Saint Eulalia

The composition is extremely daring: Eulalia's dramatically foreshortened body leads the eye towards a void at the centre of the picture. A group of mourners form a pyramid towards the top of the composition, but the viewer's eye is drawn back down towards the martyred figure by the right-hand soldier's spear, via a zig-zag of ropes, to the young woman's outflung arms. According to the account given by the Spanish Christian poet Prudentius (348-405), at the moment of her death, a white dove emerged from Eulalia's mouth and flew towards heaven. Waterhouse refers to this event by including sixteen doves in his painting. The youngest mourner points upwards at a single hovering dove towards the top of the picture, a symbol of Eulalia's departing soul. [Read more...]