Waterhouse paints the lady looking directly at the viewer. One day the lady sees an image in her mirror of the knight Lancelot riding towards Camelot.įalling in love, the lady turns to look at Lancelot and the mirror shatters. Waterhouse told the next part of the poem in his 1894 painting The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot. While weaving shuttles, that look like small wooden boats, predict the scenes to come.
Symbolizing eternal sleep, the poppy foreshadows the lady's impending doom. Trapped in her tower, the lady longs for love.Ĭuriously a red poppy appears in the reflection of the mirror but not in the foreground where it should be. As the lady spends her days weaving a tapestry, we see the city of Camelot in the mirror's reflection along with two lovers enjoying life. Waterhouse captured the poems first part in his 1915 painting I am Half-Sick of Shadows Said the Lady of Shalott. The poem was a very popular subject for artists in Victorian Britain because of its theme of tragic love.įorbidden to leave the tower, the Lady is only allowed to see the outside world through a mirror or else suffer an unnamed curse. The Lady of Shalottis one of three paintings that Waterhouse based on a poem by Alfred Tennyson, set in the times of the legendary King Arthur and the medieval city of Camelot. As we see the lady moving downstream in a boat, two low-flying swallows tell us that something ominous is happening. Painted in 1888, it tells the story of a nameless woman who suffers from a curse. This is The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse.
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