Saint Eulalia

English

Saint Eulalia: John William Waterhouse

Price: Price on Request
Art Type: Oil Painting
Size:
English Comments: 0
International Comments: 0
Creating Date:
Introduction and Works of John William Waterhouse >>

Contemporary-Art.org

Reproduction

Enlarge

John William Waterhouse Oil Painting - Saint Eulalia

Keywords: Saint, Eulalia

Work Overview: Saint Eulalia
Artist John William Waterhouse
Year 1885
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 188.6 cm × 117.5 cm (74.3 in × 46.3 in)
Location Tate Britain, London

Saint Eulalia is an oil painting on canvas in the Pre-Raphaelite style, created in 1885 by English artist John William Waterhouse and currently housed at Tate Britain.

A very daring composition, this is one of Waterhouse's most unusual, and consequently most striking, oil paintings. The corpse is dramatically foreshortened, and the snow contrasts with Eulalia’s naked flesh – the 12-year-old girl seems singularly out of place for a Waterhouse picture.[1] His choice of configuration – situating the corpse across the front and leaving so much of the central canvas unoccupied – was risky but it worked: by placing all the background figures in the distance, he concentrated the viewer's gaze on the naked body.[2] The nudity was also groundbreaking for Waterhouse – and something that could have laid him open to criticism – but his sensitive handling of the subject, the youth of the saint, and the historical context of the painting allowed him to escape the critics' pen.[3] The eye is also led to the murdered girl by the angle of the Roman guard's spear, pointing to the ropes that had bound her to the stake.

According to legend,[4] the snow was believed to have been sent by God as a shroud to cover the saint's nakedness; and the dove, seen flying upwards near the crowd of mourners, indicative of Eulalia's soul flying up to Heaven, was said to have flown out of her mouth.

Waterhouse exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1885 with the following note: 'Prudentius says that the body of St. Eulalia was shrouded "by the miraculous fall of snow when lying in the forum after her martyrdom."'

St Eulalia was martyred in 304AD for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. The method of her death was particularly gruesome: two executioners tore her body with iron hooks, then lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides until finally, as the fire caught her hair, she was suffocated. Given the horrific circumstances of her death, and Eulalia's tender age (she is said to have been twelve years old), Waterhouse demonstrates little concern for realism. The setting for the picture is supposed to be Merida in Spain, which was then under the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, but has been transferred to the Forum in Rome. Eulalia's body appears totally unharmed, her exposed breasts and flowing hair giving her a seductive rather than pathetic appearance. Although there is snow falling and lying on the ground, her body is uncovered. As an explanation for these alterations to the legend, the artist includes a wooden cross on the right of the composition, implying that the martyrdom was by crucifixion.

The composition is extremely daring: Eulalia's dramatically foreshortened body leads the eye towards a void at the centre of the picture. A group of mourners form a pyramid towards the top of the composition, but the viewer's eye is drawn back down towards the martyred figure by the right-hand soldier's spear, via a zig-zag of ropes, to the young woman's outflung arms. According to the account given by the Spanish Christian poet Prudentius (348-405), at the moment of her death, a white dove emerged from Eulalia's mouth and flew towards heaven. Waterhouse refers to this event by including sixteen doves in his painting. The youngest mourner points upwards at a single hovering dove towards the top of the picture, a symbol of Eulalia's departing soul.

The picture was well received by the critics and secured Waterhouse's election as an Associate of the Royal Academy. One reviewer approved in particular of the image's simplicity and idealism and its avoidance of the grotesque. He wrote, 'the conception is full of power and originality. Its whole force is centred in the pathetic dignity of the outstretched figure, so beautiful in its helplessness and pure serenity, so affecting in its forlorn and wintry shroud, so noble in the grace and strength of its presentment' (quoted in Hobson, pp.34-7).

Copyright Statement:
All the reproduction of any forms about this work unauthorized by Singing Palette including images, texts and so on will be deemed to be violating the Copyright Laws.
To cite this webpage, please link back here.

>> English Comments >> Chinese Comments >> French Comments >> German Comments >>Report

John William Waterhouse

Work Overview