Edward Burne-Jones | |
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 Photogravure of a portrait of Edward Burne-Jones by his sonPhilip Burne-Jones, 1898 | |
| Born | Edward Coley Burne Jones (1833-08-28)28 August 1833 Birmingham, England |
| Died | 17 June 1898(1898-06-17) (aged 64) London, England |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | |
| Spouse | |
| Partner | Maria Zambaco (1866–1869) |
| Relatives |
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Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet,ARA (/bɜːrnˈdʒoʊnz/;[1] 28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898) was an English painter and designer associated with thePre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter.[2]
Burne-Jones worked withWilliam Morris as a founding partner inMorris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co in the design of decorative arts.[3] His early paintings show the influence ofDante Gabriel Rossetti, but by 1870 he had developed his own style. In 1877, he exhibited eight oil paintings at theGrosvenor Gallery, a new rival to theRoyal Academy of Arts. These includedThe Beguiling of Merlin. The timing was right and he was taken up as a herald and star of the newAesthetic Movement.
In the studio of Morris and Co. Burne-Jones worked as a designer of a wide range of crafts including ceramic tiles, jewellery,tapestries, andmosaics. Among his most significant and lasting designs are those forstained glass windows the production of which was a revived craft during the 19th century. His designs are still to be found in churches across the UK, with examples in the US and Australia.
Born Edward Coley Burne Jones (the hyphenation of his last names was introduced later) was born inBirmingham, the son of a Welshman, Edward Richard Jones, a frame-maker atBennetts Hill, where ablue plaque commemorates the painter's childhood. A pub on the site of the house is called theBriar Rose in honour of Burne-Jones' work.[3] His mother Elizabeth Jones (née Coley) died within six days of his birth, and Edward was raised by his father, and the family housekeeper, Ann Sampson, an obsessively affectionate but humourless, and unintellectual local girl.[4][5] He attended Birmingham'sKing Edward VI grammar school in 1844 and theBirmingham School of Art from 1848 to 1852, before studyingtheology atExeter College, Oxford.[6] At Oxford, he became a friend ofWilliam Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry. The two Exeter undergraduates, together with a group of Jones' friends from Birmingham known as theBirmingham Set,[7] formed a society, which they called "The Brotherhood". The members of the brotherhood read the works ofJohn Ruskin andTennyson, visited churches, and idealised aspects of the aesthetics and social structure of theMiddle Ages.[3] At this time, Burne-Jones discoveredThomas Malory'sLe Morte d'Arthur which would become a substantial influential in his life. At that time, neither Burne-Jones nor Morris knewDante Gabriel Rossetti personally, but both were much influenced by his works, and later met him by recruiting him as a contributor to theirOxford and Cambridge Magazine, founded by Morris in 1856 to promote the Brotherhood’s ideas.[8][9]
Burne-Jones had intended to become a church minister, but under Rossetti's influence both he and Morris decided to become artists, and Burne-Jones left college before taking a degree to pursue a career in art. In February 1857, Rossetti wrote toWilliam Bell Scott:
Two young men, projectors of theOxford and Cambridge Magazine, have recently come up to town from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned artists instead of taking up any other career to which the university generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones's designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything unless perhapsAlbert Dürer's finest works.[8]
In 1856 Burne-Jones became engaged toGeorgiana "Georgie" MacDonald (1840–1920), one of theMacDonald sisters. She was training to be a painter, and was the sister of Burne-Jones's old school friend. The couple married on 9 June 1860, after which she made her own work inwoodcuts, and became a close friend ofGeorge Eliot. (Another MacDonald sister married the artist SirEdward Poynter, a further sister married the ironmasterAlfred Baldwin and was the mother of the Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin, and yet another sister was the mother ofRudyard Kipling. Kipling and Baldwin were thus Burne-Jones's nephews by marriage).
