Painting, in general, is boring. The PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD, a movement from which these examples come, was not. Probably because the boys' chief interest seemed to be getting smashed and cruising for girls. Probably also because 'Come home with me; I want to paint you' actually worked for them...

Anthony Frederick SANDYS (1829-1904) – Mary Magdalene

Here we go-- long-haired porcelain wonder is watching the door, not the camera: waiting for her boyfriend to come back. Earlier she'd been taken with a whim while listening to GUNS 'N ROSES' 'Nightrain' and told him to take his credit-card to the liquor store. She's not interested in you or your easel, but you're free to set up over there and hymn her luminescence in six thousand colours while she ponders last night's dinner conversation with Psyche and Gabriel and the way her glass of laudanum caught the light while she read Sappho in the bath and contemplated how much paler and cooler and harder-and-longer-living but more likely to go to heaven than you she was.

John William WATERHOUSE (1849-1917) – Circe Invidiosa

Oh, man: you have to see this in the fucking flesh. The green does not look like that. The green in this thing is the strangest, most luridly pornographic green you've ever seen. Is it poison? Is it ambrosia? Are you gonna say no when it's being offered to you by her? And does it matter, when at least it can't be worse than vermouth? You just know she has something infinitely more esoteric and pointy than a pentagram etched into her forehead behind those locks. Pass her a colada glass, quick...

Dante Gabriel ROSSETTI (1828-1882) – Head of Elizabeth Siddal full face, looking down

Yes! It's a sad-eyed girl with a nice complexion! Why is she sad? Because Satan has just whispered the secret of the universe in her ear, and she must bear the burden alone--by drinking too much and having perfect hair. Actually, Lizzie Siddal was the chief model and muse of Rossetti's gang: they immortalized her; she held up her end by ODing young, being buried with a sheaf of Rossetti's poetry and exhumed some time later (looking more alive than ever, according to the 'I write poetry about blackness. And razors. And blackness' set) when someone decided they wanted the manuscript back.

John Everett MILLAIS (1829-1896) – Ophelia

It's Lizzie Siddal again: this time she lay in a bathtub for days on end so that Millais could get the angles just right, and contracted pneumonia as a result. Top bird, and wonderful stuff: seriously, this is how your face will look when you attend your first MOGWAI performance on this column's recommendation. BYO flowers, smack, and favourable lighting.

Solomon Joseph SOLOMON (1860-1927) – Ajax and Cassandra

Tremble: the canvas itself is bigger than the first ten seconds of 'Kashmir'. You will physically do damage to yourself standing three feet away from an art gallery wall attempting to take in this spectacle of rape and silk and off-camera wind-machines. Initially, you'll think it's Lucifer being kicked out of paradise, preening and air-kissing and descending earthward stairs while taking what he can as he goes. I'm still not convinced it isn't. That face has seen too much of everything: wine, jewels, half-naked goddesses, enormous canvasses depicting the same--oh, and he can't find his copy of Reign In Blood. Perhaps the glove compartment...

...more WATERHOUSE: Flora and the Zephyrs

Come on, man. Chicks. With flawless skin. And see-through clothes. And the power of flight. They've been drinking vodka tonics all morning, and they want to discuss opium and immortality and the art of kissing with you.

© Reuben Ham

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES