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The overlooked masterpiece full of coded messages about World War One
Esoteric and pioneering, the paintings of a lesser-known Pre-Raphaelite, Evelyn De Morgan, explored the trauma and meaning of war – and prefigured current fantasy art.
Instead of a drowned body floating down the river, as in Sir John Everett Millais' Ophelia, or figures whose main currency was their looks, we meet a skilled sorceress creating magical potions and flying superheroines who can cast rain, thunder and lightning from their fingers. If De Morgan's haloed angel echoes this idea of rebirth − reflecting the artist's belief in a spiritual afterlife − then the winged beasts are its counterpart, Death, always biting at the heels of the people and threatening to overcome them. While art history has tended to paint women as virgin mothers, objects of beauty or temptresses, De Morgan's specifically female perspective recasts them as figures of hope that augur an alternative, brighter future.
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