LITTLE BOOKS ON ART FORTUNEE DE LISLE ill LITTLE BOOKS ON ART GENERAL EDITOR: CYRIL DAVENPORT BURNE-JONES BURNE-JONES BY FORTUNEE DE LISLE WITH FOKTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 23 EAST 20^'^ STREET i PREFACE IN this brief study of the life and work of Sir Edward Burne-Joncs, no detailed biography has been attempted. That will shortly be forthcoming- from the pen of one better qualified than anyone else to write it. This little work has merely been undertaken in the same spirit as that in which W. Morris wrote of the cathedrals of North France : I thought that even if I could say nothing else about these grand churches, I could at least tell men how I loved them." To the many owners of pictures by Sir Edward Burne- Jones, to whose collections the writing of this book has been the "Open Sesame," — to the authors whose works have been consulted, and to whom reference is made in the following- pages, — to Mrs. William Morris, Mrs. \V. J. Hadley, Mr. R. H. Benson, Mr. Ch. Fairfax Murray, Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, and others, for their courtesy in allowing the use of their valuable copyrights, — and for the uniform kindness and ready assistance which have been met with on every side, — the writer desires to express her most sincere gratitude. November^ 1904 CONTENTS CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS 1833-1853 Contrast between the art of Burne- Jones and the spirit of his time — English art in the first half of the nineteenth century — The romantic movement — The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood — Burnc- Jones — His early years, education, and entrance into Oxford University ..... P^-g^ CHAPTER II COLLEGE DAYS 1853-1850 William Morris — His friendship with Burne-Jones — Their college life — The monastic ideal — The Pembroke group —Influence of Kuskin — National events — Chaucer and Browning — Change of outlook — "The Brotherhood" — TJic Germ — Influence of Rossctti's art and poetry — Journey to France — The turning-point — "The Maids of Elfen-Mere " — Burne-Jones's first meeting with Rossetti — He leaves Oxford and settles in London . . ... CHAPTER III ROSSETTI : THE NEW LIFE 1850-1857 Work in London — Rossetti's guidance — Morris joins Burne-Jones— Cartoons for stained glass — Pen-and-ink drawings — The Red Lion Square furniture — The Oxford frescoes . . . . vii viii CONTENTS CHAPTER IV PERIOD OF ROSSETTI'S INFLUENCE 1857-1863 Return to London— Influence of G. F. Watts— The Hogarth Club- Marriage of W. Morris — First visit to Italy — Pen-and-ink work — *' Sidonia" and "Clara von Bork" — Marriage — The Red House " frescoes — The Firm — Work for the Firm — The Bodley Triptych — Early water-colours — Connection with Dalziel — Second visit to Italy — Pictures and illustrations for Dalziel — More water-colours — " The Merciful Knight " .... page 44 CHAPTER V THE SIXTIES 1863-1870 Election to Royal Water-colour Society — "Cupid's Forge" — " Green Summer" — "Astrologia" — "Chaucer's Dream" — The "St. George and the Dragon " Series — ' ' Theophilus and the Angel " — * ' The Wine of Circe" — "Love disguised as Reason" — "Phyllis and De- mophoon" — Resignation from R.W.S. — Removal of the Firm to Queen Square — Cartoons for the Firm — Illustrations for The Earthly Paradise — The "Cupid and Psyche" Frieze — Mr. S. Colvin's article on Burne-Jones in The Portfolio^ 1870. . . 73 CHAPTER VI FAME 1870-1878 Move to "The Grange" — Mode of life — Silent period — "Love among the Ruins" and "The Hesperides" — Opening of the Grosvenor Gallery—" The Mirror of Venus"—" The Beguiling of Merlin "— " The Days of Creation "— " Fides "— " Spes "— " Caritas "— " Tem- perantia" — "The Seasons" — "Day" and "Night" — "Luna" — "Perseus and the Graiae " — " Laus Veneris" — "Le Chant d' Amour" — " Pan and Psyche " — Other works of this period — Cartoons — "The Masque of Cupid " — Subjects from The Romaunt of the Rose — Illustrations for The /Eneid and The Story of Orpheus — The Graham Piano . . . ... 94 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VII THE EIGHTIES 1878-1890 "Pygmalion and the Image The Annunciation The Golden Stairs"— "Dies Domini"— "The Mill"— "The Feast of Peleus " —Other subjects from The Tale of Troj^—" The Wheel of For- tune "—" The Hours"— "King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid" —Election to Associateship of Royal Academy— " The Depths of the Sea"— "Flamma Vestalis " — " Sibylla Delphica " — " The Morning of the Resurrection "— " The Garden of Pan "—Opening of the New Gallery— Pictures for St. John's, Torquay— " The Bath of Venus"— The "Perseus" Series— " The Tower of Brass" —" The Briar Rose " .... />a^e 117 CHAPTER VIII LATER WORKS 1890-1898 "The Star of Bethlehem "—The Exeter College tapestry— " Sponsa de Libano" — New Gallery Exhibition, 1892-3 — Mosaics for American church in Rome— " Vespertina Quies "— The Slanmore tapestries— " The Dream of Launcelot "—"Aurora "—The Kelm- scott C/iaucer—'Dea.th of Morris— " Arthur in Avalon "—" Love's Wayfaring "—Decorative works, portraits, and cartoons, from 1878 142 CHAPTER IX CONCLUSION Summary— Honours conferred upon Burne-Jones— Exhibitions of his works— His method of work— Some features of his art — His character . . . . ... 162 X CONTENTS A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS BY SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES 1. Pictures ^ ^^S' ^79 11. Pen-and-ink drawings, pencil drawings, designs for illustra- 187 Hons, etc. ' III. Mural paintings, paintings on furniture, etc. ; designs for tiles, needlework, metalwork, mosaic, tapestry, etc. . . . 191 IV. Works in gesso . • • ..-194 V. Principal cartoons for stained glass . • • • ^95 IQ7 PRINCIPAL SALES • • • . • y/ BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • ... 198 INDEX . • • • • ... 203 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS KING COPHETUA AND THE BEGGAR-MAID . Frontispiect By kind permission of Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi and Co. *THE MAIDS OF ELFEN-MERE . ... (Illustration by Rossetti to Allingham's Day and Night Sonos.) *THE prioress's TALE (PAINTED CABINET) By kind permission of Mrs. William Morris. *CLERK SAUNDERS By kind permission of Mrs. W. J. Hadley. MERLIN AND NIMUE . THE MERCIFUL KNIGHT GREEN SUMMER *CHAUCER's DREAM By kind permission of Ch. Fairfax Murray, Esq. (From a photograpli by the Autotype Company.) THE WINE OF CIRCE . LOVE AMONG THE RUINS *THE HESPERIDES (From a photograph by Messrs. J. Caswall Sinit THE BEGUILING OF MERLIN THE DAYS OF CREATION CARITAS *LAUS VENERIS By kind permission of the Berlin Photographic Company xi I'AGE 22 40 5« 59 71 74 75 79 96 98 lOI 103 104 108 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE LE CHANT d'aMOUR . . ... IO9 PAN AND PSYCHE . . . . . IIO LOVE AND BEAUTY . . . . . II5 LOVE LEADING THE PILGRIM . . . . II6 THE GODHEAD FIRES . . . . II8 (From the Pygmalion and the Image series.) DIES DOMINI . . ... 123 THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE . . . . 125 WOOD-NYMPH . . . . . 127 *THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA . ... I28 By kind permission of R. H. Benson, Esq. (From a photograph by Messrs. H. Dixon and Son.) PERSEUS AND THE GRAI^ . ... I30 PERSEUS AND THE NEREIDS . . . . I3I THE ROCK OF DOOM . ... 132 THE DOOM FULFILLED . . . . I33 THE BALEFUL HEAD . . ... I34 THE GARDEN COURT . . ... I39 (Study for the third subject of the Briar Rose series.) THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM (FRAGMENT) . . . I43 By kind permission of the Corporation of Birmingham. ^THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI (TAPESTRY) . . I44 By kind permission of Messrs. Morris and Co. sponsa de libano . . . . . i45 vespertina quies . . ... 147 AURORA . . . ... 149 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii PAGE STUDY OF A HEAD . . . .1^2 PHILIP COMYNS CARR . . • • ^55 THORFINN KARLSEFNE, GUDRIDA, AND LEIF THE LUCKY . . . • • • (Cartoons for the Norse window at Newport.) THE NATIVITY . . . . . I58 (Cartoon for window of St. Philip's, Birmingham.) THE CRUCIFIXION . . . . . 158 (Cartoon for window of St. Philip's, Birmingham.) STUDY OF HANDS AND DRAPERY . . 169 Note. — With the exception 0/ those marked ivith an asterisk^ the illustra- tions are front photographs by Frederick Ilollyer^ g, Pt mbroke Square^ W. No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer, No lovelier a soul from its birth Wore ever a brighter and rarer Life's raiment for life upon earth Than his who enkindled and cherished Art's vestal and luminous flame, That dies not when kingdoms have perished In storm or in shame." A. C. Swinburne BURNE-JONES CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS 1833-18.33 Contrast between the art of Burne-Jones and the spirit of his time — English art in the first half of the nineteenth century — The romantic movement — The Pre-Raphaelite Brother- hood — Burne-Jones — His early years, education, and en- trance into Oxford University. HE eminent French critic, M. de la Sizeranne, J- recalling- the impression produced upon him by the English pictures at the Universal Exhibi- tion held in Paris in 1889, wrote the following- words : As we came out of the Gallery of Machinery, . . . we found ourselves in the silent and beautiful English Art Section, and we felt as though everywhere else in the Exhibition we had seen nothing but matter, and here we had come on the exhibition of the soul." Referring to one picture in particular — Burne-Jones's King Coph- etua and the Beggar-Maid" — he continued: It seemed as though we had come forth from the Universal Exhibition of Wealth to see the sym- bolical expression of the Scorn of Wealth. All B 2 BUKNE-JONES round this room were others, where emblems and signs of strength and luxury were collected from all the nations of the world — pyramids, silvered or gilt, representing the amount of precious metal dug year by year out of the earth ; palaces and booths containing the most sumptuous products of the remotest isles — and here behold a king laying his crown at the feet of a beggar-maid for her beauty's sake ! There might be seen the most highly wrought instruments of war : cannons, models of armour-plated ships, and torpedoes; and here was a knight duly clad in iron, bowing in his strength before weakness for its innocence' sake. It was a dream — but a noble dream — and every young man who passed that way, even though resolved never to sacrifice strength to right, or riches to beauty, was glad, nevertheless, that an artist should have depicted the Apotheosis of Poverty. It was the revenge of art on life. And they could but wonder, ' Who is this man who dares even now to paint the ideal of poverty, when we all aim at the reality of comfort ? Who is the artist whose anachronism inculcates repose in the midst of railways, and that in a style worthy of Mantegna, in the midst of styles d la Carolus Duran ? Who is this thinker so scornful of prejudice, so indifferent to all that is not in- spired from on high. . . ? ' " ^ The contrast here so strongly drawn between the spiritual atmosphere of Burne-Jones's picture and its material surroundings, is typical of the ^ The Magazine of Art, 1898. "In Memoriam, Sir Edward Burne-Jones," by R. de la Sizeranne. EARLY YEARS 3 life and character of the artist in relation to the age in which he lived. It has been well said that he was **a thirteenth-century soul strayed by accident into the nineteenth " ; he was a poet, an idealist, a dreamer, a Celt of the Celts, to whom the material surroundings of his daily life were less real than the beautiful visions which haunted his imagination; and this ^'Painter of Other- worldliness," as he has been called, was born in a materialistic age of mammon-worship, in which the insatiate grasp of commerce was upon every- thing, and the spirit of awe and of wonder had almost been driven from the face of the earth. He was to be the painter of the Golden Age of the world, and his childhood was spent in the Black Country, in a middle-class home in the Birmingham of the early thirties, — a very different place from the Birmingham of to-day, with her half- million and more of inhabitants, her fine public buildings, her splendid museum and art school, and her noble reputation for the en- couragement of all the arts. That the