Harmoniously Vivid Landscape In Ophelia Analysis

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The Harmoniously Vivid Landscape in John Everett’s Ophelia Through its harmonious and vivid landscape, John Everett’s Ophelia expresses the confinement one can have when trying to escape from a melancholic and tragic life. I believe this painting depicts the moment after Hamlet murdered Ophelia’s father and she in turn, feeling helpless, let herself fall into the river to what appears to be a desirable death. The painting also symbolizes her tragic character’s development, downfall and ultimately loss of innocence. She loses complete control of her thoughts and becomes insanely mad, in what seems to be an irreversible state of mind. Although Everett has shown Ophelia’s glowing skin with blush red color and is seen still radiant, a horrific …show more content…

She is not being whisked away in a heavy current but instead she is choosing to place her own head into the shallow and otherwise slow moving or possibly stagnant water. This takes away all possibility of her having come across this fate accidently. The purposefulness of her demise is matched eloquently with the purpose of each brush stroke made by Everett. Based on the various and meticulous facets, spectators can see that the artist did take a profound amount of time in his masterpiece. Not only is his talent shown in a beautifully done painting, but in the meticulous thought that went in to illustrating Shakespeare’s words is …show more content…

She never hesitated her unconditional love towards Hamlet, and was willing to sacrifice everything, including her innocence. I believe Everett wanted his audience to understand the importance and significance of the flowers portrayed in the painting. While during this era, civilians were more interested in the intensity and brightness of colors, clearly portrayed in the flowers, rather than the dark under tones and contrast of which they represented. Consequently, the deep colors and specificity of the painting truly illuminate Ophelia’s face, making it a more revolutionary and voluminous art piece. The image painted is almost an exact replica of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Ophelia’s pinnacle of madness and lunacy, which reach a peak the moment she found the nature of her father’s death. We are witnesses of her character’s outcome, but even though her face has a macabre gesture, the painting itself is far away from transmitting the despair one can truly go through when facing such serious life challenges and circumstances. Evidently, John Everett did not want to reflect on Ophelia’s death as much as he wanted to reflect the alluring background and nature in which she decided to conclude her short

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