After lunch I headed to the Royal Academy for to see the exhibition of works by the modern pre-Raphaelite painter J.W. Waterhouse. His idealized feminine beauty is a recognizable characteristic of his paintings. If you are looking for a modern equivalent, perhaps the actress who played Scully in X-Files or better the recent version of Bleak House. Gillian something… can’t recall right now. You would think she was a model for many of his works. Evoked an era and deep Englishness.
Compare to Hunt’s.
The Lady of Shalott is a favorite of mine amoung his works. I also like the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Gillian Anderson. And there is actually a scene in the xfiles that evokes that painting. When she is comatose (story arc to cover the actress’s pregnancy) and at death’s door, there is a dream sequence when she sitting in a boat tied at a dock, the line gets cut and she drifts away.
MargaretMN: The resemblance to some of the women in his paintings in uncanny.
There was a fabulous collection of the pre-Rafaelites at the Tate as I recall. I love that period. There is such a hyper-reality about those paintings.