George W. Joy
Irish, 1844 - 1925
The Danaids
Date: 1888
Homer, Od. xvi, 111
Euripides, Andromache, 103
George Joy wrote of this painting:
"Painted in 1887 and 1888. Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1888; at the Paris Salon, 1889, and at Munich, Chicago, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. Size, 72 x 26 in.
With an infinite sorrow at her heart, and contemplating her never-ending, profitless task, this -- the most youthful of the Danaids -- the only one guiltless of her husband's blood -- prepares to fill her urn. It is the land of the Shades, far removed from the busy haunts of men. Why she should have suffered, the innocent with the guilty, does not appear in that fateful classic story. Behind her, and carrying their urns down the slippery rock-paths, follow the rest of that sad sisterhood.
A French criticism, which I must be allowed to quote, says: "Il a su mettre une grace de mystère dans sa nudité Florentine." Whilst another likened it to a "cinque-cento" fresco.
Colour Note: The background consists of a great onyx rock, which with its white and pearly hues, streaked with rose, gives great value to the delicate flesh tones. The pigments used were of the simplest--ochres, and genuine ultramarine ash and blue--though, of course, hardly perceptible quantities of the two last. These were ground in poppy oil, with my white, 2/3 lead and 1/3 zinc."
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