Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

A beautiful woman, bathed in light from the window, holds fresh roses arranged in a metal basin.

An elegant and romantic portrait of a young maiden in a luxurious dress. Yet, when this painting was created, the artist Waterhouse was confronting the specter of his own 'old age' and 'death'.

Then, as he was nearing 60, he was said to be in very poor health.

Becoming aware of the brevity of his own life, he suddenly stopped painting his usual dramatic narratives and, as if possessed, began a series of works depicting only 'flowers and women'.

The theme he chose was a line from an old 17th-century poem, which sings, 'The flower that smiles today, tomorrow dies.'

What the ailing old painter depicted on his canvas was not the fear of death, but the astonishingly vibrant radiance of life, on the verge of blooming.

Both beauty and youth are destined to fade away someday. That is precisely why we must cherish the life of this very moment with devotion.

Perhaps what compelled him, at the brink of old age and illness, was such a heartfelt hymn to life.