Year 1884 Created 1884 | Medium Oil on canvas Location Private collection Period Romanticism | |
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Dimensions 119 cm × 198 cm (47 in × 78 in) John William Waterhouse artwork Saint Eulalia, The Favourites of the Em, Sleep and his Half‑broth, A Flower Stall, The Magic Circle | ||
Consulting the Oracle is a painting by John William Waterhouse. Waterhouse painted it in 1884; according to Anthony Hobson, "The Illustrated London News described it as one of the principal works of the year". Hobson describes the work as having a "keyhole composition" because a partial ring of women focus upon a single other (the priestess).
Hobson goes on to say that the painting helps "to establish Waterhouse as a classical painter" because of his use of "classical, geometrical structures...the vertical, the horizontal and the circle". When he adds the diagonal, as "in the inclined figure of the priestess" and the out-of-place rug, it is a deliberately added tension.
References
Consulting the Oracle Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA