First look: an impression 

The two protagonists of the painting are a lady and a knight. They are in a wood and seems to be day. 

Second look: the details

It is an ambiguous representation. Indeed, the woman imprisons the knight with her long blonde hair. She seems to be comfortable in the wood. The lady’s body is brighter than the man’s body and in the background we can see a lake behind the trees.

Historical background 

For his painting he found inspiration in stories and legends from British literature: in fact this picture can be connected to the poem “La belle dame sans mercy” composed in 1819 by John Keats.

Waterhouse was part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters, poets and artists founded in 1848. The Brotherhood rejected the mechanistic approach adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. They believed that the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art. 

The Pre-Raphaelite focused their attention on beauty and nature as central to the purpose of art, as we can see from this picture. 

Technique and style

The painting is an oil on canvas. The warm colours and details such as red leaves in the foreground suggesting that it’s late summer or early autumn. The autumn is not much different to the merciless lady: nature in autumn charms us with her richness, giving promises it won’t fulfill.  Waterhouse painted the lady’s dress in a beautiful warm shade of purple, similar to the color of wine. This color could invoke the seductive and illusory intentions of the lady. She has ruby red lips, long auburn hair and one heart on her sleeve.