“Ophelia” (1889)
“Oh, Ophelia, you’ve been on my mind, girl, since the flood.
Oh, Ophelia, Heaven help the fool who falls in love.”
– The Lumineers
“Ophelia” is a gorgeous oil on canvas painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist, John William Waterhouse, from 1889. Ophelia is, of course, the potential love interest in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. She famously goes mad after the death of her father. She suffers an untimely death after climbing up into a willow tree and the branch she is on breaks, dropping her into a brook in Denmark where she drowns.
Ophelia was a favorite subject for many nineteenth century artists including Richard Redgrave, John Everett Millais, Arthur Hughes, Thomas Francis Dicksee, and of course, John William Waterhouse.
In this painting, Waterhouse depicts Ophelia lying in a field with a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers in her hand. This painting is likely a reference to her last scene in Hamlet. After Ophelia goes crazy, she is hands out flowers and sings. The stream she ends up drowning in is visible in the background.
Waterhouse was deeply interested in rendering his own interpretations of literary and mythological figures. This piece was the painting that Waterhouse submitted to the Royal Academy of Art in order to graduate.
The Academy recorded notes on “Ophelia” after it was submitted which read:
“Ophelia lying in the grass, with the wildflowers she has gathered in the folds of her dress. In one hand she holds a bunch of buttercups; in her rich brown hair, which half hides her face, is a coronet of daisies; in the background through the willow-stems a stream winds, and swallows fly low in the air.”
Ophelia was a favorite subject of Waterhouse, and he painted her three times, in 1889, 1894, and 1910. Waterhouse had planned to paint a fourth in what he called the ‘Ophelia series’. Each painting moves the story along and gets the viewer closer to her tragic end. When Waterhouse died, he was actively working on the fourth Ophelia painting. The English composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, is a major collector of John William Waterhouse works and Victorian art in general, and his collection includes this 1889 rendition of Ophelia as well as the 1910 version.
“Ophelia” (1889) is currently in a private collection.
For more on John William Waterhouse, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
