A Naiad

A Naiad, painted in 1893, depicts one of the freshwater nymphs of Greek mythology who inhabited rivers, streams, springs, and fountains. The naiad was a nature spirit rather than an Olympian deity, associated with the life-giving and purifying properties of fresh water. In Victorian painting the nymph subjects — naiads, dryads, nereids — offered a framework for depicting the female nude or semi-nude within an acceptably classical register, defusing the potentially transgressive nature of such imagery through mythological alibi. Waterhouse's treatment of the naiad as a single figure reclining in or beside water connects to his sustained interest in the relationship between women and water — a relationship that runs through his Lady of Shalott, his various sea nymphs, and his pool-side mythological scenes.

The challenge of painting a figure in or beside water is one Waterhouse met repeatedly throughout his career, developing a characteristic approach of broken colour for water surface and careful attention to reflectivity and transparency. The naiad's figure, warm and organic, is placed against the cooler, more mercurial surface of the water. Light in such settings filters through overhanging trees and reflects from the water simultaneously.