A Nymph in the Forest — John Collier, 1893
British painter John Collier (1850-1934) was a society portraitist with a sideline in mythological mischief, and this is one of his best — a red-haired nymph swinging from a branch over a forest stream, utterly at home in the wild.
Collier came from a family of serious people — his father was an MP and Attorney General, his brother was a Privy Councillor — and he repaid them by painting scandalously good nudes and later marrying his late wife’s sister, which in Victorian England was a shocking act that got him exiled from polite society and, legend says, the reason he was never knighted. The establishment couldn’t handle a man who painted nymphs AND loved twice. Priorities.
Appreciation:
– The Romans had a word for this kind of spirit: nympha, from Greek nymphē — bride. Every river, tree, and grove had its own; you couldn’t cut a tree down without first apologizing to the dryad living in it. Victorian painters resurrected them because a naked goddess in a forest was apparently easier to justify to the Academy than a naked woman in a drawing room.
– The Pre-Raphaelite era made red hair the official hair color of myth: Rossetti’s models, Waterhouse’s ladies, and here Collier’s nymph all share the fiery mane. Red hair = fae energy, then as now.
– This nymph has zero concern about being watched — no coy glance, no modesty pose, just swinging from a branch like the forest belongs to her. Because it does. She was there first.
– Collier’s day job: painting portraits of Victorian aristocracy. His night job: this. We all have our Wednesday hobbies, his were just better.
#titsoutart
0 Comments