Romantic Era
           Dr. Johnson’s view of Ophelia as young, beautiful, harmless and pious was very much an eighteenth-century one, and it emphasized certain aspects of her character at the expense of others. It set aside the earthier elements of her character which come to the surface in her evident understanding of Hamlet’s sexual innuendoes during the Play Scene, and again in the bawdiness of her distracted singing in Act 4 Scene 5. Representations of Ophelia which set her in a more erotic light would soon come forward. In France especially, artists of the Romantic era began to portray Ophelia in more passionate terms, emphasizing the intensity they saw in her emotions.

           The first artist to openly represent the sexual element in Ophelia’s nature was the great French Romantic painter, Delacroix, who returned to la Mort d’Ophélie several times.  It is a more sensual Ophelia then we have seen before.

 

 

Eugene Delacroix

        Another French artist, Madeleine Lemaire, carried the representation of Ophelia’s sexuality much, much further than Delacroix.  As Elaine Showalter has written, by the mid 19th century, it had become a widely- held view that female insanity was frequently related to problems in forming female sexual identity.  Lemaire gives us a striking portrayal of this view, her Ophelia openly and disturbingly lascivious in her madness
     Still strongly provocative and troubling is the Ophelia painted by another French artist, Ernest H é bert.  Here Ophelia confronts the viewer with a bold and direct gaze that conveys both sensuality and emotional turmoil.