dawn of a new epoch was even then beginning to break is shown by the fact that the rebuilding of the Grammar School had been entrusted to Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament ; yet there was but little to lift the soul from its workaday surroundings in those crowded streets of mean and meagre aspect, wherein the keen struggle for existence reduced life to a hideous nightmare. The fact that art had little place in the life of Birmingham was but an instance of the general 4 BURNE-JONES contempt and indifference in which it was held throughout England at that period. The great days of Reynolds and Gainsborough were over ; Turner and Constable still shed the splendour of their genius upon the school of landscape-paint- ing, but their sun was soon to set. As to the painters of figure subjects, the aim of their pictures was rather to amuse or to instruct than to appeal to those perceptions and feelings which lie beyond thought, and which art alone can reach. Pseudo - classicism, feeble imitation and conventionality, had usurped the place of direct observation from nature and personal interpreta- tion, and so long as the traditions and rules which had been evolved from the works of the great painters of bygone days were adhered to, nothing else was demanded. Art as an expression of the national spirit did not exist, nor was the term supposed to apply to anything but pictures, the luxury of the rich. Art, **the spiritual element in the works of men's hands," which, as ^*the constant condition of good quality in all things rightly made," should have had the most intimate connection with the life of the nation, was put aside as of no vital importance. Yet it was at the very moment when the prospect of a truly national art arising in England seemed most unlikely, that the great romantic movement — that Renascence of the Spirit of Wonder in Poetry and Art," which was the natural reaction from an age of rationalism and materialism — came sweeping over the country, and, after awakening poetry and literature into EARLY YEARS 5 new life, began to express itself in the works of Ford Madox Brown, G. F. Watts, and of that small group of greatly gifted men, who, calling themselves — in a paradoxical spirit — the Pre- Raphaelite Brotherhood, clustered round D. G. Rossetti. Then the old formulas in art, as in other things, were cleared away, and men were brought again into direct communion with nature ; then the solemn human soul " awoke once more to that consciousness of a mystery beyond **the shows of things," which is the essence of the romantic spirit ; then painting became intense poetry as well as vigorous art ; and a truly national school came into existence, which, with the same earnest spirit which had animated the Italian painters, but with greater knowledge and power at its disposal than had been theirs, sought to reconcile the classic ideal of old Greece with the modern spiritual ideal of humanity. Soon the principles of this new school began to spread beyond the boundaries of the pictorial, and within thirty years of the foundation of the Brotherhood, the movement had expanded into a revival of the decorative arts, — a fact mainly due to the fortu- nate association of two great men, Burne-Jones and William Morris, and to their conjunction with Rossetti. Little is known of the ancestry of Burne-Jones. His great-grandfather, who was of Welsh origin, was a schoolmaster at Hanbury, in Worcester- shire, and had a son, Edward Bevin Jones, who married Edith Alvin. Their son, Edward Richard Jones, married Elizabeth Coley. These were the 6 BURNE-JONES parents of the child, who, born on the 28th of August, 1833, at II, Bennetts Hill, Birmingham, received in the parish church of St. Philip the names of Edward Coley Burne, the last of which was later adopted as part of that surname which has become throughout the world a watchword, a standard hailed with the enthusiasm of younger men in the new effort for idealism, the most vigorous artistic movement of later days/' A lonely childhood fell to the lot of the delicate boy, whose mother had died at his birth. From his earliest years, the education given him was of a serious nature, for it was the one ambition of his father, a man of high principles and simple piety, that his son should enter the Church ; but, from the time the boy could hold a pencil, drawing was his passion, and his favourite book was a volume of ^sop's Fables, because it was adorned with prints ; it is said that his childish produc- tions were so much above the average that an appreciative friend kept and dated many of them, and gave him much encouragement. As frame- making was part of his father's business, it might be thought that the sight of the pictures which came to be framed might have supplied some incentive towards drawing ; but, when one con- siders the kind of art these would be likely to represent in a provincial town of that day, one cannot wonder that no source of inspiration was found in them. Of real, living art there was no trace in the child's surroundings, yet nothing could quench the imaginative power of such a nature. From the remote ancestors who, in EARLY YEARS 7 primeval days, among the vast silences of the untrodden hills, had felt all about them the presence of the unseen, he had inherited in full that mysterious Celtic temperament to which no doubt he owed his quick perceptive instincts, the romantic disposition of his mind, his sense of reverence, his feeling of the mystery of existence and of the magic charm of nature, his conscious- ness of the nearness and significance of the spiritual world, which were later to find such clear expression in his work. He had, besides, too keen a sense of humour to find any sur- roundings dull, and the delicate health which debarred him from ever taking much interest in the usual games of boyhood, only served to accentuate his passion for reading. If I had not become a painter," he once told a friend, assuredlv I should have become a bookworm," — and long before he began to go to school the booksellers' shops fascinated him. Often he would stand gazing into them, longing to handle and turn the pages of