Sunday 21 December 2008

ART SUNDAY - GODWARD


"Sadness flies away on the wings of time." - Jean de La Fontaine

John William Godward (9th August 1861 – 13th December 1922) was an English painter from the end of the Pre-Raphaelite/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 like Picasso. He committed suicide at the age of 61 and is said to have written in his suicide note that "the world was not big enough" for him and a Picasso. His already estranged family, who had disapproved of him becoming an artist, were ashamed of his suicide and burned his papers. No photographs of Godward are known to survive.

This is his painting “In the Days of Sappho”. Most of his paining are on ancient themes and his style is meticulous, richly coloured and based on an idealised vision of antiquity.

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