Focus on this artwork and discuss the Analysis.
In this picture, a simple theme is treated in a classic fashion—not dissimilar to that employed for the earlier Music Lesson. Ernest Rhys writes in praise of this perceived quality in Leighton:In this we see two Greek maidens as naturally employed as we often see English girls in other surroundings. This idealization of a familiar occupation so that it is lifted out of a local and casual sphere, into the permanent sphere of classic art, is characteristic of the whole of Leighton's work. He, like Sir L. Alma-Tadema and Albert Moore, contrived also to preserve a certain modern contemporary feeling in the classic presentment of his themes. He was never archaic; so that the classic scenarium of his subjects, in his hands, appears as little antiquarian as a mediæval environment, shall we say, in the hands of Browning.
Albert Moore maidens L. Alma-Tadema Browning Ernest Rhys Music Lesson Greek