Georgiana gave birth to a son,Philip, in 1861. In the winter of 1864, she became gravely ill withscarlet fever and gave birth to a second son, Christopher, who died soon thereafter. The family then moved to 41 Kensington Square, and their daughter Margaret was born there in 1866.[10]
In 1867 Burne-Jones and his family settled at the Grange, an 18th-century house set in a garden inNorth End, Fulham, London. For the 1870s Burne-Jones did not exhibit, following a number of bitterly hostile attacks in the press, and a passionate affair (described as the "emotional climax of his life")[11] with his Greek modelMaria Zambaco, which ended with her trying to commitsuicide by throwing herself intoRegent's Canal.[11][12]
During these difficult years, Georgiana developed a friendship with Morris, whose wifeJane had fallen in love with Rossetti. Morris and Georgie may have been in love, but if he asked her to leave her husband, she refused. In the end, the Burne-Joneses remained together, as did the Morrises, but Morris and Georgiana were close for the rest of their lives.[13]
In 1880, the Burne-Joneses boughtProspect House inRottingdean, nearBrighton in Sussex, as their holiday home and soon after, the next doorAubrey Cottage to createNorth End House, reflecting the fact that their Fulham home was in North End Road. (Years later, in 1923,Sir Roderick Jones, head ofReuters, and his wife, playwright and novelistEnid Bagnold, added the adjacentGothic House to the property, which became the inspiration and setting for her playThe Chalk Garden[citation needed]).
His troubled son Philip, who became a successful portrait painter, died in 1926. His adored daughter Margaret (died 1953) marriedJohn William Mackail (1850–1945), the friend and biographer of Morris, and Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1911 to 1916. Their children were the novelistsAngela Thirkell andDenis Mackail, and the youngest, Clare Mackail.
In an edition of the boys' magazine, Chums (No. 227, Vol. V, 13 January 1897), an article on Burne-Jones stated that "....his pet grandson used to be punished by being sent to stand in a corner with his face to the wall. One day on being sent there, he was delighted to find the wall prettily decorated with fairies, flowers, birds, and bunnies. His indulgent grandfather had utilised his talent to alleviate the tedium of his favourite's period of penance."
Burne-Jones once admitted that after leaving Oxford he "found himself at five-and-twenty what he ought to have been at fifteen". He had had no regular training as a draughtsman and lacked the confidence of science. But his extraordinary faculty of invention as a designer was already ripening; his mind, rich in knowledge of classical story and medieval romance, teemed with pictorial subjects, and he set himself to complete his set of skills by resolute labour, witnessed by his drawings. The works of this first period are all more or less tinged by the influence of Rossetti; but they are already differentiated from the elder master's style by their more facile though less intensely felt elaboration of imaginative detail. Many are pen-and-ink drawings onvellum, exquisitely finished, of which hisWaxen Image (1856) is one of the earliest and best examples. Although the subject, medium and manner derive from Rossetti's inspiration, it is not the hand of a pupil merely, but of a potential master. This was recognised by Rossetti himself, who before long avowed that he had nothing more to teach him.[14]
Burne-Jones's first sketch in oils dates from this same year, 1856, and during 1857 he made forBradfield College the first of what was to be an immense series of cartoons for stained glass. In 1858 he decorated a cabinet with thePrioress's Tale fromGeoffrey Chaucer'sCanterbury Tales, his first direct illustration of the work of a poet whom he especially loved and who inspired him with endless subjects. Thus early, therefore, we see the artist busy in all the various fields in which he was to labour.[14]
In the autumn of 1857 Burne-Jones joined Morris,Valentine Prinsep,J. R. Spencer Stanhope[15] and others in Rossetti's ill-fated scheme todecorate the walls of theOxford Union. None of the painters had mastered the technique offresco, and their pictures had begun to peel from the walls before they were completed. In 1859 Burne-Jones made his first journey to Italy. He sawFlorence,Pisa,Siena,Venice and other places, and appears to have found the gentle and romanticSienese more attractive than any other school. Rossetti's influence persisted and is visible, more strongly perhaps than ever before, in the twowatercolours of 1860,Sidonia von Bork andClara von Bork.[14] Both paintings illustrate the 1849gothic novelSidonia the Sorceress byLady Wilde, a translation ofSidonia Von Bork: Die Klosterhexe (1847) by Johann Wilhelm Meinhold.[16]
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In 1864, Burne-Jones was elected an associate of theSociety of Painters in Water-Colours—which is known as the Old Water-Colour Society—and exhibited, among other works,The Merciful Knight, the first picture which fully revealed his ripened personality as an artist. The next six years saw a series of fine watercolours at the same gallery.[14]
