To kickoff the new blog banner, I'd like to introduce you to Ophelia by John Everett Millais
Get thee to a nunn'ry, why woulds't thou be a breeder of
sinners?
sinners?
~ Hamlet
.png) |
| Ophelia |
Tate Britain, London
 |
| Ophelia (detail) Symbolism of the flowers in Ophelia |
"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts," said Ophelia to her brother Laertes. "There's fennel for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died."
Excerpt from Hamlet
Laertes:
Drowned! O, where?
Queen Gertrude:
There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.- Queen Gertrude.
Hamlet. Act IV, Scene VII.
Here is one:
In the 20th century, Salvador Dalí emerged as a surprise champion of the picture:“How could Salvador Dalí fail to be dazzled by the flagrant surrealism of English Pre-Raphaelitism,” wrote the great surrealist in an article published in a 1936 journal, alongside a reproduction of Ophelia.“The Pre-Raphaelite painters bring us radiant women who are, at the same time, the most desirable and most frightening that exist.”~ Salvador Dali
~~~~~~
Sources
