I was at the barber's today, thumbing through a lifestyle/travel magazine (the only one that wasn't car-, muscle-, or sports-related) and came upon an advertisement for this John William Godward print. Sublime!
The Signal (1918)
I'm a big fan of early 20th century illustrators like Maxfield Parrish and JC Leyendecker. Godward was in a similar vein but I didn't know of his work until today. Since there were three guys ahead of me, I had some time to do some quick research on my phone. His Wiki entry is short, sad, and mysterious:
Quote:
John William Godward (9 August 1861 – 13 December 1922) was an English painter from the end of the Neo-Classicist era. He was a protégé of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, but his style of painting fell out of favour with the arrival of painters such as Picasso. He committed suicide at the age of 61 and is said to have written in his suicide note that "the world is not big enough for myself and a Picasso".[1]
His already estranged family, who had disapproved of his becoming an artist, were ashamed of his suicide and burned his papers. No photographs of Godward are known to survive.
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Know this backstory does add a touch of melancholy to his paintings. But even before that, I did sense a bit of loneliness and emptiness underlying these lush scenes.
I'll leave you with some of his other work:
In the Days of Sappho (1904)
In the Tepidarium (1913)
Nerissa (1906)
When the Heart is Young (1902)