the volumes whose covers alone he could see, and envying the lucky boy who stood behind the counter with such easy access to them. Little did he then dream of a wondrous future, when he would himself iUustrate books more beautiful than any produced in modern times, and, wandering as he chose in a kingdom of his own of glamour and romance, bring back from it visions of loveliness, which would be amongst the most precious additions made in these latter days to the heritage of the race. And as, Sunday after Sunday, he sat in St. 8 BURNE-JONES Philip's Church, his dim, childish thoughts wandering far away from his colourless sur- roundings, little did he think that, some day, the light which shone through the great windows would stream through his work, proclaiming in his language — his beautiful language of line and colour — the divine story of the Cross. At eleven years of age he was sent as a day scholar to King Edward's Grammar School, in- stalled since 1835 in the fine new Tudor buildings, and then under the direction of the great school- master. Dr. Prince Lee. This event he was fond of describing in after years as **a leap into the light," and, recalling the impression made by the new world which in those first school-days was opened out to him, he said : I swam right into that deep wonderful sea of Greek literature and pagan mythology ; and just as I have never forgotten my first journey to France, which gave me a sense of the poetry of background, or my first visit to Siena, where I found my spiritual ancestry in art, so I never can forget my intro- duction to the beautiful pagan mythology and lovely legends and literature of Greece."^ He threw himself passionately into his studies, and in the eight years that followed laid the foundation of that wide classical knowledge which was of such inestimable value to him, and which made Ruskin declare him to be the most cultured artist he had ever met. He had," says one who knew him well in later life, **all the qualities ^ The Atlantic Monthly. ''Sir Edward Burne-Jones," by William Sharp. EARLY YEARS 9 which go to the making of a great scholar : the sense of thoroughness which made his knowledge of any subject which interested him, deep and accurate ; remarkable powxrs of memory, es- pecially of the verbal kind ; great critical and comparative powers, and the finest literary tact and taste." ^ All through these years of study his artistic powers seem to have lain comparatively dormant, but that his imagination was already finding ex- pression in drawings of a fantastic nature, is shown by his reputation among his schoolfellows: There was not a boy in the school who did not possess at least one of Jones's devils," wrote one of them to Mr. J. W. Mackail, William Morris's biographer. Still the idea of becoming an artist did not occur to him, and it was with the full intention of carrying out his father's wishes by taking Holy Orders, that, early in June 1852, he matriculated at Exeter College. The college buildings being over-full, it was not till the following Lent term that he went up to Oxford. Here many disillusions were awaiting him ; yet in the first week of his first term, he found in Oxford the best gift she had to give — a friendship which was to be lifelong — and hence- forth for him the face of things was changed. ^ The Ninetcentli Century^ 1899. " Some Recollections of Edward Burne-Joncs," by Joseph Jacobs. CHAPTER II COLLEGE DAYS 1853-1856 William Morris — His friendship with Burne-Jones — Their college life — The monastic ideal — The Pembroke group — Influence of Ruskin — National events — Chaucer and Browning — Change of outlook— The Brotherhood The Germ" — Influence of Rossetti's art and poetry — Journey to France —The turning-point— "The Maids of Elfen-Mere" — Burne -Jones's first meeting with Rossetti — He leaves Oxford and settles in London. ILLIAM MORRIS, who had sat next to Hall of Exeter College, was a few months his junior; like him, he was of Welsh descent, and, like him, intended for Holy Orders, but the sur- roundings of his early years had been very different from those of the Birmingham boy. In his plea- sant home at Walthamstow and afterwards at Woodford, young Morris had spent a happy childhood, angling, shooting, gardening, or ram- bling with his brothers through Epping Forest, and about the surrounding country, still unspoilt by . . the spreading- of the hideous town." The love of the past was born in him as it was in Burne-Jones, and, from the time he could read, he had revelled in tales of wonder and adventure. at the examination in the lO COLLEGE DAYS His world had always been peopled with knights and fairies, and, as a child, one of his great delights was to personate his heroes, riding alone, in a little suit of armour, about his father's park. As he grew up, archaeology became his favourite study, and his love of it was second only to his passion for all natural objects. There was no old building nor monument within his reach about which he did not find out everything there was to be known, and, while at school at Marlborough, he absorbed all the information on ecclesiastical architecture and archaeology which he could extract from the school library. From the first days of their residence at Oxford, these two ^'dreamers of dreams, born out of their due time," knew each other for kindred spirits. Then began that friendship which has been de- scribed as a lifelong partnership of the imagina- tion" — a friendship founded on the secure basis of common tastes and aspirations — a friendship of which many years later Burne-Jones said : think it began everything for me, everything I ever cared for." It is easy to imagine with what feelings the two young men had come up to Oxford — Oxford, with her magic name and great traditions, her wind- ing streets full of the sound of many bells," her hoary Gothic buildings, her broad walks and fair surroundings of river and meadow — Oxford, "the home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties." They found indeed all they could desire in the outward beauty of the city ; and reminiscences of those 12 BURNE-JONES ^Mreaming spires," cobbled walks, quaint