Touch of darkness

J.W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite
Royal Academy, until 13 September
Supported by Champagne Perrier-Jouet

Just what is it that makes John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) so different, so appealing? (As Richard Hamilton might put it.) And in what way is he so modern? It certainly isn’t an off-putting or radical modernity, for the exhibition in the Sackler Galleries has been doing brisk business, and the day I visited it was scarcely possible to view the pictures for the crowds. The shires must be empty these days, and indeed I hear that the only place to recapture the old peaceful museum experience of actually being able to see art in a public gallery without being jostled and shunted is outside London. I’m off on a research trip next week to the north and will report back in due course with my findings…

Of course, currently the Pre-Raphaelites are immensely popular — though it’s salutary to remember that just half-a-century ago you could buy them for what today amounts to loose change — and any show with that magic tag is guaranteed to attract the punters. Interesting that the organisers deemed it necessary to tell potential audiences that Waterhouse was a Pre-Raphaelite. You wouldn’t have to do that for Rossetti, Millais or Holman Hunt, but Waterhouse, like John Brett, is an altogether less familiar figure, though his masterpiece ‘The Lady of Shalott’ is well known and much loved. Waterhouse came late to the Pre-Raphaelite feast, being born the year after the Pre-Raphaelites were founded, and reaching maturity as the second phase of the Brotherhood came to an end with the death of Rossetti in 1882. After that, under the mostly benign reign of Burne-Jones, Pre-Raphaelitism was gradually subsumed into international Symbolism.