The Lady of Shalott

For this blog post, I decided to focus on John William Waterhouse’s painting, The Lady of Shalott.  I saw this painting during our visit to Tate Britain, immediately noticing how strongly it illustrated Alfred Tennyson’s 1832 poem,  The Lady of Shalott. The poem tells the story a young woman who is forbidden to see the outside world from her confinement. Looking only through the reflection in a mirror is she able to see “Shadows of the world appear.” Each day, she embroiders what she sees into a tapestry— the ripples in the river, the parades of people in the town, etc. This all comes to an end, however, when she sees the handsome Prince Lancelot through the mirror and is struck with a curse cast upon her. She escapes to a boat and solemnly drifts down the river towards Camelot, “With a steady stony glance,” facing her destiny (death).

Waterhouse does a great job of echoing the words in this poem through his painting. His attention to detail and use of stark colors help to depict both the Lady and the surrounding nature in a realistic and natural way, which was the aim during this Pre-Raphaelite period. The Lady sits on a delicate tapestry full of intricate embroideries, symbolic of all the years she spent pent up longing for the realities of the world. She holds onto the boat’s chains, nearly letting go, with a pained look on her face. Waterhouse’s depiction of her face is one of the most striking aspects of the painting, as it really highlights her realization that she is going to die. The shrubbery and fallen leaves that surround her in the water bring weight to the painting, alluding to the idea of the fallen women at the time. A fallen women during the Victorian era was a woman who had somehow lost her innocence.

As read in the poem, the Lady transgressed Victorian norms and faced the consequences. She knew that she would die, but her yearning was too strong. The idea of a woman being compelled by her surroundings is an aspect of the Victorian fantasy that I saw throughout room 1840 in Tate Britain. The women that filled the paintings in this room were often depicted in grim and lonely ways, seeming to ache for something out of their bounds. The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse specifically contributes to this belief, illustrating the social issues at the time so authentically through the Lady. It goes to show that during this time, women were nothing until they were forced to make a sacrifice.