arch- ways, * ^ gable-roofed and pebble-dashed" build- ings, and all that constitutes the peculiar charm of Oxford, found in later years an echo in the land Burne-Jones peopled with the serene beings of his imagination. To both, however, the actual college life was a disappointment. In place of the atmosphere of lofty thought and aspiration they had expected, they found dullness and apath}^ In Exeter College itself, the Rector was ill and non-resident, and both teaching and discipline left much to be desired ; the tutors took little interest in the undergraduates, most of whom were either reading-men, immersed in dry-as-dust learning, or those who cared only for outdoor sports. The grand old literature of the past, to Burne-Jones so full of life and meaning, was looked upon with but scant interest, as a thing useless except for the purpose of cramming." In the friendship of Morris, Burne-Jones was, however, to find every compensation for this un- satisfactory state of things. From the first," he knew how different he was from all the men he had ever met." The two compared their thoughts, and lived in each other's constant com- panionship, making few friends in their own college, but becoming intimate with a group of Birmingham men at Pembroke. Their two first terms were spent in lodgings, owing to the crowded state of the college, but after the Long Vacation they were able to move in, and there, in rooms overlooking the small but beautiful Fellows' garden, the immense chestnut tree that COLLEGE DAYS 13 overspreads Brasenose Lane, and the grey masses of the Bodleian Library,"^ they read together not only the works which were part of their course of study, but poetry, mediaeval chronicles, old mythologies, and modern authors. The legendary lore of Scandinavia then first became known to Morris through Burne-Jones, and, in exchange, Burne-Jones caught from Morris his enthusiasm for Tennyson and for Modern Painters. Both were fervent Anglo-Catholics. The in- fluence of the Tractarian movement, the ecclesi- astical atmosphere which surrounded them, their love of mediaevalism and the beautiful old forms of worship connected with it, helped to intensify this. Their ideal, in their first terms at Oxford, was to found a monastery in which they might combine an ascetic life with the organised production of religious art " ; — even then they felt that their religious vocation would be incomplete unless it included art. As early as May 1853, when he and Morris had only been friends a few weeks, Burne-Jones alluded in a letter to a crusade and holy warfare against the age," which was to include celibacy and conventual life; and in October 1854 the dream still flourished. However, this phase of thought was soon to be superseded by a broader view of life. They consorted with the Pembroke group 'Svhen they wanted more company than their own." Like them, its members, with the excep- tion of Charles Joseph Faulkner, were intended for Holy Orders, ^*but," says one of them, 1 The Life of William Morris, by J. \V. Mackail. 14 BURNE- JONES afterwards Canon Dixon, that was not the bond of alliance " — the bond was poetry and indefinite artistic and literary aspirations, but not of a selfish character, or rather, not of a self-seeking character. We all had the notion of doing great things for man — in our own way, however, ac- cording to our own will and bent/* Speaking of William Fulford, whose brilliant gifts gave him a sort of leadership among them. Canon Dixon adds, — neither he nor anyone else in the world could lead Morris or Burne-Jones." ^ The group — or ^^the set" as they first called themselves — generally met in each other's rooms in the evenings, and read Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, De Quincey, Thackeray, Dickens, Kingsley, Carlyle, and all that wonderful literature in which the Romantic Movement had found its expression in England. But **it was when the Exeter men (Morris and Burne-Jones) got at Ruskin," says Canon Dixon, that strong direc- tion was given to a true vocation." Modern Painters had been followed by The Seveji Lamps of Architecture y and the first volume of Sto7ies of Venice; and when, in 1853, the second and third volumes of Stones of Venice appeared, with the famous chapter. The Nature of Gothic^ a new revelation dawned on the two young idealists, and all their friends were made to share in it. It seemed," said William Morris, *'to point out a new road on which the world should travel." Henceforth Ruskin became their prophet, art the paramount influence in their ^ The Life of William Morris, by J. W. Mackail. COLLEGE DAYS 15 lives, and the artist's function assumed the char- acter of a sacred priesthood, charged with its interpretation to mankind. At the same time, the independence and liberty characteristic of Oxford life gave them the means of developing along their own lines in a way which would have been impossible in any other atmosphere. Under the influence of Ruskin, Burne-Jones spent whole days drawing flowers and foliage in the woods ; and together he and Morris read architecture, studied enthusiastically every bit of mediaeval design they could come across, re- joicing in the loveliness of the old manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, and filling their rooms with rubbings from old brasses. Yet all the time their knowledge of pictorial art was limited to the few early Italian pictures in the Taylorian Museum, and the woodcuts in Ruskin's hand- book to the Arena Chapel at Padua. Of painting we knew nothing," said Burne-Jones later ; it was before the time w^hen photography made all the galleries of Europe accessible, and what would have been better a thousand times for us, the wall-paintings of Italy. I say it would be difficult to make anyone understand the dearth of things dear to us in which we lived, and matters that are now well known to cultivated people and commonplaces in talk, were then impossible for us to know." Morris's first journey abroad, in the Long Vacation of 1854, gave a great impulse to his and Burne-Jones's artistic development. He travelled through Belgium and Northern France, 1 6 BURNE- JONES and