The Mourners
Artist: Evelyn De Morgan (English, 1855-1919)
Date: 1910-1916
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: National Trust Collections, London, United Kingdom
Description
This is one of the series of symbolic pictures of war subjects inspired by Evelyn De Morgan's distress over the First World Way. She showed this and thirteen others in her studio in 1916 to raise funds for the Red Cross. An original label on the reverse reads: '"The Mourners" (One of a series of six war pictures painted by Evelyn De Morgan) The unhappy people, in their misery, are haunted by a vision of past happiness'.
The picture reflects her preference for allegorical or symbolic figure subjects. The figures of women in rags in a barren landscape, all in sombre tones, suggest desolation and grief. They see a vision, bathed in golden light, of an idealized but obviously Italian city and figures playing music, laden with flowers, carrying a cornucopia etc., symbolizing joy and plenty. The picture has all the characteristics of De Morgan's work.
