The Old, Old Story

John William Godward 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 is not big enough for myself and a Picasso". His already estranged family, who had disapproved of his becoming an artist, were ashamed of his suicide and burned his papers. No photographs of Godward are known to survive. The vast majority of Godward's extant images feature women in Classical dress, posed against these landscape features, though there are some semi-nude and fully nude figures included in his oeuvre. The titles reflect Godward's source of inspiration: Classical civilisation, most notably that of Ancient Rome, though Ancient Greece sometimes features, thus providing artistic ties, albeit of a more limited extent, with Leighton. What more can we say about this painting? Happy Valentines everyone.