John William Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse was an English painter who produced 118 paintings, most of them depicting the women characters of myths and legends.
Born on 6 April 1849, John William Waterhouse was an English painter who painted in two different styles throughout his career. Waterhouse initially worked in the Academic style which is a style of painting and sculpture produced under European academies of art. Then he abandoned the Academic style and started to work with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style which is a style that works in abundant detail, intense colors, and complex compositions of Quattrocento Italian art. John William Waterhouse is best known for his depiction of beautiful women from ancient Greek mythology and also Arthurian legends.
Apart from his depiction of women from Greek mythology and Arthurian legends, some of John William Waterhouse's best-known paintings are depictions of English poets and playwrights' women characters. Waterhouse's painting of ''The Lady of Shalott'' is a lyrical ballad by the 19th-century English poet Alfred Tennyson.
Waterhouse also depicts the women characters from William Shakespeare's plays, mainly the tragic beauty of Ophelia. Ophelia is a tragic female character in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet. Waterhouse has more than one painting depicting Ophelia and his portrayal of Ophelia varies in each of these paintings. Waterhouse portrays Ophelia in a total of four stages, three of them before her death, and the final painting depicts her death. In each of the three and the final paintings, Ophelia is always depicted with an abundance of flowers and is always one with nature.