returned full of enthusiasm for Van Eyck and Memling" and for the glorious mediaeval art he had seen ; and he brought back with him photographs of Diirer's works, till then only known to them by the poorly executed but much- treasured woodcut of **The Knight and Death" which formed the frontispiece to a translation of La Motte Fouque's Sintram, While the leaning towards art was thus being strengthened, other influences and events were playing a part in bringing about the transforma- tion of ideal which marked their third year at college : the theories of Kingsley, Carlyle, and Ruskin, their hatred of pretensions and shams and of every form of cant, had done much to rouse men to the necessity for action against the evils of the day ; the terrible outbreak of cholera in the autumn of 1854 was followed by the Crimean War, and these stirring times seemed **the climax of a period of moral and physical stagnation from which the world was awaking to something like a new birth.'' Burne-Jones's un- certainty as to his vocation for the Church is shown by the fact that, at this time, he is said to have been very anxious to join the army. The monastery was no longer spoken of, and all dreams of isolation from the present were swept away by a great wave of social enthusiasm. This was further strengthened by the influence — *Mike two great windows letting in the air and the day" — of Chaucer and Browning, now read for the first time. They felt their kinship to Chaucer's century, and an affinity to him, the COLLEGE DAYS 17 outcome of which has for ever linked their three names together. His healthy, pure naturalism and wide sympathies, united with the vigour and large-mindedness of Browning, were greatly re- sponsible for the change of outlook. Mr. Mackail says : Art and literature were no longer thought of as handmaids to religion, but as ends to be pursued for their own sake, not indeed as a means of gaining livelihood, but as a means of realising life. More and more it became evident that the taking of Orders was irreconcilable with such a life as they now proposed to themselves. And the idea of common organised effort by the whole group towards a higher life gradually shifted from the form of a monastic to that of a social brotherhood." It was no egotistical vision of a life spent in the culture of their own souls which came to these young dedicated spirits"; they knew the scarcely human conditions in which the masses lived, and the more deeply they felt the signifi- cance of beauty to life, the more earnestly did they resolve to devote all their powers to the deliverance of their fellow-men from the "... smoky net Of unrejoicing- labour " in which they were meshed." How could art flourish, they asked themselves, while neither freedom nor morality could exist in the great working centres where life was barely possible ? — They felt that not in dreams of the past, but in present action, lay the salvation of the world ; c 1 8 BURNE- JONES that they, too, must have their share in the great crusade begun by Kingsley, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tennyson, *^ against falsehood, doubt and wretched fashion, against hypocrisy and mammon and lack of earnestness," and, as a first step in that direction, *Hhe Brotherhood" — as in 1855 they began to call themselves — decided to found a magazine in which to proclaim their doctrine to the world. In the storm and stress of the period they had just passed through, dormant creative powers had been roused in the little group. Morris's first prose romances had been followed by a poem, so fine as to call forth Burne-Jones's enthusiastic pronouncement that he was a big poet." The discovery of his powers, added to the attainment of his majority and the feeling of independence and responsibility which came with it, made him take up enthusiastically the suggestion of founding a magazine. It was about this time that a copy of the famous Pre-Raphaelite paper. The Gerin^ fell into the little circle ; a memorable event which formed the first link between Rossetti — the soul of the Pre- Raphaelite movement — and the younger men who were to continue and extend its traditions ; the first link of that alliance which consolidated the principal factors that were working in the field of reform, and resulted in the formation of a group, which for combined poetic, literary, and artistic power, is unapproached in the history of the nation."^ The Germ bore on its title-page ^ ^ Dante Gabriel Rossetti, by H. C. Marillier. COLLEGE DAYS 19 W. M. Rossetti's sonnet setting- forth the aims of the Brotherhood, and it contained Rossetti's Hand and Soul and The Blessed DamozeL Burne-Jones and William Morris at once felt the fascination of that transcendent genius who was to have so great an influence on their lives, and whose name they had not even heard, till the appearance, in 1854, of Ruskin's Lectures on Architecture and Painting, They read Hand and Soul together, *'by Isis' side, William Morris being the reader," and the impression it made on them was never forgotten. We were both so overcome," Burne- Jones told Mr. Sharp many years later, that we could not speak a word about it." In the Easter Vacation of 1855 they first saw some Pre-Raphaelite pictures at the house of Mr. Windus, and later, in Mr. Combe's collection at the Clarendon Press, Holman Hunt's Light of the World," his Christian Priest escaping from the Druids," and also — and this it was which made the deepest impression on them — a water-colour by Rossetti representing * ' Dante drawing an Angel on the Anniversary of Beatrice's Death." These pictures roused the enthusiasm of the *^set," and, as they pored over the pages of The Germ, they felt that here was another brother- hood whose aims were in harmony with theirs, — men who, like them, had felt the breath of the great awakening stirring among the dry bones of outworn dogmas, calling upon the spirit to shake itself free from the conventionalities and artificialities under which it was being smothered, and to return to nature *Mn all simplicity of 20 BURNE-JONES heart," as the true source of life and of art. It was round Rossetti, the man born