Hommage à...

The soul of the rose -1905

à 'Ry pour m'avoir rappellé tous les bons moments passés en présence de John William Waterhouse lorsque Noémie et moi à DCU dissertions sur la beauté mystique des préraphaélites (1)
à John William Waterhouse qui a toujours su me faire réver debout et éveillée avec ses collègues, Vermeer et les impressionistes devant leurs oeuvres (Da Vinci qui ?^^;;) ou pour avoir merveilleusement capturé mon poème anglais favori ?

Un peu de tout cela à la fois sans doute...

(1)En opposition à l'académisme victorien, ces peintres veulent retrouver la pureté artistique des primitifs italiens, prédécesseurs de Raphaël, notamment en imitant leur style. Ils privilégient le réalisme, le sens du détail et les couleurs vives. Leurs sujets de prédilection sont les thèmes bibliques, le Moyen Âge, la littérature et la poésie (Shakespeare, Keats, Browning...). Il signent parfois leurs œuvres des initiales PRB pour Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, provoquant la colère d'une Angleterre bien-pensante qui imagine derrière ces trois lettres un sens caché, blasphématoire ou mystique

Source : wikipedia

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" - John Keats (1817)

I
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.
II
Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.
III
I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth too.
IV
I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful - a faery's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.
V
I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery's song.
VI
I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.
VII
She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew;

And sure in language strange she said -

'I love thee true.'
VIII
She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she gazed, and sighed deep,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

So kiss'd to sleep.
IX
And there we slumber'd on the moss,

And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill side.
X
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!'
XI
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill side.
XII
And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci - 1893

Psyché opening the door into Cupid's garden - 1904

The Lady of Shalott - 1888. Une illustration d'un autre poéme anglais, cette fois écrit de la main d'Alfred Tennyson. http://www.pathguy.com/shalott.htm