George Frederic Watts

British, 1817 - 1904

Paolo and Francesca

Date: 1872-1884 (?)

"In Paolo and Francesca passion is seen externalised at the moment of weary ecstasy when desire has become a memory, and memory has distinguished the world..... These bodies are like the hollow shell left by flames which have burnt themselves out, and they float in the fiery air, weightless and listless, as dry leaves are carried along a wave of wind. All life has gone out of them except the energy of that one memory, which lives in the pallor of their flesh, and in the red hollows of the woman's half-closed eyes, and in the ashen hollows of the man's cheeks.... Now, they do not love, nor repent, nor hope, only remember; they have lived, they are no longer living, and they cannot die."
Arthur Symons, Studies in Seven Arts, 1906, pp. 114-115.

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