The Charmer 1911

John William Waterhouse painted "The Charmer," sometime around the turn of the century, probably in oil paint. Look how the blue of her dress pulls the eye down through the darker tones of the rocks and foliage. It's like a current, connecting the figure to the water, and from there to the fish that gather to listen to her music. I love the way Waterhouse has built up these layers of glazes to create this shimmering surface. If you look closely, the way he’s dabbed at the edges of the rocks or the way he’s described the ripples on the water, it all seems almost to dissolve into a kind of luminous haze. Her feet are so white, like two glowing beacons at the bottom of the image. Waterhouse’s paintings reminds me of other pre-Raphaelite artists like Burne-Jones, who sought to create a kind of dreamlike, idealized vision of the world, evoking a sense of beauty and enchantment through his art. The art embraces ambiguity and multiple interpretations rather than fixed meanings.