John
William
Waterhouse(b Rome, 6 April 1849; d London, 10 Feb
1917).
English painter. His father was a minor English
painter working in Rome. Waterhouse entered the Royal
Academy Schools in London in 1870. He exhibited at the
Society of British Artists from 1872 and at the Royal
Academy from 1874. From 1877 to the 1880s he regularly travelled abroad, particularly to Italy. In the early
1870s he had produced a few uncharacteristic Orientalist
‘keepsake’ paintings, but most of his works in this
period are scenes from ancient history or classical
genre subjects, similar to the work of Lawrence Alma-Tadema
(e.g. Consulting the Oracle, c. 1882;
London, Tate). However, Waterhouse consistently painted
on a larger scale than Alma-Tadema. His brushwork is
bolder, his sunlight casts harsher shadows and his
history paintings are more dramatic.