COVE

The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists working in Victorian England.  This group sought out ways in which they could include a naturalistic and detailed approach to art.  “Fidelity to nature was their rubric, through nature, in this case, meant the physical world, and fidelity a self conscious effort to render faithfully what their eyes saw- color, shape, and number, leaves on a tree, blades of grass, threads in a carpet, words on the spine of a book or on a sheet of music or in a newspaper” (The Pre Raphaelite and Their Circle xiii).  The Pre Raphaelites also valued moral and spiritual ideas and the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood had a very strong bond.  Their key ideals were “1, to have genuine ideas to express; 2, to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them; 3, to sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and parading and learned by rote; and 4, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues” (The Pre Raphaelite and Their Circle xxii).   Pre Raphaelite Circle includes many talented and fascinating artists that influenced the world for years to come.  

This includes the incredible work by Edward-Burne Jones and John William Waterhouse.  Edward-Burne Jones was a painter born in Birmingham on August 28th, 1833 (Newall).  His father, Edward Richard Jones, was a framer and gilder and his mother, Elizabeth Coley, passed away as a result of giving birth.  Therefore, Edward was looked after by his father’s housekeeper, Ann Sampson (Newall).  Similarly, John William Waterhouse also had a tragic family history.  He was born in January of 1849 in Rome, Italy.  His father, William Waterhouse, and his mother, Isabella, were both painters.  His family then moved to Kensington in 1854 where his mother and two brothers passed away from tuberculosis when he was only five years old (Trippi).  Both of these artists grew up to become famous painters and poets.  

Growing up, Burne-Jones always had an affinity for drawing.  He enrolled into Oxford College in 1853 and met classmate and lifelong best friend William Morris. Both of them intended to enter the ministry during the High Church movement, but their studies of medieval art and literature convinced them to dedicate their lives to art and not religion (May).  Burne-Jones was heavily inspired by the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood and was particularly intrigued by the works of Rossetti.  He was so intrigued that he left Oxford without finishing his degree and became one of Rossetti’s disciples (May).  In 1861, Waterhouse attended school in Leeds where he pursued an engineering degree.  With the influence of his father, he then entered the Royal Academy Schools as a probationer in sculpture in July 1870 and in January 1871 he became a student in sculpture (Trippi).  

Both of these artists came from very different educational backgrounds but both created beautiful art that is still appreciated today.  After Burne-Jones moved to London to seek Rossetti he was recognized in progressive London-based art circles.  In 1859 he started teaching at the Working Men's College, and continued there until 1861(Newall).  In 1860, Burne-Jones got married to Georgianna MacDonald and had his first daughter six years later (Newall).  In 1874 Waterhouse’s created his first exhibit, Sleep and his Half Brother Death, where he showed regularly until 1917.  Waterhouse married flower painter Esther Maria in September of 1883 and never had any children (Trippi).

Burne-Jones and Waterhouse both displayed artwork that was unique.  Burne-Jones was a talented artist who created various art from paintings, watercolors, drawings, embroideries, tapestries, painted furniture, ceramic tiles, stained glass, jewelry, and illustrated books that belong to museums and collections all around the world (May).  Burne-Jones work was popular for its romantic sensibility.  He enjoyed creating sequences of images that all come together to tell a narrative (Newall).  In 1861, Burne-Jones’ friend Morris launched his firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.--touted as 'Fine Art Workmen'--with Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and painter Ford Madox Brown among the founding partners. Burne-Jones dedicated his talents to Morris’ projects of furniture, tiles, wallpaper, needlework, stained glass, and illustrated books (May).  He specialized in stained glass and both him and Morris triggered the worldwide Arts and Crafts movement (May).   Burne-Jones' figures of prophets, saints, and sibyls became very popular and a lot of it is still in churches and public buildings throughout England and even panels of glass were exhibited at The Met (May).

Waterhouse was known for his dramatic paintings of women (Trippi).  Waterhouse would depict lone women enchanting men.  “Its languorous and melancholy mood, timeless setting, and interlocking gazes epitomize Waterhouse's mature style, reliant on a singular female beauty both natural and unattainable” (Trippi).  Waterhouse created ten portraits after 1900, all of women who resemble his ideal type of beauty.  He even turned to painting non-narrative images of women sitting by streams or picking flowers with beautiful landscapes (Trippi).  

Waterhouse died at home after battling for many years with liver cancer (Trippi).  After his death, appreciations appeared in The Studio, Daily Telegraph, Birmingham Daily Post, Westminster Gazette, and The Times. “The Studio classed Waterhouse 'among the best of our romanticist painters' for 'the right atmosphere of poetic suggestion' (The Studio, 71/291, 1917, 10)” (Trippi).  Burne-Jones died in 1898 of angina at home at The Grange (Newall). The winter after his death, an exhibition of 235 of Burne-Jones's works was presented at the New Gallery where his work was acknowledged (Newall).  “Burne-Jones himself defined the otherworldly character of his art in a letter to Helen Gaskell: 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” (Newall). 

Burne-Jones and Waterhouse were central figures in the escapist culture which derived from Pre Raphaelitism.  They both created all different types of art that are still appreciated and studied today.

Works Cited

May, Stephen. “The Art of Edward Burne-Jones.” British Heritage, vol. 20, no. 1, Dec. 1998, p. 32. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=1239595&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Newall, Christopher. "Jones, Sir Edward Coley Burne-, first baronet (1833–1898), painter." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  October 04, 2008. Oxford University Press. Date of access 20 Oct. 2020, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.ezproxy.depaul.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/97801...

The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Circle. United States, University of Chicago Press, 2014.

Trippi, Peter. "Waterhouse, John William (1849–1917), figure painter." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  May 21, 2009. Oxford University Press. Date of access 20 Oct. 2020, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.ezproxy.depaul.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/97801...