In 1866, Mrs. Cassavetti commissioned Burne-Jones to paint her daughter,Maria Zambaco, inCupid finding Psyche, an introduction which led to their tragic affair. In 1870, Burne-Jones resigned his membership following a controversy over his paintingPhyllis and Demophoön.The features of Maria Zambaco were clearly recognisable in the barely draped Phyllis, and the undraped nakedness of Demophoön coupled with the suggestion of female sexual assertiveness offendedVictorian sensibilities. Burne-Jones was asked to make a slight alteration, but instead "withdrew not only the picture from the walls, but himself from the Society".[17][18] During the next seven years, 1870–1877, only two works of the painter's were exhibited. These were two water-colours, shown at the Dudley Gallery at theEgyptian Hall, Piccadilly in 1873, one of them being the beautifulLove Among the Ruins, destroyed twenty years later by a cleaner who supposed it to be an oil painting, but afterwards reproduced in oils by the painter. This silent period was one of unremitting production.[citation needed]
Hitherto, Burne-Jones had worked almost entirely in watercolours. He now began pictures in oils, working at them in turn, and having them on hand. The firstBriar Rose series,Laus Veneris, theGolden Stairs, thePygmalion series, andThe Mirror of Venus are among the works planned and completed, or carried far towards completion, during these years.[14]
The beginnings of Burne-Jones' partnership with the fine-art photographerFrederick Hollyer, whose reproductions of paintings and—especially—drawings would expose an audience to Burne-Jones's works in the coming decades, began during this period.[19]
At last, in May 1877, the day of recognition came with the opening of the first exhibition of theGrosvenor Gallery, when theDays of Creation,The Beguiling of Merlin, and theMirror of Venus were all shown. Burne-Jones followed up the signal success of these pictures withLaus Veneris, theChant d'Amour,Pan and Psyche, and other works, exhibited in 1878. Most of these pictures are painted in brilliant colours.[citation needed]
A change is noticeable in 1879 in theAnnunciation and in the four pictures making up the second series ofPygmalion and the Image; the former of these, one of the simplest and most perfect of the artist's works, is subdued and sober; in the latter, a scheme of soft and delicate tints was attempted, not with entire success. A similar temperance of colours marksThe Golden Stairs, first exhibited in 1880.[citation needed]
The almost sombreWheel of Fortune was shown in 1883, followed in 1884 byKing Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, in which Burne-Jones once more indulged his love of gorgeous colour, refined by the period of self-restraint. He next turned to two important sets of pictures,The Briar Rose andThe Story of Perseus, although these were not completed.[14]
In 1861, William Morris founded thedecorative arts firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. with Rossetti, Burne-Jones,Ford Madox Brown and Philip Webb as partners, together withCharles Faulkner andPeter Paul Marshall, the former of whom was a member of the Oxford Brotherhood, and the latter a friend of Brown and Rossetti.[9] The prospectus set forth that the firm would undertake carving,stained glass, metal-work, paper-hangings,chintzes (printed fabrics), andcarpets.[14] The decoration of churches was from the first an important part of the business. The work shown by the firm at the1862 International Exhibition attracted notice, and later it was flourishing. Two significant secular commissions helped establish the firm's reputation in the late 1860s: a royal project atSt. James's Palace and the "green dining room" at the South Kensington Museum (now theVictoria and Albert) of 1867 which featured stained glass windows and panel figures by Burne-Jones.[21]
In 1871 Morris & Co. were responsible for the windows atAll Saints, designed by Burne-Jones forAlfred Baldwin, his wife's brother-in-law. The firm was reorganised as Morris & Co. in 1875, and Burne-Jones continued to contribute designs for stained glass and later tapestries until the end of his career. Nine windows designed by him and made by Morris & Co were installed in Holy Trinity Church in Frome.[22] Stained glass windows in theChrist Church cathedral and other buildings inOxford are by Morris & Co. with designs by Burne-Jones.[23][24] Other windows are inSt. Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham,Church of St Editha, Tamworth,Salisbury Cathedral,St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham,Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, Chelsea, St Peter and St Paul parish church inCromer,St Martin's Church inBrampton,Cumbria (the church designed byPhilip Webb),St Michael's Church, Brighton,Trinity Church inFrome,All Saints, Jesus Lane,Cambridge,St Edmund Hall,St Anne's Church, Brown Edge, Staffordshire Moorlands,Kelvinside Hillhead Parish Church, Glasgow and St Edward the Confessor church at Cheddleton Staffordshire.
