Zone of Love, ca. 1932 (?)

Dame Ethel Walker ARA (1861 - 1951)

RA Collection: Art

Ethel Walker was primarily a painter but in the 1920s she returned to the Slade School of Art to study sculpture under James Havard Thomas. From the 1930s she executed several works titled 'The Zone of Love’ (including one now in the Tate), as a contrast to her earlier 'The Zone of Hate' (1914-1915, Tate).

This bas-relief is influenced stylistically by the compositions of the French Symbolist painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. The subject developed from Walker’s life-long fascination with Eastern religions and philosophies, as well as the theosophical writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Here she depicts the Soul as a young female awakening in a spiritual "zone". The girl is assisted in her transition from the material to the celestial world by a group of angelic figures.