The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination

Description

While still a student at Oxford, Edward Burne-Jones formed a friendship and made a renunciation that would shape art history. The friendship was with William Morris, with whom he would occupy the social and intellectual center of the era's cult of beauty. The renunciation was of his intention to enter the clergy, when he-together with Morris-vowed to throw over the Church in favor of art. In Fiona MacCarthy's riveting account of Burne-Jones's life, that exchange of faith for art places him at the intersection of the nineteenth century and the Modern, as he leads us forward from Victorian mores and attitudes to the psychological, sexual, and artistic audacity that would characterize the early twentieth century. In MacCarthy's hands, Burne-Jones emerges as a great visionary painter, a master of mystic reverie, and a pivotal late nineteenth-century cultural and artistic figure. Lavishly illustrated with color plates, The Last Pre-Raphaelite shows that Burne-Jones's influence extended far beyond his own circle to Freudian Vienna and the delicately gilded erotic dream paintings of Gustav Klimt, the Swiss Symbolist painter Ferdinand Hodler, and the young Pablo Picasso and the Catalan painters. Drawing on extensive research, MacCarthy offers a fresh perspective on the achievement of Burne-Jones, a precursor to the Modern, and tells the dramatic, fascinating story of this peculiarly captivating and elusive man. Contents......Page 6 List of Illustrations ......Page 8 Family Tree......Page 16 Preface ......Page 20 1. Birmingham 1833–52 ......Page 28 2. Oxford 1853–5 ......Page 53 3. Northern France 1855 ......Page 72 4. Early London 1856–7 ......Page 85 5. Little Holland House 1858 ......Page 113 6. First Italian Journey 1859 ......Page 124 7. Russell Place 1860–2 ......Page 138 8. Second Italian Journey 1862 ......Page 172 9. Great Russell Street 1862–4 ......Page 185 10. Kensington Square 1865–7 ......Page 209 11. The Grange, One 1868–71 ......Page 234 12. Third Italian Journey 1871 ......Page 260 13. The Grange, Two 1872 ......Page 272 14. Fourth Italian Journey 1873 ......Page 279 15. The Grange, Three 1874 ......Page 296 16. The Grosvenor Gallery 1877–80 ......Page 323 17. Rottingdean, One 1881–2 ......Page 345 18. The Grange, Four 1883 ......Page 359 19. The Grange, Five 1884 ......Page 384 20. Rome 1885 ......Page 402 21. The Royal Academy 1885–7 ......Page 411 22. Rottingdean, Two 1888–9 ......Page 428 23. Mells 1890–3 ......Page 452 24. Kelmscott, One 1894–5 ......Page 478 25. Kelmscott, Two 1895–6 ......Page 524 26. Avalon 1897–8 ......Page 540 27. Memorials 1898–1916 ......Page 568 Epilogue: The Return of King Arthur 2008 ......Page 586 Sources and References ......Page 604 Acknowledgements ......Page 664 Index ......Page 668