Incidents from the Gospels are represented by “The Prodigal,” where the outcast is seen crouching on the ground, his face fixed on vacuity, almost in the act of coming to himself.  “For he had Great Possessions,” is, however, the greatest and simplest of all.  There the young man who went away sorrowful with bowed head, scarcely knowing what he has lost, is used by Watts as one of his most powerful criticisms of modern life.  Although the incident is a definite isolated one, yet the costume, figure, chain of office, and jewelled fingers, clutching and releasing, are of no time or land in particular.

It is not a little remarkable that Watts, who had breathed so deeply the air of Italy, and had almost lived in company of Titian and Raphael, should never have attempted the figure of Christ or His apostles.  This was, however, not without reason.  His pictures were not only “for all time,” but apart from time altogether.  His only specific reference to Christianity is his beautiful canvas, “The Spirit of Christianity,” in which he rebuked the Churches for their dissensions.  A parental figure floats upon a cloud while four children nestle at her feet.  The earth below is shrouded in darkness and gloom, despite the steeple tower raising its head above a distant village.  The rebuke was immediately stimulated by the refusal of a certain church to employ Watts when the officials found he was not of their faith.  In this picture Watts approached nearest to the Italian Madonnas both in form and colour.

The Mythical Paintings are, in the main, earlier than the Biblical series, but even here the same note of teaching is struck, and our human sympathies are drawn out towards the figure depicted.  In one, “Echo” comes to find her lover transformed into a flower; in another, “Psyche,” through disobedience, has lost her love.  She gazes regretfully at a feather fallen from Cupid’s wing; it is a pink feather, such as might be taken from the plumage of the little Lord of Love who vainly opposes Death in his approach to the beloved one.  In “Psyche,” Watts has made the pale body expressive of abject loss; there is no physical effort, except in the well-expanded feet, and no other thought but lost love.

The legend of “Diana and Endymion” was painted three times—­“good, better, best.”  A shepherd loved the Moon, who in his sleep descends from heaven to embrace him.  The canvas of 1903 must be regarded as the final success—­the sleeping figure is more asleep, his vision more dreamlike and diaphanous.  “Orpheus and Eurydice” (painted three times) is perhaps the greatest of his classical pictures.  It is one of the few compositions that were considered by its author as “finished.”  Here again the lover through disobedience loses his love; the falling figure of Eurydice is one of the most beautiful and realistic of all the series of Watts’ nudes, and the agony of loss, the energy of struggle, are magnificently drawn in the figure of Orpheus.  Looking at the canvas, one recalls the lines of the old Platonic poet-philosopher Boethius: