The Garden of the Hesperides

Leighton painted this in 1892, four years before his death. He was the president of the Royal Academy and the most successful painter in England. The Garden of the Hesperides was one of his last major works, a large square canvas depicting the Greek myth of the golden apples. In the myth, the Hesperides were nymphs who tended a garden at the western edge of the world. The garden contained a tree with golden apples, a wedding gift to Hera from Gaia. The dragon Ladon guarded the tree. Heracles stole the apples as his eleventh labor. Leighton painted the three nymphs asleep around the tree. Their bodies form a circle, their heads resting on each other, their hair flowing across the canvas. The tree rises behind them, its apples visible among the leaves. The dragon coils around the trunk, its body a serpentine line of green and gold. The garden is dark, lit by a dim golden light, with the sea visible in the distance. The composition is circular, built around the sleeping figures. The nymphs' bodies form a ring, the tree trunk rises through the center, and the dragon wraps around the trunk in a spiral. The painting is almost perfectly square, 169 by 169 centimeters, which gives the composition a mandala-like quality. The colors are dark greens, golds, and browns, with the nymphs' pale skin providing the only bright notes. Leighton was sixty-two in 1892. He had been painting classical and mythological subjects for thirty years, and his style had evolved from the tight draftsmanship of his early career to the looser, more atmospheric work of his last decade. The Garden of the Hesperides is one of the most atmospheric of his late works. The figures are soft, the edges blurred, the whole painting suffused with a dreamlike quality. Oil on canvas, 169 by 169 centimeters, roughly 67 by 67 inches. Leighton used thin glazes to build the dark garden, layering greens and browns over a warm ground. The nymphs' skin is painted in pale pinks and whites, built up in smooth layers. The dragon is painted in metallic greens and golds, its scales catching the dim light. This print works in a bedroom or a quiet reading room, where the dreamlike quality and the dark palette can be appreciated. The square format suits a wall space that is as tall as it is wide. The green and gold colors pair with dark walls, brass fixtures, and green plants. The 16x20 or 18x24 size gives the figures and the dragon enough detail to read. The painting is in the Leighton House Museum in London, the artist's former studio and home.