femme fragile

Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1851, by Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873)

Choosing, c. 1864, by George Frederic Watts (1817-1904)

John Collier (181750s-1934) “Priestess of Delphi” (1891) Oil on canvas Pre-Raphaelite Located in the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

Detail of Flaming June, 1895, by Frederic Leighton (1830-1896)

The Love Potion, 1903, by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919)

“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a fairy’s child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song. She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said— ‘I love thee true’. She took me to her Elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore, And there I shut her wild, wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lullèd me asleep, And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!— The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!’ I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gapèd wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.”

Above: La Belle Dame sans Merci, 1893, by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

Detail of Flaming June, 1895, by Frederic Leighton (1830-1896)

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) “Spirit of the Summit” (1894) Oil on canvas Academicism

“Spirit of the Summit” has been described as symbolising the purity of the human spirit, refined of everything gross and material, reaching out beyond itself for eternity.

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) “Spirit of the Summit” (1894) Oil on canvas Academicism

“Spirit of the Summit” has been described as symbolising the purity of the human spirit, refined of everything gross and material, reaching out beyond itself for eternity.

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896) “Music Lesson” (1887) Oil on canvas Academicism Located in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London, England

Edmund Leighton (1852-1922) “The End of the Song” (1902) Oil o canvas Currently in a private collection

The painting depicts a scene of the adulterous love between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Isolde.

There are many variations of the story, but it has the same general plot. After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Isolde for his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, to marry. Along the way, they ingest a love potion which causes the pair to fall madly in love. In the some versions, the potion’s effects last a lifetime, but in other versions the potion’s effects wane after three years. In some versions, they ingest the potion accidentally; in others, the potion’s maker instructs Isolde to share it with Mark, but she deliberately gives it to Tristan instead. Although Isolde marries Mark, she and Tristan are forced by the potion to seek one another, as lovers. While the typical noble character would be shamed by such an act, the love potion that controls them frees Tristan and Isolde from responsibility. The king’s advisors repeatedly endeavour to have the pair tried for adultery, but the couple continually use trickery to preserve their façade of innocence.

The First Madness of Ophelia, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1864