Edward Burne-Jones

Intended to preach from pulpits, Sir Edward Burne-Jones chose to preach from windows. He arrived at Oxford with William Morris and, destined to influence each other for years to come, the two became firm friends.

Together they came under the spell of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose works reached them by a curious chance. Study of the master convinced the two young men that art must claim their energies. Burne-Jones went forthwith to London, met Rossetti, fell under his sway, and was persuaded by him to quit the university and devote himself to the studio rather than the study.

For two years the poet-artist ungrudgingly coached the diffident pupil, and for several years dominated his style of work. The pupil came late to to effective production, for as he said, he began at 25 where he should have been at 15. Nevertheless, aided by Rossetti and Morris, he worked with assiduity and unchecked increase of power, designing cartoons for church windows, and pictures for their walls and altars as well as for domestic interiors.

A visit to Italy brought him under the spell of Botticelli, and kindled in him that fine sense of grave harmonious colouring which distinguishes the best of his work. He had to encounter much opposition, but he never went to extremes. His reading had made him an ardent classicist, as is evident from many of his paintings, and he was never an idealist.

A good draughtsman, though mannered in his style and lacking strength in his colouring, he enriched his work more and more with depth, vision, and imagination, and from his 45th year his eminence was established with such pictures as Merlin and Vivien, the series called the Briar Rose, the Golden Stairs, the Wheel of Fortune, the Depths of the Sea, the Merciful Knight, the Mirror of Venus, and Love Among the Ruins.

To those less familiar with his pictures in public and private possession, he is famous for his windows in churches, halls, and other buildings. He married Georgina Macdonald, one of a group of beautiful sisters, two others becoming the mothers of Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin.

 

Rossetti's Beatrice

 

 

See his windows at Rottingdean Church, where he and his wife lie buried with commemorative plaques near the entrance.

 

 

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