Working with the narrative of the moment from the life of the beautiful Psyche was written at the beginning of the nineteenth century by John William Waterhouse. An Englishman by birth, Waterhouse was known as a master of female images and portraits. The images of the girls worked well for him and were touching, alive, too realistic, but always beautiful. Apparently, therefore, his Psyche, written as the protagonist of the presented canvas, disarms her natural charm and innocence, which is for sure conveyed by the mimicry of a curious young lady.
The picture has different names: “Psyche opens the door to the garden of Eros” or “Psyche opening the door to the Cupid’s garden.” Looking at the heroine with neatly gathered hair in a tight bundle, perfect features and clean skin, I want to note her cleanliness, washed up to squeak skin, washed drapery fabrics in fragrant rose water. Imagination draws the story of the carefree life of Psyche in the circle of sisters and a loving father. And I do not want to think that soon this fragile girl will fall victim to the blind jealousy of Aphrodite herself. Waterhouse paid much attention to the girl’s environment. This is a piece of the landscape opened in the doorway, a wooden exit frame, a green cap of a curling vine on the wall, pink bushes in earthenware and the dimness of a cold room.
The good quality of the situation underscores the luxury in which Psyche grew up. In addition to the terrestrial landscape without fantasy elements, there are many “mundane” and not at all fabulous. The author and heroine endowed with a completely human form then, as in the mythology of Greece, she seemed a butterfly or a maiden with wings, personifying a weightless soul. Apparently, the moment of her life froze here before meeting in the Amur, while she was running around the land in the circle of the townspeople and the girlfriend deified by Zeus, friendly with the sisters and carefree. John William turned his work into a warm day picture. He tempted the viewer with half-darkness and the presence of flowers pleasant to the eye, not in pure form, but in a mixture with others. It is a white antique color of roses, a burnt umber of wood, a pale shade of the skin of a girl and her finest attire of salmon color.
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