It's Sweet Doing Nothing is Waterhouse's English version of the Italian phrase dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. The painting dates from 1879, when he was thirty and still working in the sunlit, classical manner that brought him early success. It measures about 50 by 37 cm and is in a private collection.
An afternoon with nothing to do
A young woman lies on her back across a patterned carpet and a dark cushion in an open marble courtyard, one arm raised to hold a small flower up to the light. A white feather fan lies in her other hand, and a yellow bloom stands in a dark glass vase beside her. A bronze lamp hangs from the architecture above. Everything in the scene is arranged for one idea: idleness as luxury. It was a theme the Aesthetic movement loved, an argument that looking and lingering were worthwhile pursuits.
The same title, twice
Waterhouse used the title again in 1880 for a different, wider painting of a woman on a low couch, now in Kirkcaldy in Fife, Scotland. Because the two titles are nearly identical, online catalogues often mix them up. The upright 1879 composition shown here is the earlier of the two.
Little-known facts
- Waterhouse was born in Rome in 1849 to English parents, so classical interiors like this one were close to his childhood surroundings.
- The Italian phrase was a fashionable motto for Victorian painters of leisure, and several artists used it as a title in the same years.
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