Pygmalion1.0136

George Frederick Watts, 1817-1904, "The Wife of Pygmalion: a Translation from the Greek," oil on canvas, c. 1865-1868, The Faringdon Collection Trust, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire.

The artist famously posed not a live model for this painting, but rather the Roman/17th-century marble bust known as "The Oxford Bust" from among the Arundel Marbles. Watts was convinced that the Oxford Bust was a Phideian or contemporary Greek sculpture and strove to use it as a model to perfect the art of Victorian era. Nevertheless, Watts' use of the marble for his painting is apparent, and subtle shading couples with hints of movement to enliven the notion of the statue's animation in the moment.

L. Lambourne (1999), Victorian Painting (London:Phaidon), p. 284-5 (w/ plate 343) recalls Swinburne's observation that Watts' creation calls to mind the Venus de Milo and that an ancient Greek painter must have painted women in this manner, i.e. from sculpted artifact. Lambourne also connects the zeitgeist of the Watts painting to the quartet of Edward Burne-Jones (1868-1870) "which epitomize [also] the conflict between the real and the ideal, between the classical tradition and Pre-Raphaelite sensuality."