Izabella and the Pot of Basil ©1998 Reem Regina Tatar The painting that I found to be the most breathtaking in the entire Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) was "Izabella and the Pot of Basil," by John White Alexander (1856-1915). The poem "Isabella" by romantic poet John Keats, was the inspiration for the artwork. A little background on the work: Izabella was the daughter of Florence in Italy during the Renaissance. The story behind it is that she fell in love with a poor boy that was not a nobleman like her father and brothers. When they found out Izabella was in love with the boy, they killed him and buried him in the woods. In complete despair and remorse, Izabella dug up the boy's body from the woods and cut off his head. Then she put his head inside of a pot of basil. (The Basil herb symbolizes love.) Izabella tricks everyone into believing that the vase she waters so tenderly is filled with Basil. The expression on Izabella's face is mesmerizing. She is in complete lust and awe of the head inside the pot. She kisses it fondly and secretly. She is painted at an angle so that it appears that we are looking up at her from the ground. This is symbolic because the rest of the her lover's body is still buried in the ground. Therefore, we feel a yearning to touch the girl and reach up to her to console her broken heart, the same way we would imagine her lover would have done, had he been alive still. Izabella resembles and is dressed in Renaissance style, similar to that of Juliet in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." The colors are metallic pearls, tans, and midnight blues. The dark shadows on the wall surrounding her suggest she is kissing the vase in the evening, in the darkness so that no one will see her passionate embrace. The expression on her face is serenity, sorrow, and peace. She is in love but her heart is broken. This painting speaks to me and tells me that when you love someone, sometimes you might do anything to be with that person. Izabella ran the risk of shaming herself in the eyes of her father and brothers for cutting off her dead lover's head. But out of her love, with great effort, she still wanted to be close to him, to nurture him, and love him, although he was dead. Izabella 's expression shows that she is also oddly at peace, as though she truly is with her lover again. The painting appears to have shadows in the room, so one might even imagine that her lovers' spirit is in the room with her, holding Izabella just as affectionately as she holds the vase. I felt drawn to this work because of the immense passion and tranquility that is strikingly beautiful on the girl's face. It shows that she is capable of loving, yearning, and mourning all at the same time while still remaining peaceful and serene. She is the embodiment of desire and sorrow, and to look at her is to understand what it is to feel the burning flame of temptation and yearning. To love someone she is forbidden to love, to allow her heart to mourn and yet remain calm and composed, with a deep secret of passion only to be shared between Izabella and the corpse of her lover.