Diana of the Uplands

M. F. Pithawalla’s Diana of the Uplands (1911) is a beautiful painting of oil on canvas, combining portraiture, landscape, and the aesthetics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century British tradition. The artwork depicts a fashionable woman sitting in the landscape of an open-air and surrounded by two large black-and-white greyhounds. The woman is dressed in a long white dress or coat with pale blue trimmings and wears a wide-brimmed straw hat decorated with vibrant red flowers. The model’s hand is raised to hold the hat against the wind, and her other arm is occupied with the greyhounds’ leash. The woman’s posture is relaxed but alert, and her position in the picture creates an impression of motion. The landscape occupies a considerable part of the painting, and the woman is only seen on the edge of the steep hillside. A grey and cloudy sky above the horizon and the background of the dark folds of rolling hills frame the landscape. The greenery and the brownish rocks in the distance complete the scene, complementing the white dress with a calm contrast of the blue sky. The woman’s red floral decorations on the wide-brimmed straw hat serve as an effective and noticeable feature drawing attention to her face. Pithawalla uses the line of the landscape and the leash to lead the eye across the picture, and the greyhounds occupy the foreground, adding life to the picture with their elongated bodies and lively stance. The painter’s 1911 work is even more remarkable given the painter’s close relationship to Charles Wellington Furse’s Diana of the Uplands (1903–04). The latter’s painting is also presented in a similar setting, depicting a woman in a white costume and wide-brimmed hat, two greyhounds at her side, and the wind-blown landscape. Contemporary critics identified the model for Furse’s Diana as Mrs. Charles Furse, and the work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1904. Pithawalla’s Diana of the Uplands (1911) thus emerges as a critical component of the pictorial tradition of European artistic culture.