Stanmore Hall was the last major decorating commission executed by Morris & Co. before Morris's death in 1896. It was the most extensive commission undertaken by the firm, and included a series of tapestries based on the story of theHoly Grail for the dining room, with figures by Burne-Jones.[25]
In 1891 Jones was elected a member of theArt Workers Guild.
Although known primarily as a painter, Burne-Jones was active as an illustrator, helping the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic to enter mainstream awareness. He designed books for theKelmscott Press between 1892 and 1898. His illustrations appeared in the following books, among others:[26]
In 1894, theatrical manager and actorHenry Irving commissioned Burne-Jones to design sets and costumes for theLyceum Theatre production ofKing Arthur byJ. Comyns Carr, who was Burne-Jones's patron and the director of the New Gallery as well as a playwright. The play starred Irving asKing Arthur andEllen Terry asGuinevere, and toured America following its London run.[27][28][29] Burne-Jones accepted the commission with enthusiasm, but was disappointed with much of the final result. He wrote confidentially to his friend Helen Mary Gaskell (known as May), "The armour is good—they have taken pains with it ... Perceval looked the one romantic thing in it ... I hate the stage, don't tell—but I do."[30]
Burne-Jones's paintings were one strand in the evolving tapestry ofAestheticism from the 1860s through the 1880s, which considered that art should be valued as an object of beauty engendering a sensual response, rather than for the story or moral implicit in the subject matter. In many ways, this was antithetical to the ideals of Ruskin and the early Pre-Raphaelites.[31] Burne-Jones's aim in art is best given in his own words, written to a friend:
I mean by a picture a beautiful, romantic dream of something that never was, never will be – in a light better than any light that ever shone – in a land no one can define or remember, only desire – and the forms divinely beautiful – and then I wake up, with the waking of Brynhild.[14]
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Burne-Jones was elected an Associate of theRoyal Academy in 1885, and the following year he exhibited uniquely at the Academy, showingThe Depths of the Sea, a painting of a mermaid carrying down with her a youth whom she has unconsciously drowned in the impetuosity of her love. This picture adds to the habitual haunting charm a tragic irony of conception and a felicity of execution which give it a place apart among Burne-Jones's works. He formally resigned his Associateship in 1893.
One of thePerseus series was exhibited in 1887 and two more in 1888, withThe Brazen Tower, inspired by the same legend. In 1890 the second series ofThe Legend of Briar Rose were exhibited by themselves and won admiration. The huge watercolour,The Star of Bethlehem, painted for the corporation of Birmingham, was exhibited in 1891.
A long illness for a time checked the painter's activity, which, when resumed, was much occupied with decorative schemes. An exhibition of his work was held at theNew Gallery in the winter of 1892–1893. To this period belong his comparatively few portraits.
In 1894, Burne-Jones was made abaronet. Ill health again interrupted the progress of his works, chief among which was the vastArthur in Avalon. William Morris died in 1896, and the health of Burne-Jones declined substantially after. In 1898 he suffered an attack ofinfluenza, and had apparently recovered when he was again taken suddenly ill and died on 17 June 1898.[14][32] His memorial service was held six days later, atWestminster Abbey. His ashes were interred in the churchyard atSt Margaret's Church, Rottingdean,[33] a place he knew through summer family holidays. In the winter following his death, a second exhibition of his works was held at the New Gallery, and an exhibition of his drawings at theBurlington Fine Arts Club.[14]
In 1881 Burne-Jones received an honorary degree fromOxford, and was made an Honorary Fellow in 1882.[8] In 1885 he became the president of theBirmingham Society of Artists. At about that time, he began hyphenating his name, merely—as he wrote later—to avoid "annihilation" in the mass of Joneses.[34] In November 1893, he was approached to see if he would accept a Baronetcy on the recommendation of the outgoing Prime MinisterWilliam Ewart Gladstone, the following February he legally changed his name to Burne-Jones.[35] He was formally created abaronet of Rottingdean, in the county of Sussex, and of the Grange, in the parish of Fulham, in the county of London, in thebaronetage of the United Kingdom on 3 May 1894,[36] but remained unhappy about accepting the honour, which disgusted his socialist friend Morris and was scorned by his equally socialist wife Georgiana.[34][35] Only his son Philip, who mixed with the set of thePrince of Wales and would inherit the title, truly wanted it.[35] Burne-Jones was made an elected member of theRoyal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium in 1897.[37]
Following Burne-Jones' death, and at the intervention of the Prince of Wales, his memorial service was held atWestminster Abbey. It was the first time an artist had been so honoured.
