I have not been at the loom or easel for some days now. My days have been filled with company, cooking, and such mundane things as puppy vomit (do not ask). But in my mind, I have been visiting The Lady of Shallot. I don't know why - perhaps because I was trying to think of some good literature with strong little girl heroines for my grand-daughter, and I thought of Anne Shirley (of Green Gables), and Anne often quoted Tennyson's poem. Or perhaps it's because I saw this Waterhouse painting of her not long ago, and I had never seen it, having only seen her painted dead in a boat, not at her loom. So I got out Tennyson's poem and reread it. I'll share these phrases with you today, so the Lady can leave my busy head, and begin to haunt yours!
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay....
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,...
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,...
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
You know the rest... or, if not, why not check it out? Quite dramatic for weaving lore! But we weavers... ah, what dangers loom ahead when we think and dream too much as we weave our webs!
7 comments:
Showing my ignorance here--but where do you find these pictures? I love this one. Thanks for sharing it along with the poem.
Here's the wikipedia entry that shows a number of the paintings/skteches of her and does have links to the entire poem - both versions! Thanks for pointing it out!
Did i include the link??? In case I didn't here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott
Me again - you might find these other paintings interesting..
http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/images/illustrations/Lady%20of%20Shalott/index.shtml
Thanks, Jennifer! Sheri, as I live in an Arts and Crafts house, and am a bit of a romantic, I love the work of that era, the Pre-Raphaelites, which include Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Mallais, plus the later work of Waterhouse. So I see their work wherever I can, either in museums or in books or online. This particular image a friend showed me in a book. I don't know where the painting is located. Probably in Europe, and I've only seen ones located in the US in person. The work by these artists is worth watching for!
I especially like the other two Waterhouse's on that site, Jennifer! I hadn't seen the other one at the loom (or leaving it), and though I had seen the boat one I don't think I had noticed that she has a tapestry in the boat with her.
I also enjoyed thet the Meteyard painting uses a pipe loom - since that's where I'm at right now! The circular looms also are quite interesting in the Hunt paintings - were those real or did someone take artistic license with the "web" references?
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