Monday, September 28, 2009

William Bell Scott, John Ruskin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti,


by William Downey

William Bell Scott


[Lioness]
[Head of a Young Boy]
oil on paper
7 3/8 x 7 5/8"
a series of animal and figure subjects that Scott did as part of the decorative scheme for Penkill Castle.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Alice Boyd - William Bell Scott


signed with her monogram l.r.
oil on metal, en grisaille
16.5 x 16.5" (octagonal)
after Alexander Munro
As a memorial to her lover, Alice painted this copy of a culpted portrait of William by Alexander Munro that was exhibited at the RA in 1854. The original sculpture was put on William's tomb in Old Dailly churchyard, but Alice made this copy.

Arthur Hughes - William Bell Scott portrait after David Scott


inscribed 'copied by Arthur Hughes from the painting by David Scott'
oil on canvas
24 x 18"
David Scott was William's brother, when William was 21.
Arthur was a close friend of William's and a frequent visitor to Penkill Castle where William was the lover of Alice Boyd.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

John William Waterhouse - exhibition


J.W. WATERHOUSE AT MMFA
The romantic visions of the Pre-Raphaelites. The classical myths and poems penned by Homer and Ovid, Keats and Tennyson. And femmes fatales including Circe, Cleopatra, Miranda and Ophelia. If this is your stuff, then pay attention: "J.W. Waterhouse: Garden of Enchantment" opens at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Oct. 2, 2009-Feb. 7, 2010, featuring approximately 50 paintings in a show organized by the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts and the MMFA.

Christina Rossetti's artistic values


Christine Rossetti - What is Pink


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Philip Burne-Jones - The Apparition on the Streckelberg


Illustration for Meinhold's 'The Amber Witch'

Ruskin and Holman Hunt


Ruskin (left) with Holman Hunt in Ruskin's garden at Coniston not long before his death.
The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Philip Speakman Webb by Charles Fairfax Murray


1873
.

Lucy Madox Brown by Rossetti


1874
Daughter of Ford Madox Brown and wife of Michael William Rossetti, friend to the Morrises', Marie Stillman and Algernon Swinburne. Born in Paris but when her Mother died whilst she was still young she was partly brought up by the Rossetti's.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Lady of Shalott film teaser trailer

more here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/WAGScreen

Georgiana Burne-Jones


At her home in Fulham with her son Philip, daughter Margaret and Jane Morris and her daughters, Jenny and May
nb. pdf file
She was only 15 when she became engaged to Burne-Jones in 1856. She was known in her circle as Georgie and wrote a two-volume biography of her husband. Small in statue but very strong minded she was the daughter of a Methodist Minister in Birmingham. She was a very good musician and had studied illustration with the intention of becoming a wood engraver. She was good friends and a staunch supporter of both Algernon Swinburne and Simeon Solomon at a time when both were outcasts to Society, but her real friend (perhaps soulmate is a better term) was William Morris. She helped found the South London Art Gallery.
Description of Lizzie from Georgiana Burne-Jones

William Holman Hunt - Stephen Lushington


1862
Hunt considered it one of his best portraits.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Joanna Boyce


A sketch of her just after she died by Rossetti in 1861.
Seems odd to us now, but a common practice at the time.

William Bell Scott


by Frederic Bacon Barwell
1877

Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale - Natural Magic


Not dated, but exhibuited in 1905. Inspired by the PRB style and a poem of Robert Browning's.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Simeon Solomon - Dawn



1871


John Melhuish Strudwick - The Gentle Music of a Bygone Day


1890
Strudwick worked as a studio assistant to both Burne-Jones and Spencer Stanhope and was influenced by both. He is noted for his use of space and amazing attention to detail. But note the feet of te woman on the right which are just - wrong!

May Morris


by William Rothenstein
.
May Morris



1862 – 1938.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Morris
http://www.meg-andrews.com/item-details/May-Morris/5843

William Morris - his bed at Kelmscott Manor


embroidered by Jane and May Morris

Monday, September 14, 2009

John William Waterhouse - Ophelia


c. 1894
Inspired by Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

John William Waterhouse - Miranda (detail)


One of Waterhouse's last pictures, completed the year before he died. The inspiration was from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Cheyney Walk, London


c. 1863
Algernon Swinburne, Dante Rossetti, Fanny Cornforth and William Michael Rossetti

Sunday, September 13, 2009

John William Waterhouse - St Eulalia


1885
Tate Gallery
Notice the very clever and unusual composition, placing the corpse of the 12 year old saint straight in yiour face so to speak. The dove represented her soul winging its way to heaven.

Evelyn de Morgan - Hero holding the beacon for Leander


1885
Showing quite clearly here her debt to Burne-Jones who she greatly admired. Like him she worked chiefly in gouache.

William Holman Hunt


photo by David Wilkie Wynfield, 1863
It was deliberately meant to be 'in the style of the Old Masters' and Hunt here dresssed as Holbein

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Charles Edward Hallé - Luna

c. 1870 - 80's
Halle was ill in his youth and spent a lot of time travelling, especially in Italy and Venice. But by the 1860's he had returned and was working as a portrait painter - and met Burne-Jones and Rossetti - though he is often classed as a member of the Aesthetic movement which followed and was influenced by the PRB.
Halle helped set up the Grosvenor Gallery with Sir Coutts Lindsay which became the centre for the Aesthetic artists and was much frequented by Oscar Wilde.

Charles Edward Hallé - Paolo and Francesca


1888
Another of his works which links the PRB and Aesthetic movements. The theme is from Dante and Rossetti was also keen on this subject.

Jenny and May Morris


photographed by Frederick Hollyer in 1874
notice the simple, loose clothing, very unfashionable at the time but popular in Pre-Raphaelite circles, based on Medieval and Renaissance styles.

Friday, September 11, 2009

G F Watts - The Angel of Death


c. 1870's
A very powerful painting, almost an essay on the states of decay.

Valentine Cameron Prinsep


[Study of a Girl Reading] c. 1860 - 1870's
G F Watts lodged with Prinsep's parents and encouraged him to become a painter, and he met Rossetti at the age of 19 in 1857. In his early paintings he was clearly influenced by Rossetti but this picture shows him developing his own style.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Simeon Solomon - Bacchus


1867
Birmingham Art Galleries
The colours were inspired by his travels in Italy. Two versions were painted and this version on oil was much admired by Burne-Jones.

Frederick Sandys - Love's Shadow


1867
Modelled by a London actress - Miss Clive (Mary Emma Jones) who was also his lover and mother of his ten children! She was renowned as one of the greatest beauties of her time. It was begun whilst a poor Sandys was living with Rossetti in Cheyne Walk (London). Unfortunately Rossetti accused Sandys of plagiarism.