exceptional knowledge and skill he has shown in the manual work makes the picture striking and important."

Born in Rome, Italy, of English parents, in 1849. Went to England in 1854; history painter, pupil of Royal Academy schools. First exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874, Sleep and his Brother Death. Revisited Italy in 1883. Elected an A.R.A. in 1885. Works: Miranda (1875); After the Dance (1876); Sick Child brought into the Temple of Aesculapius (1877); La Favorita (1879); Rival Roses, Summer's Day (1881); Diogenes (1882); Favourites of the Emperor Honorius, Bubbles (1883); Consulting the Oracle (1884); St. Eulalia's Crucifixion, By-way in Old Rome (1885); Magic Circle, Flower ,pMarket (1886).

“Mariamne”
By J.W. Waterhouse, A.R.A.

The tragic story of Mariamne, queen of Herod the Great, falsely and treacherously accused of infidelity by Salome, her sister-in-law, and betrayed by her mother Alexandra, has ever been a favourite subject with history-painters of the more ambitious class, though less often in England than on the Continent. To Josephus we are indebted for all the details we know of the unhappy fate of this ill-starred lady, who, as we are told, was “of the greatest comeliness, eminent for her beauty,” while her dignity and her nobility of mind were such that not even her proud and imperious temper and “the too much of contention in her nature” could estrange her fierce husband’s passionate love. So enamoured and jealous, indeed, was he of her, and so satisfied that none other was worthy of her, that when he went to the wars he left private orders that should he fall, she, too, should be slain. This order, but not its motive, eventually came to the queen’s ears, who, not appreciating it as it was intended, misconstrued the grim compliment into treacherous fear, and took no pains to conceal her disgust of the king’s presence. “When Herod’s sister and mother perceived that he was in this temper with regard to Mariamne,” proceeds the historian, “they thought they had now got an excellent opportunity to exercise their hatred against her, and provoked Herod to wrath by telling him such long stories and calumnies about her as might as once excite his hatred and his jealousy;” for Mariamne, who “wanted moderation,” had more than once taunted them with their meanness of birth. Intrigue and conspiracy followed. Herod’s mind was now poisoned against her, and in his wrath at her insolent contempt he placed her on her trial to answer the charges brought against her “by way of calumny only. However, he kept no temper in what he said, and was in too great a passion for judging well about this matter. Accordingly, when the Court was at length satisfied” – not of her guilt, but – “that he was so resolved, they passed the sentence of death upon her.” He desired, however, to postpone the execution and merely imprison her, “but Salome and her party laboured hard to have the woman put to death, and prevailed with the king to do so; and thus was Mariamne led to her execution. She went to her death with an unshaken firmness of mind, and without changing the colour of her face, and thereby evidently discovered the nobility of her descent to the spectators, even in the last moment of her life. Thus died Mariamne;” while the grief and conscience-stricken tyrant so mourned her loss that a terrible illness, accompanied by temporary madness, for a time prostrated him.

Such is the story which Mr. Waterhouse has chosen as the source of his inspiration, and he has wisely elected to show us Mariamne at the supreme moment of condemnation. The haughty queen casting a look of mingled scorn, pity, and reproach at her vacillating husband – himself, to all appearances (as indeed he was), by far the greater criminal of the two – is a commanding and beautiful figure, contrasting strongly with that of Salome. The figure of the king perhaps hardly conveys an adequate idea of the warlike and blood thirsty monarch who remorselessly moved down all friends and enemies, men, women, and relatives, whom he thought to stand in his path. But otherwise, the character is well-suggested throughout. In some respects Mr. Waterhouse is, or commendably aims at being, a painter’s painter: that is to say, he rather seeks to achieve purely technical merits and overcome technical difficulties than merely to obtain such effects as may secure popular applause. Like his “St. Eulalia,” “Mariamne” is chiefly a study in whites, an exceptionally difficult scheme to carry out with success. But in Mr. Dobie’s excellent etching of the picture—which has been produced and published by the kind permission of Mr. W. Cuthbert Quilter, the owner of the original—the whiteness could not be sufficiently insisted upon, lest the general tone of the picture should be lost in undue baldness and emptiness. “Mariamne” may fairly be considered as its author’s best work. Although a little theatrical in arrangement, it is much better painted than any of his preceding pictures, and its light and shade are far more skilfully managed.

"The Lady of Shalott," by Mr. Waterhouse, is a disappointment; with a change of style and treatment there has come about a check in his onward course. Not that there is any lack of invention or drawing; but the French flatness of tones takes much of the quality out of the colour, and one is robbed of all sympathy for a lady so stiff of attitude and back.

"Mr Waterhouse's 'Ophelia' is unShakespearean and much in the vein of "The Lady of Shalott"; but it succeeds where that picture failed: namely, in the relation between the landscape and the face, which latter should be studied, as it is more pathetic than it appears at the first upside-down glance."