It wouldn’t be a new Taylor Swift album without a ton of Easter Eggs. This week, the internet has been overrun by Swiftie sleuths scrambling to interpret the pop star’s clues about her forthcoming 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, expected this fall. All the signs suggest that this project has taken its inspiration from art history, including one very overt reference to a famous Pre-Raphaelite painting. But what does it all mean? Let’s get into it!
It didn’t take long for art lovers to draw the dots between the cover of The Life of a Showgirl, shot by photography duo Mert and Marcus, and the title of the album’s first track. The collaged photograph of Swift floating face up in a shallow body of water is an obvious reference to one of art history’s most famous paintings: Ophelia (1851–52) by the British Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais. For anyone still in doubt, the artwork’s subject is also referenced by the song “The Fate of Ophelia.”
The track’s title does not suggest your typical upbeat pop hit. Ophelia’s tragic fate, as told in the Shakespeare play Hamlet, was to descend into madness after being spurned by Hamlet, sing a series of increasingly strange songs about heartbreak, and eventually fall into a river and drown. Depending on your opinion of Swift’s last album, The Tortured Poets Department (TTPD), at least some of that might sound familiar.
The fate of Ophelia would certainly align thematically with some of the pop sensation’s previous songs, including “Mad Woman” from Folklore and “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” from TTPD. Both describe the feeling of being perceived as crazy in the public eye.
Swift is the latest in a long line of artists to be drawn to Ophelia’s story. The allure of a beautiful and pure heroine who is ruined by a disastrous world proved particularly seductive to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a leading art movement in Victorian England. Versions were also produced by Arthur Hughes and John William Waterhouse.
Though inspired by medieval art and literature, the Pre-Raphaelites had much in common with Taylor Swift. They too sought to fill their art with plenty of symbolism and highly realistic, intricate details drawn directly from real life.
John Everett Millais, Ophelia (1851–52). Courtesy of Tate.
In Millais’s haunting vision of Ophelia he captures the moment of her surrender to death. The hopelessness of the situation is rendered exquisite by her dazed expression, lavish dress, and scattered wildflowers. It is no surprise that the work has continued to mesmerize viewers and inspire pop culture. It was one of several art history nods in the dramatic finale of The White Lotus‘s third season and was recreated by Kylie Minogue in the music video for Nick Cave’s 1995 song “Where the Wild Roses Grow.”
As noted by the Instagram account @meelzonart, Swift’s interpretation of the scene directly quotes Millais’s Ophelia in the raised positioning of the star’s hands and the shimmering opulence of her dress, albeit a distinctly un-Victorian bejeweled bralette. However, whereas the painting’s subject gazes passively into the distance, Taylor Swift looks directly at the viewer with a bold, even confrontational expression. Perhaps she won’t succumb to the same fate as Ophelia after all.
When Taylor Swift announced her new album on the New Heights podcast co-hosted by her boyfriend, the NFL star Trace Kelce, super fans spotted a few more surprise allusions to visual art. These come courtesy of the monographs and catalogs stacked on the bookshelf behind Swift and Kelce.
Whoever assembled this backdrop, which is also littered with NFL merch, is clearly a modern and contemporary art enthusiast. Here are some of the many artists, photographers, designers, and architects that line the book spines: Mark Rothko, Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Hilma af Klint, Ruth Asawa, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ai Weiwei, Daniel Arsham, Slim Aarons, Dieter Rams, Charles and Ray Eames, and India Mahdavi. Walter Chandoha’s photography album Cats must surely have been chosen by Swift, a known feline fanatic.
Though Swift is no stranger to secret codes and subliminal messaging, it is hard to know what to make of this library. Is she taking a more abstract, Rothko-inspired route, a surprise departure from the world-building specificity of her previous lyrics? The AbEx icon was certainly no stranger to painting in orange, the color most strongly associated with The Life of a Showgirl.
Taylor Swift, The Life of a Showgirl (2025). Photo: @taylorswift on Instagram.
Orange, a highly emotive shade evoking warmth, energy, and joy, has been deployed by artists going as far back as the ancient Egyptians. Monet used it for his hazy sunrise, Van Gogh used it to capture the light of Provence, and Rothko put it in service of “basic human emotions.” The Pre-Raphaelites also adored the color: see how Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted the hair of his muse Elizabeth Siddal (also a model for Millais’s Ophelia) in a blazing gold.
Mark Rothko, Red, Brown, Black and Orange on view at Sotheby’s New York. Photo: Carl Court / Getty Images.
The Life of a Showgirl won’t be the first album on which Taylor Swift includes a nod to art. In the song “loml” from TTPD, she describes the disappointments of a fading love story, singing “your Impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes.” She also teamed up with longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff to create a new version of her 2022 hit “Anti-Hero” featuring his band Bleachers. The producer sings: “Sometimes, I feel like everybody is an art bro lately, and I just judge them on a hill.” Relatable!
So, are the Swifties reading too much into these supposed clues? Possibly not. “I want Easter Eggs to be a thing where, if you are a part of the fandom and you want to experience music in a normal way then you don’t even see them,” Swift said on New Heights. But… “If you want to look at [them], then [they’re] there.”
