Waterhouse’s Shalott

Having viewed the painting of The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse before reading the poem that it was originally inspired by, I already felt struck by this incredible painting. After examining both the poem and the painting, it is evident to see how both poet and artist reject traditional Victorian ideals, while even furthering the ideologies of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. There is a constant struggle in the poem between the indoor and outdoor life, which reflects these difficulties for women in Victorian society. In Part I, it is explained that she is inside “Four gray walls, and four gray towers, / Overlook a space of flowers.” The gray color of the enclosing walls paired with an removed view of outside emphasize the contrast between the dull, trapped life of many 18^th century women who were only ever considered a domestic figure. When the Lady of Shalott ventures to explore Camelot and the outside world, this is what leads to her fatal demise. Her attempt to traverse societal lines and explore what a woman should not explore is the ultimate deviation from the rigidity of Victorian society.

The poem, though, is not what intrigues me most. I found Waterhouse’s artistic interpretation of this poem intriguing in what he decided to include or not include. He incorporates the gray walls as a backdrop of the painting, an element that seems to be completely forgotten about. The stairs and the walls are also the only geometrically aligned elements to the painting, which reflects the rigidity of the life she has literally turned her back on. Waterhouse includes the lilies in the pond as well as the “willowy hills and fields among,” making sure to include the natural details that so characterize a majority of this poem. He also includes the tapestry, which was a major focus during the duration of her “entrapment” until this escape. He adds three candles, in which the last of them is about to be blown out, reflecting her soon impending death.

As we have in detail discussed this idea of the femme fatale, this painting seems to abandon this idea altogether, portraying the focal female in the virginal white, reflecting what is in the poem, but also through her physical appearance, which is not as detailed in the text. Waterhouse’s choice to depict her with long red hair, red lips, and an open chest with a tilted back head reflects her repression, and more so than just her domestic repression but the sexual repression that was so prevalent during this time. Over everything, though, it is her facial expression, which seems to be so distinctive to Waterhouse’s work over the rest. Her sorrowful, mourning countenance so clearly depicts a pained woman, on her final journey to end her suffering. However, in evaluating how she might represent the whole of Victorian female society, I think back to “In an Artist’s Studio” by Christina Rossetti and I wonder if, for the male audience, “she fills his dream,” or the opposite, because of her expression and the fact that she is not looking outwards. Did this painting intend on a sort of exposition into the repression of women and their depictions in art as well? In my opinion, I would say yes. Perhaps this is why I found it to be such an incredible piece.