Echo and Narcissus (1903), by J.W. Waterhouse The nymph Echo was condemned

Echo and Narcissus (1903), by J.W. Waterhouse 

The nymph Echo was condemned to repeat the words that other people were saying.  She fell in love with Narcissus, but Narcissus had only eyes for his own reflection in the water.  As a result of this unfulfilled love, Narcissus turned into the well-known flower and Echo disappeared in the mountains where her voice can still be heard.

The melancholy of unfulfilled love is probably what makes Waterhouse’s works so popular these days.  After his death in 1917, in the midst of a cruel war, his works soon became forgotten.  Interest revived only in 2009, when the Royal Academy of Arts and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts organized a major exhibition of his works that travelled around the world.