#literary theme

~ Tennyson, Idylls of the King

Collection: Private Collection, USA

Collection: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, United States

It's not weird and specific theatre stuff this time!

Small House near a Waterfall, by Izuno Gizan (ca. 1900).

The popular poet Alfred Tennyson first published his ballad of the Lady of Shalott in 1833. It told the tale of a Lady confined to a tower, where she must weave a magic web without pause. Her view of the outside world was confined to the reflections in a mirror, and a curse would come upon her if she stopped and looked directly at the world. Walter Crane represents her tragic end. Tempted to look out of the window by her love for Sir Lancelot, the curse took effect and she died singing in her boat, floating down river to Camelot in search of her love.

Francis Wheatley’s Valentine Rescuing Silvia from Proteus from 1792 shows Valentine at the right, sword in hand, interceding as Silvia struggles against Proteus. Behind them is Julia disguised as the page Sebastian.

According to the Roman poet Virgil, Astraea, the goddess of justice, is the last of the gods to leave the corrupted earth at the end of the Iron Age, the age of complete decay of culture and morals. She leaves her attributes, the fasces (bundle of rods) and scales, to the just and peaceful peasants. This characteristically Baroque mixture of literature and symbolism expressed both pessimism and hope for renewal. Since ancient times, the simplicity of peasant life has been seen as a herald of this hope for happy, golden times.