to be a lightbearer and leader of men," that this move- ment had centred itself ; and when he appeared on the horizon of these young crusaders of the ideal," he at once became their hero; to Burne- Jones especially, he appeared as the greatest man in Europe," and an intense longing to attain something of the same art of expression for the beautiful visions of his own mind took possession of him. The example of The Germ naturally proved a great incentive to the promotion of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, The Long Vacation of 1855 marked an epoch in the lives of the two friends. Morris wanted Burne-Jones to share his knowledge and enjoy- ment of the beautiful cathedrals and churches of Northern France, and together they saw Abbe- ville, Amiens, Clermont, Beauvais, Paris, Chartres, Dreux, Evreux, Louviers, Rouen and Mont St. Michel. It was a glorious tour — and ^*it broke down the last hesitation." On the way home, walking together on the quays of Havre late into the August night, Morris and Burne-Jones at last took the definite decision to be artists and to postpone everything else in this world to art. It was decided that night that neither should pro- ceed to take Orders ; that the Oxford life should be wound up as quickly as possible ; and that thereafter Burne-Jones should be a painter, and Morris an architect."^ The end of the vacation was spent in Birming- ^ The Life of William Morris^ by J. W. Mackail. COLLEGE DAYS 21 ham, and it was during this time that Biirne- Jones discovered a fine copy of Southey's Malory's Morte cV Arthur at a bookshop in New Street, where he had passed hundreds of hours " read- ing the books he could not afford to buy. He took Morris — **the plutocrat," as he delighted to call him when telling the story — to see his find*' ; Morris at once gave the necessary two pounds for it, and they rapturously read it together. It became their livre de chevet — '*so precious that, even among their intimates, there was some shy- ness over it, till a year later they heard Rossetti speak of it and the Bible as the two greatest books in the world, and their tongues were unloosed by the sanction of his authority." They returned to Oxford without Burne-Jones having broken silence as to his resolution. It was in no light spirit that he had decided that for him the entrance to the Holy of Holies lay through the Gate Beautiful : — yet he naturally dreaded the disappointment his decision must certainly inflict on the father he loved and revered, who had taken such pride in his school and college career. The profession of an artist was at that time regarded with but scant favour, and besides, he had not absolutely given up the thought of taking his degree. How long his hesitation might have lasted, it is idle to surmise. It was the sight of a drawing by Rossetti, an illustration to AUingham's little poem, ' ' The Maids of Elfen-Mere," ^ which, in his own words spoken ^ Day and Night Songs and the Music Master^ by William Alling-ham. Routledge ^ Co. 1855. 22 BURNE-JONES many years later, *^set fire to the stubble." The ascetic and mystic beauty of the spirit-maidens — Spinning- to a pulsing- cadence, Singing- song-s of Elfen-Mere," the attitude of the pastor's son, who with Hands that shook with love and fear, Dared put back the village clock," to keep the loved apparitions beyond their allotted time, a certain unearthly charm and severity about the composition, made it appeal to Burne-Jones as no other drawing had ever done. He wrote of it as the most beautiful drawing for an illustra- tion I have ever seen. The weird faces of the Maids of Elfen-Mere, the musical timed movement of their arms together as they sing, the face of the man above all, are such as only a great artist could conceive." From this moment Burne-Jones had but one longing : to see Rossetti, to look upon the man whose work both in art and poetry moved him so deeply. How this came to pass is best told in his own words : — Just after Christmas, I went to London, . . . I was two-and-twenty, and had never met, or even seen, a painter in my life. I knew no one who had ever seen one, or had been in a studio, and of all men who lived on earth, the one that I wanted to see was Rossetti. I had no dream of ever knowing him, but I wanted to look at him, and as I had heard that he taught at the Working Men's College, ... I went to the college one THE .MAIDS OF ELFEX-MERE (Hy n. G. Rosscttij COLLEGE DAYS 23 day to find out how it would be possible that I should set eyes upon him. I was told that there was to be a monthly meeting that very evening", in a room in Great Titchfield Street, and that, by paying threepence, anyone could get admittance, including tea, and hear the addresses ... so without fail I was there, and sat at a table and had thick bread and butter, but knowing no one. But good fellowship was the rule there, that was clear ; and a man sitting opposite to me spoke at once to me, introducing himself by the name of Furnivall, and I gave my name and college and my reason for coming. He reached across the table to a kindly-looking man, whom he introduced to me as Vernon Lushington, to whom I repeated my reason for coming, and begged him to tell me when Rossetti entered the room. It seemed that it was doubtful if he would appear at all, that he was constant in his work of teaching drawing at the College, but had no great taste for the nights of addresses and speeches, and as I must have looked downcast at this, Lushington, with a kind- ness never to be forgotten by me, invited me to go to his rooms in Doctors' Commons a few nights afterwards, where Rossetti had promised to come. So I waited a good hour or two, listening to speeches . . . and then Lushington whispered to me that Rossetti had come in, and so I saw him for the first time, his face satisfying all my wor- ship, and I listened to addresses no more, but had my fill of looking ; only I would not be introduced to him. . . . And on the night appointed, about ten o'clock, I went to Lushington's rooms . . . 