John Reinhard Weguelin paints in 1888 a funeral scene from Greek mythology in The Gardens of Adonis.
We see the aftermath of the tragic death of Adonis, a man of such beauty that goddesses feuded over him. He was gored to death by a boar and died in the arms of Aphrodite. His blood mixed with her tears and became the anemone flower. There is no hint of this tragic and violent end in the picture, however, which is filled with music and the offerings of flowers by the women by the sea.
In keeping with Weguelin’s classicizing style the colors are muted and the painting of the woman and girl playing the flute is idealized.
John Reinhard Weguelin’s The Gardens of Adonis is in the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery in Northampton, England.
