Lady Godiva by John Collier
Ride you naked thro’ the town, and I repeal it” said the Anglo-Saxon Earl Leofric to his stubborn wife Godiva, challenging her, but certainly not expecting the consequences. The medieval legend narrates that in the 11th century, Lady Godiva, an audacious countess, tried to persuade her husband to end the heavy taxation that starved the English village of Coventry. Leofric said he would do this only on one condition: Godiva must ride naked through the town, sure his demure wife would never do such a thing. But never underestimate a woman who believes more in helping her people, than in morality, sanctimonious shame, and prudery: Lady Godiva rode completely naked, on Market Day, through the streets, covered just with her lengthy hair, and ending the tyrannical oppression of her husband
This medieval tale fascinated artists of all centuries, including the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Collier, who depicted it in 1898. In fact, the subject became particularly popular during the Victorian Age, thanks to the poem published by Lord Tennyson which encouraged a revival of this controversial feminine figure. Victorian painters idealized Godiva as a romantic heroine, as it is evident in Collier’s portrait too. Pre-Raphaelites painted portraits with vivid colors, often inspired by literary contaminations, which depicted detailed and realistic images and parallelly dreamlike, symbolic worlds; Collier’s Godiva absorbs all the charm and mystery of this sensual aesthetics and is depicted as an angelic vision, an ideal of absolute beauty.
（photo and story from kaceart.com)
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