Sleep and his Half-brother Death is a painting by John William Waterhouse completed in 1874.
Waterhouse’s first Royal Academy exhibit (submitted from his father’s house at 1 Scarsdale Villas), it was painted after both his younger brothers died of tuberculosis.
The painting itself is a reference to the Greek gods Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) who, in the Greek mythology, were brothers. Despite their similar poses in the painting, the character in the foreground is bathed in light, while his brother is shrouded in darkness; the first therefore represents Sleep, the latter Death. The personification of Sleep clasps poppies, symbolic of narcosis and dreamlike-states.
J.A. Blaikie gave a brief critique of this painting in ‘The Magazine of Art’ (1886):
‘The two figures recline side by side on a low couch, beyond which are the columns of a colonnade open to the night and touched with moonlight. The interior is lit by a lamp, whose light streams on the foremost figure, Sleep, whose head hangs in heavy stupor on his breast, and his right hand grasps some poppies. By his side lies Death in dusky shadow, with head thrown back, and the lines of the figure expressive of easeful lassitude. At his feet is an antique lyre, while immediately in the foreground is a low round table… The two figures are both young, and the beauty of youth belongs to one as much as to the other… the strange likeness and unlikeness of the recumbent figures.’
John William Waterhouse 