My painting of Ophelia’s death was discussed in the following publication.

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    Author:  Stepanka Bublikova

    Faculty: Faculty of Arts of Palacky University in Olomouc - Department of English

    and American Studies

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     following is a quote - the full version can be seen at  

     http://www.theses.cz/id/wp8cx7/?lang=en;furl=%2Fid%2Fwp8cx7%2F 

     and hit the PDF button at the bottom

 

     "Representations of Ophelia's Death in British Art 

 

    This paper deals with the relationship between literature and the visual arts.

    The relationship is clearly demonstrated with a concrete example from British 

     literature. It is the scene of Ophelia's death, which is not visualized on the stage

    but spoken by one of the characters in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet.

    In the first part of the work I concentrate on and discuss Shakespeare's

    relationship with the arts and provide arguments regarding Shakespeare

    as a literary painter. In the second part of my work I provide a list of the

    particular representations of the..........

 

    British painters discussed are Robert Westall, Joseph Severn and Richard Redgrave,

    Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The group is opened by John Everett Millais,

    Arthur Hughes, George Frederic Watts, Henry Nelson O'Neil,

    John William Waterhouse and finally Harold Copping. The next group focuses on the British artists who painted Ophelias after 1900 and

    includes Margaret Macdonald, W. G. Simmonds and Stanley William Hayter.  The list is brought to a close with the fairly contemporary British painters

    Peter Blake, Annie Ovenden and Norma Galley.

 

    Ophelia (2002) by Norma Galley 

     Norma Galley's Ophelia from 2002 represents the most contemporary version of the scene of Ophelia's death painted by a British artist listed in my work.

     It is an almost abstract painting where the central lying figure is perceived after longer observation. The obvious abstract features correspond to the

     technique that Galley used. As she says she "had painted a face" and decided she "did not like it and turned it in its side". It reminded her of a drowning

     woman figure and she “recalled the story of Ophelia and developed the painting accordingly". Galley uses vivid colours. In the central part of the canvas a

     woman's lying figure in heavy large dress can be identified. Orange and red hues are contrasted with a complementary blue background that suggests a

     dark night landscape with the full moon. The reflecting moonlight shows that the figure, which turned out to be Ophelia, is lying or rather floating on the

     water surface. The texture of the painting

     forms objects similar to flowers that are held in Ophelia's hands. Her face is slightly blurred but still a somehow desperate expression can be perceived from

     the empty mouth and eyes. The mouth is open as if the character would sing or sigh. The yellowish colour of the woman's face, in all probability, suggests the

     paleness and fear of the approaching death. The whole scene looks as if covered behind fog. An interesting part of the picture can be observed in the lower

     right corner where the texture is highly wrinkly and may be interpreted as a splash of water and the falling of Ophelia in the stream.

 

     The list of artists who painted Ophelia in the twentieth century is opened with M. Macdonald and terminated with Norma Galley, whose Ophelia encloses the

     whole set of visual representations of Ophelia's death in British art. During the one hundred and fifty years that are covered in my thesis, painters had

     different approaches and different ideas about the visualization of the famous scene. The nineteenth century Ophelias are entirely figurative paintings with

     the attention to detail and reference to the source text, i.e. Act IV, Scene 7 of Hamlet. The twentieth century artists are on the contrary more experimental.

     If I pass over the still classic vision of W. G. Simmonds, I must emphasize the Ruralists, especially Sir Peter Blake, who transferred the Renaissance

     Shakespearean heroine into the modern epoch of the late second half of the twentieth century, though he as well as A. Ovenden maintained the figurative                        composition. In contrast to the realistic figurative style, the Ophelias by M. Macdonald, S. W. Hayter and Norma Galley are almost purely abstract paintings

     with the more or less obvious traces of the woman's character. In these versions, the painters focused rather on the colour symbolism and the whole

     atmosphere of the paintings.

 

     To conclude my work I would like to give my personal evaluation of the representations. On the one hand, I very much appreciate the classic works of Millais

     and Waterhouse, as well as the more modern versions by Macdonald and Galley. Millais captivates me with his attention to detail and sense of realism that

     he is able to create in Ophelia's face or in the decoration of her dress. This painting is still enjoyable even after many observations. In Waterhouse's work I                          particularly admire his diversity in style and composition. I find extraordinary Ophelia's character development that he captured in his three paintings.

     Margaret Macdonald brought a fragile lyricity to the representation of her Ophelia. Norma Galley's work is especially outstanding thanks to the great choice

     of colours and unusual technique. On the other hand, I must say that I was not significantly impressed by Westall's and O'Neil's canvases. In my opinion,

     Westall's Ophelia lacks originality and O'Neil's makes an impression of kitsch to me.”

 

    End of Quote