Songs without Words

John William Godward was a shy and reclusive artist, which has resulted in something of a dearth of information concerning his life and works. He belonged to the second generation of classical painters who followed in the footsteps of Frederic, Lord Leighton and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and is now recognised as one of the major neo-classicists, a painter of considerable technical skill with an immediately recognisable aesthetic. Song without Words dates from what Professor Vern Swanson has termed Godward's ‘Middle Roman Years’. Godward moved to Rome in 1912, and would spend nearly 10 years there before returning to London in 1921, a year before his death. Both the Italian climate and the ever-present historic heritage of the Eternal City served as an inspiration for the backdrops of the artist’s Greco-Roman images, which frequently depict a single female figure in classical dress set against a Mediterranean view or within a classical interior.
Song without Words belongs to a series of similar compositions in which the figure is seated on a marble bench with a calm blue sea behind her forming a stark horizon. The beautiful girl, in her striking orange gown, holds a flute in both hands. Her impulse to play has been halted by the captivating song of the small caged meadowlark, whose voice is implicitly of such beauty that it requires no real accompaniment. A watercolour version of the subject appeared in 1919. The paintings created while the artist was in Rome are among the most iconic examples of his style, and all convey a feeling of serenity which transports the viewer to another time and place.