Burne-Jones exerted a considerable influence on French painting. He was influential among Frenchsymbolist painters, from 1889.[38] His work inspired poetry byAlgernon Charles Swinburne – Swinburne's 1866Poems & Ballads is dedicated to Burne-Jones.
Three of Burne-Jones's studio assistants,John Melhuish Strudwick, T. M. Rooke andCharles Fairfax Murray, went on to successful painting careers. Murray later became an important collector and respectedart dealer. Between 1903 and 1907 he sold a great many works by Burne-Jones and thePre-Raphaelites to theBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery, at far below their market worth. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery now has the largest collection of works by Burne-Jones in the world, including the massive watercolourStar of Bethlehem, commissioned for the Gallery in 1897. The paintings are believed by some to have influenced the youngJ. R. R. Tolkien, then growing up in Birmingham.[39]
Burne-Jones was also a very strong influence on theBirmingham Group of artists, from the 1890s onwards.
On 16 June 1933, Prime MinisterStanley Baldwin, a nephew of Burne-Jones, officially opened the centenary exhibition featuring Burne-Jones's drawings and paintings at theTate Gallery in London. In his opening speech at the exhibition, Baldwin expressed what the art of Burne-Jones stood for:
In my view, what he did for us common people was to open, as never had been opened before, magic casements of a land of faery in which he lived throughout his life ... It is in that inner world we can cherish in peace, beauty which he has left us and in which there is peace at least for ourselves. The few of us who knew him and loved him well, always keep him in our hearts, but his work will go on long after we have passed away. It may give its message in one generation to a few or in other to many more, but there it will be for ever for those who seek in their generation, for beauty and for those who can recognise and reverence a great man, and a great artist.[40]
But, in fact, long before 1933, Burne-Jones had fallen out of fashion in the art world, much of which soon preferred the major trends inModern art, and the exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of his birth was a sad affair, poorly attended.[41] It was not until the mid-1970s that his work began to be re-assessed and once again acclaimed, following the publication ofMartin Harrison and Bill Waters' 1973 monograph and reappraisal 'Burne-Jones'. In 1975, authorPenelope Fitzgerald published a biography of Burne-Jones, her first book.[42] A major exhibit in 1989 at theBarbican Art Gallery, London (in book form as: John Christian,The Last Romantics, 1989), traced Burne-Jones's influence on the subsequent generation of artists, and another atTate Britain in 1997 explored the links between British Aestheticism and Symbolism.[38]
A second, lavish centenary exhibit – this time marking the 100th anniversary of Burne-Jones's death – was held at theMetropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1998, before travelling to theBirmingham Museum and Art Gallery and theMusée d'Orsay, Paris.[43]
Fiona MacCarthy, in a review of Burne-Jones's legacy, notes that he was "a painter who, while quintessentially Victorian, leads us forward to the psychological and sexual introspection of the early twentieth century".[44]
Early works
Pygmalion(first series)
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Pygmalion and the Image(second series)
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The Grosvenor Gallery years
The Legend of Briar Rose(second series)
Later works
| External videos | |
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 Burne-Jones'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid | |
| Burne Jones'sThe Golden Stairs | |
| Burne-Jones'sHope, All atSmarthistory[45] |
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| New creation | Baronet (of Rottingdean and of the Grange) 1894–1898 | Succeeded by |
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