Sensual
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Posted:Dec 18, 2018 11:36 pm
Last Updated:May 27, 2024 5:36 am
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Her lips are parted, her hands grasp the air and her eyes are half-open, as if in sublime submission. The tragic heroine Ophelia – as represented in John Everett Millais’s 1852 painting – lies in a near orgasmic state at the moment of her death.
But if reproductions of the image are now so ubiquitous as to be un-noteworthy – adorning gift cards, purses and tote bags – it is worth remembering that at the time of its creation Ophelia was considered by many to be scandalous.
Not only is her hair loose and her body unrestricted by a corset (both states of undress in Victorian England seen only in the bedroom), nature swarms around her in obscene abundance. Indeed, one critic at The Times of London chastised Millais’s “perverse” imagination in placing such a maiden in a “weedy ditch”.
Now, for the first time ever, Millais’s Ophelia, alongside John William Waterhouse’s 1888 masterpiece The Lady of Shalott, are being exhibited together outside of the UK. They are the blockbuster draw in Love & Desire: Pre-Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate, which opened at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) last week.
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