The work of John William Waterhouse often featured elements of (typically female) eroticism, teasing nudity and narratives concerning Greek and Roman mythology. For the purposes of this essay, I will be focusing on two of his works from right after the turn of the 20th century. Specifically, I will be dealing with his oil on canvas paintings “Echo and Narcissus” from 1903 and “Lamia” from 1905. These works are academic, since Waterhouse was made an Academician in 1895. Features worth noting between these paintings are the employment of female nudity, suggestive uses of space, mythological narratives about mortality and love and bucolic landscape.
Echo and Narcissus”, painted in 1903, recounts the old tale by the Roman poet Ovid. In the story, Narcissus becomes so enamoured by his own reflection that he spurns the affections of anyone else. Echo, the woman featured in the painting, is in love with him, and he rejects her, considering her to be of a lesser caliber than himself. In this painting, the connection between lore and sexuality is made obvious as Echo, who gazes longingly to her unrequited love, is made a prominent feature of the painting by placing emphasis on her naked right breast. The line of vision traces a curve from her hip, where the robe splits, to a progressive spanning triangle upwards to her stomach, breast and face. Separated by a stream of water, a common symbol for life possibly used here to represent the transient mortality of the man reflected in it, there is Narcissus. Narcissus is also partially nude, draped in a silken toga like his female counterpart. While Echo is staring at the man, Narcissus is staring at his ephemeral and inconstant reflection in the stream. This creates a kind of isosceles triangle of faces from Echo to Narcissus to the reflection, suggesting the intimacy and literary connection of the figures. This semi-nudity seen in both figures suggests the tense, sexual frustration present in the story, and the use of a stream as a separating force reinforces the idea of the bucolic, which not only invokes a presence of the legendary and ancient (seen in the clothing of the figures as well), but it also ties into the ideas of fertility and lust so present in not only the narrative, but so many Mediterranean myths and legends.
“Lamia”, from 1905, shares many similarities with “Echo and Narcissus”, with a few discrepancies. The nudity of the female figure and the presence of water are not there, or are less prominent, but the sense of eroticism and narrative are still quite strong. In this painting, we see a fair, slim, pallid figure (not unlike the Echo figure in the previous painting), kneeling quite intimately (if that isn’t suggestive in and of itself) to a dashing young knight clad in plate armour. They are surrounded by flowers, grass, dirt, rocks and branches (suggesting similar symbols of fertility to the previous work), and the female figure is once again clad in a loose-fitting, toga-like dress which hugs and emphasizes the natural curves of her youthful body. As opposed to “Echo and Narcissus”, the love and lust appears to be requited quite intensely as the two figures gaze into each other’s eyes and the female places her hand upon the male’s. Once again, however, the primary focal point of the piece is placed on a lit area of female nudity, in this case, her shoulder and upper arm. This leads the eye up to her face (and his as well), which, like the triangle of the figures in “Echo and Narcissus”, tells us the story of the painting. The connection here between the strong male figure and the airy, limpid damsel figure suggests as much teasing and sexual tension as “Echo and Narcissus” with an even stronger suggestion of impending sexual behaviour. The sexual tension is in a sense unsatisfied because of the moment in time chosen by Waterhouse to paint, but it is more gratifying because the connection between the figures in this painting is explicit rather than implicit.
The connection between legends (or legendary imagery) dealing with love or mortality is not only arguable, it is obvious. The tension of unrequited love in “Echo and Narcissus” and the titillation of suggested sexuality between two lovers in “Lamia” feeds into the idea of the satisfaction of a physical manifestation of love (like a form of solidifying consummation), and the idea of the need to overcome mortality with fertility, or physical relation to another human being which vindicates existence (in “Echo and Narcissus”, his rejection of human affection ultimately kills him). Perhaps the reason this academic art is so erotic is because not only is the nude female a symbol of aesthetic beauty, but the use of eroticism also reinforces ideas of the need for human affection, the excitement and titillation that comes from sexual frustration and tension, and the sexual, ethereal mysticism associated with the academic Greek and Roman myth and natural settings.
