Arthur Hughes (1832-1915) is described by Timothy Hilton in The Pre-Raphaelites as a “sentimentalist….a painter of trysts and tristesse, of sweet sadness rather than grief, and rarely of happiness.” His painting of La Belle comes closest to the non-traditional interpretation of her as victim.
http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/hughes/p-hughes19.htm
In this painting it is La Belle who is woebegone. She doesn’t look wistful or sweetly sad. She looks exhausted. Sitting on the horse, her shoulders are slumped; her arms seem to be bound and are hanging uselessly in front of her. The look on her face is intense misery.
The knight is standing, holding onto the horse’s harness. He’s dressed in armor and chain mail covered by a tunic. Flowers and leaves and debris are at his feet. He’s not looking at the woman on the horse but seems to be gazing at the floating ghosts behind her back. There are three phantom figures. The “king” wearing a crown is pointing upwards with one hand. His other hand is on his sheathed sword. If this is the “horrid warning” in the poem, it has not fazed the knight whose expression seems still. There is more motion and emotion in the figures of the ghosts than in either La Belle or the knight. He does not look “in thrall” and it is the woman who looks ill.
According to Christopher Wood, Hughes used “landscape setting to heighten and intensify the emotional situation of the figures” (Victorian Painting). There is a great deal of detail in the setting of flowers, leaves and trees. The trees in silhouette against the sky seem to be blowing while the ghosts hover. The brightly mottled yellow sky is the most intense part of the painting, perhaps contrasting with the tristesse and mysterious mood beneath.
La Belle is the focus of the painting. She is in the center and light seems to illuminate her body. She does not appear to be a woman without mercy. It is she whom I pity.
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