Literature

A particularly sensitive watercolour of Orpheus at the entrance to the underworld, composed in the shape of a crescent moon. The muted palette evokes the sepulchral setting and projects a sense of apprehension, as the poet ventures into the unknown. Solomon’s choice of subject was personal. He would have been aware of Ovid’s telling of the legend, that Orpheus ‘had abstained from the love of women, either because things ended badly for him, or because he had sworn to do so. Yet, many felt a desire to be joined with the poet, and many grieved at rejection. Indeed, he was the first of the Thracian people to transfer his affection to young boys and enjoy their brief springtime, and early flowering this side of manhood.’ (Ovid, The Metamorphoses, Book X, trans. AS Kline)

Solomon treated the subject of Orpheus several times, and at least twice in his last decade, in 1896 and 1905 – but this picture is closer in technique and palette to an earlier Profile Head, dated to 1890 by the Art Gallery of Ontario. Both works, this and Ontario’s, are close in size, subject and colour, and both are experimental in process, particularly in their tricky ‘wax resist’ (a colourless waxy solution is painted onto the paper, then washed over with watercolour, which only takes to the paper, not the wax – here it can be seen in the leaves). Taking into account Solomon’s continuing alcoholic decline, and the concentration and coordination of mind and hand required to make these drawings, an earlier date is suggested, of around 1884, after which he was in the workhouse.