With every thing that pretty bin, My lady sweet, arise 1920

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale made this intimate scene using watercolor, and the way she builds up these delicate layers reminds me of how we slowly construct our understanding of love, bit by bit. There's a dreamlike quality to the texture; it feels like a memory half-recalled. The cupid's wings, painted with such detail, seem almost too heavy for such a young figure, and that tension makes the whole image come alive for me. Notice how the sharp, angular lines of the window contrast with the soft, rounded shapes of the roses and leaves. This interplay suggests to me how love exists not just in the ideal but also within the everyday structures of our lives. It reminds me a little of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's works, with their romantic sensibility and detailed depictions of nature, and just like Rossetti, Brickdale invites us to consider love as both a burden and a liberation.