Guinevere 1913

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale made this beautiful watercolour of Guinevere sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century, I imagine in her studio, perhaps on a rainy day. The colours in this piece are like a garden after a spring shower – everything has a slightly soft, dewy quality. Look at the way she has depicted the folds in Guinevere’s dress, the way the material bunches and drapes. It’s all about movement, a kind of choreographed dance of cloth, which is so fascinating. I can feel the weight of the fabric and her discomfort. It's as if the artist empathizes with her sitter’s predicament and tries to capture a moment of stillness amid turmoil. I wonder what she was thinking as she painted this? Did she feel the weight of responsibility to tell the story accurately, or was she more interested in the textures and light? All artists are in conversation with each other, across time. They borrow, steal, and riff off each other’s ideas. This sharing is like a form of embodied expression.