A Greek Beauty 1905

John William Godward painted 'A Greek Beauty' with oils on canvas sometime between the late 19th and early 20th century. The colour palette here is really working in a tonal range, creating a beautiful sense of soft light and shadow. It is the kind of piece where you can see the artist really enjoying the process. Now, if you look closely, you can see how Godward has handled the paint to create texture in the folds of the woman’s dress. It is thin and transparent in some areas and thicker in others. This gives the fabric a sense of depth and movement. You can almost feel the soft light caressing the marble of the balustrade. Godward was clearly influenced by classical art, in its use of light and shadow and its focus on idealized beauty, but the attention to the materiality of paint reminds me a little bit of Titian, and the way he built up layers of colour, almost like glazing. But where Titian was all drama, Godward is about the quiet beauty of contemplation. It’s like he is whispering a secret about beauty to the viewer.