Clyties of the Mist

Clyties of the Mist, painted by Herbert James Draper in 1912, depicts female nature-spirits — Clyties or nymphs associated with mist — in a subject that draws on the overlap between classical mythology and the Victorian and Edwardian engagement with atmospheric natural phenomena as subjects for aesthetic contemplation. The clytie in mythology was a water-nymph who fell in love with the sun god Helios (or Apollo) and was transformed into a heliotrope flower; but Draper's title pluralises the figure and associates her with mist rather than sunflowers, adapting the mythological reference to create atmospheric figures of condensed water and shifting air. By 1912 Draper was at the height of his mature technique, having produced his finest mythological marine works over the previous decade and continuing to explore female figures in elemental settings. The mist subject allowed him to dissolve the usual sculptural clarity of his female nudes into a more atmospheric, less materially defined mode of painting that drew on the Symbolist tradition's interest in the indefinite and the evanescent.

Rendering mist-nymphs requires the suppression of the crisp edge and solid form that normally characterises Draper's female figures, replacing it with a more dissolved, atmospheric quality. The misty setting creates luminous, diffused light conditions that soften the figures into their atmospheric environment.