Latest Posts by vangaux - Page 5
The Lady of Shalott (1888), by J.W. Waterhouse
Waterhouse made this painting, which later became his most famous, at the age of 39. Tired of classical subjects, he decided to shift to a subject from English Romantic literature and selected a popular poem from Alfred Tennyson: the cursed Lady of Shalott elects to die by sailing to Camelot (see below for the entire poem).
The painting was immediately associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which just entered into a revival. At the same time, it is full of symbolism, like the expiring candles and the two swallows on the left side. With their reappearance each spring, they represent resurrection.
The Lady of Shalott
Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road runs by
To many-towered Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow-veiled,
Slide the heavy barges trailed
By slow horses; and unhailed
The shallop flitteth silken-sailed
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to towered Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers “‘Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.”
Part II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving through a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-haired page in crimson clad,
Goes by to towered Camelot;
And sometimes through the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often through the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.
Part III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling through the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneeled
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glittered free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazoned baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burned like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often through the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed;
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
Part IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over towered Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.
And down the river’s dim expanse,
Like some bold seër in a trance
Seeing all his own mischance–
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right–
The leaves upon her falling light–
Through the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot:
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turned to towered Camelot.
For ere she reached upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they crossed themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott.”
5.20.22
me when i’m drawing ophelia and writing an essay about ophelia and listening to the ophelia score and wearing my hair like ophelia
they should do a remake of the lion king where it’s set in 14th century denmark and all the characters are humans call it “hamlet” or something like that idk i think it could be good
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by Frank Dicksee (1853-1928)
at the beginning arthur says something like “if i should not love you i should not have been born” and i was like oh no. oh no. this is my new thing now.
Movie Poster for “Camelot” (1967)
just rewatched this movie and no one else has seen it and i’m sensing the obsession coming on its like i’m in solitary confinement
Movie Poster for “Camelot” (1967)
Movie Poster for “Camelot” (1967)
“A Young Lady in Pink” by Tade Styka (1889-1954)
from ‘Bright Dead Things’ by Ada Limón
“Fleurs des Eaux” By Elisabeth Sonrel (1874-1953)
“So with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer,”
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
The Great Gatsby dir. Baz Luhrmann (2013)
5.18.22
another day, another afternoon spent sketching in a coffee shop
being 19 is the strangest thing because it sounds so much more grown up than 18, and i was so excited to turn 19 for that reason, but now that i’m 19 i’m realizing that it’s my last year of being a teenager, and then my 20s start, and i just want a few more years of being a kid
“i just like my alone time” i say as if loneliness hasn’t been all i’ve known since childhood
Chelsea Hodson // Saeed Jones
coffee and cafés
“Paolo and Francesca” by Sir Frank Dicksee (1894)
5.16.22
peet’s coffee and my ophelia essay crunch
“Study (seated woman in quasi-classical dress)” by Harold Speed (1905)
5.15.22
the feminine urge to listen to famous last words on your way home from work at 7:15 pm and just look at the sunset and feel so present and human for a few minutes
Springtime Emile Vernon
— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
[text ID: I never tried to be anything other than a dreamer. I never paid any attention to people who told me to go out and live. I belonged always to whatever was far from me and to whatever I could never be. Anything that was not mine, however base, always seemed to be full of poetry. The only thing I ever loved was pure nothingness.]
Favourite Vincent van Gogh quotes (part 1)
“There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.”
“If ever you fall in love, do so without reservation, or rather, if you should fall in love simply give no thought to any reservation.”
“It quite often makes me feel sad that painting’s like a bad mistress one might have, who’s always spending, spending and it’s never enough..”
“There are often beams in our eye that we know not of. Let us therefore ask that our eye may become single, for then we ourselves shall become wholly single.”
“Art is jealous and demands all our time and all our strength, and then when we dedicate these to it, it leaves rather a bitter taste to be taken for some kind of impractical person and I don’t know what else. Well, we just have to try and battle on.”
“I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart.”
“Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And let us not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil.”
“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.”
“Someday death will take us to another star.”
“…and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?”
The shepherdess, c. 1900. Edward Frederick Brewtnall (British, 1846–1902)
Illustrations from L Frank Baum’s Oz books (WW Denslow & John R Neill, 1900 to 1920). (via Wikipedia)
Art: John William Waterhouse, “Flora and the Zephyrs” (1898)
* * * *
“In the dusky path of a dream I went to seek the love who was mine in a former life.”
- this achingly beautiful line is from a poem by Tagore that W.B. Yeats selected for inclusion in The Oxford Book of Common Verse. Another reason for dreaming.
5.13.22
got coffee and studied at the library with my sister for a few hours and went to work
new mcr song and monster high creeproductions dropped.. the stars aligned on this friday the thirteenth
“Jeune fille romaine nourrissant des colombes” By Stefan Bakałowicz (1857-1947)