164. 魔术圈,1886年`The Magic Circle, 1886 by John William Waterhouse 高清作品[28%]

AF-The Magic Circle, 1886

图片文件尺寸: 3412×5000 px

魔术圈,1886年-约翰·威廉·沃特豪斯

-The Magic Circle was one of Waterhouse’s earliest depictions of a subject that preoccupied him for the rest of his life, the classical sorceress. Here he depicted her clad in a blue gown wrought with figures of dancing pagan warriors, a curve-bladed knife in one hand and a wand in the other with which she is drawing the eponymous circle around her flaming cauldron. It is evening and she is in the wasteland below a towering cliff upon which is a citadel or cluster of tombs. She is accompanied by a group of crows and a toad and a serpent is entwining her neck – symbols of the occult. She has poppy-flowers and herbs piled beside the brazier and caught in the belt of her dress – to be burnt as offerings to accompany her incantations. In the background is a cave within which two shrouded figures are watching her cast her spell.