Flying Fish

Herbert James Draper (1863-1920) was another one of those lesser-known Victorian painters who combined good drawing with a romantic sensibility in his painting of mythological subjects.


He based the painting “Flying Fish” on a charcoal study from a live model. The figure’s pose, with the foreshortened near arm, is delightful. He keeps his tonal masses simple. The light mass is kept light throughout, allowing much of the upper figure to read very delicately as light-against-light.

Images from the “Inspirational Works of Art” archive (which contains some artistic nudity). Thanks, Keita!

If you like Draper, you’ll like Waterhouse, Leighton, Tadema, Solomon, and Dicksee.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bernard_Dicksee

And there's a 2003 book on Herbert Draper.