著者

若名 咲香

出版者

美学会

雑誌

美学 (ISSN:05200962)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.71, no.1, pp.133-144, 2020 (Released:2022-02-16)

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This paper analyses John William Waterhouse’s female flower pickers in his works; ‘Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May’ (1909), Narcissus (1913) and Flora (c. 1914). Comparing Waterhouse’s works and the myth of Persephone clarifies that some descriptions remind the myth of Persephone in his works. For instance, some narcissuses, which were picked by Persephone immediately before she was abducted to the underworld by Hades, are drawn in some of Waterhouse’s works. Thus, Waterhouse’s female flower pickers overlap with the image of Persephone. Additionally, in the late 19th century Britain, a new idea of ‘Dark’ Greece was advocated. This view of Greece contains anxiety and grief as opposed to Winckelmann’s immaculate and idealised view of Greece. Persephone symbolises fertility and death, and she embodies the idea of ‘Dark’ Greece. Waterhouse knew this idea through Greek Studies by Walter Pater and The Golden Bough by James Frazer. In Waterhouse’s works, an ominous of rape, tension, anxiety and chaos are suggested by representing the scene just before the rape of Persephone, and his works resonant with the ‘Dark’ Greece. Thus, Waterhouse’s images of female flower pickers link with the myth of Persephone and evoke the ‘Dark’ Greece.