24 BURxNE-JONES and by-and-bye Rossetti came and I was taken up to him and had my first fearful talk with him. Browning's * Men and Women' had just been pub- lished a few days before, and someone speaking disrespectfully of that book was rent in pieces at once for his pains and was dumb for the rest of the evening, so that I saw my hero could be a tyrant, and I thought it sat finely upon him. Also another unwary man professed an interest in metaphysics ; he also was dealt with firmly ; so that our host was impelled to ask if Rossetti would have all men painters, and if there should be no other occupations for mankind. Rossetti said sternly that it was so. But before I left that night, Rossetti bade me come to his studio next day. ... I found him painting at a water-colour of a monk copying a mouse in an illumination. The picture was called * Fra Pace ' afterwards. . . . He received me very courteously, and asked much about Morris, one or two of whose poems he knew already, and I think that was our principal subject of talk, for he seemed much interested about him. He showed me many designs for pictures ; they tossed about every- where in the room ; the floor at one end was covered with them and with books. No books were on shelves, and I remember long afterwards he once said that books were no use to a painter except to prop up models upon in difficult positions, and that then they might be very useful. No one seemed to be in attendance upon him. I stayed long and watched him at work, not knowing till many a day afterwards that this was a thing he COLLEGE DAYS 25 greatly hated, and when, for shame, I could stay no longer, I went away, having carefully concealed from him the desire I had to be a painter."^ Burne-Jones returned to college after that never-to-be-forgotten visit, and continued during the Lent term to read for the Final Schools. Morris had taken his degree and had entered the office of Mr. Street, the architect, but the Brother- hood spent its evenings together as before. Fulford alone had left to edit the magazine in London for Morris. The first number appeared in January 1856. It received encouragement from such high sources as Ruskin and Tennyson, and that Rossctti was much pleased with Burne- Jones's reference to his work is shown in a letter he wrote in March to Mr. Allingham, in which these words occur : **That notice in The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine was the most gratifying thing by far that ever happened to me — being unmistakeably (sic) genuine. I thought it must be by your old acquaintance, but it turns out to be by a certain youthful Jones, who was in London the other day, and whom I have now met ; one of the nicest young fellows in Dreamland.'' - That meeting with Rossetti was the straw which turned the balance ; Burne-Jones suddenly realised that the taking of his degree would still require several months, that he was twenty-two, 1 The Life of William Morris, by J. W. JNIackail. 2 Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti to William Allitigham . Edited by George Birkbeck Hill, D.c.L. , LL.D., &c. London. 1897. 26 BURNE-JONES and had not begun to master the rudiments of the profession he meant to adopt, that to remain longer at the University would be sheer waste of time. He cast his hesitations to the winds, and, at the end of the Lent term, left Oxford, and taking lodgings in Chelsea, started on his new career. CHAPTER III ROSSETTI : THE NEW LIFE 1856-1857 Work in London — Rossetti's guidance — Morris joins Burne- Jones — Cartoons for stained glass — Pen-and-ink drawings — The Red Lion Square furniture — The Oxford frescoes. IT has often been stated that it was Rossetti's advice and encouragement which finally decided his young" admirer's career ; as a matter of fact Burne-Jones did not see Rossetti again till he had left college ; then, at the outset of his new life, he found courage to go to his hero for advice upon the course of study he should pursue. Rossetti asked to see his drawings, and at once gave his wide sympathy to the youth whose genius was evident to him, even in those early works of his untrained hand. By his own ex- perience he had learnt how hard a struggle it was for an unknown artist to earn a livelihood, and it says much for his powers of discernment, that he did not hesitate to commend the wisdom of Burne-Jones's choice, but encouraged him in it, promising, in his large-hearted way, all the help he could give, and himself undertaking the re- sponsibility of his training. Rossetti's ideas of art education were diametric- ally opposed to those current in the art schools of 28 BURNE-JONES the day. The usual course was study from the antique, until great perfection had been attained in copying the cast ; only then was the student allowed to draw from Hfe, and not till he had exhausted his best energy in the production of countless worked-up studies from models, in the choice and posing of which he had no voice, was he expected to attempt any original work. Rossetti held that this system was bound to destroy all creative power; he himself had found it insupport- able drudgery, and had soon cut himself free from it. He considered that the student's individuality would be dwarfed, and his imagination cramped, by a long period of mechanical work, which, requiring only correctness of eye and precision of hand, left the creative faculties dormant. His theory was, that, as in the early days of art, the pupil should first watch his master at work, observing his methods, and learning to handle the materials he was to use, — then he should go to nature, and attempt to transcribe faithfully what he saw. The expression of his own in- dividuality would follow as a matter of course. On these principles Burne-Jones was admitted, at first one day a week, and afterwards, as the acquaintance ripened into warm friendship, as often as he chose, to Rossetti's studio ; in his own words: was allowed to see that master at work some thirty times. Oh, the delight of it ! And that was all the tuition I ever had. Rossetti was my god, and there was nobody like him in my eyes." With indomitable courage, he now set himself to master the technical difficulties, ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 29 which, in the ordinary course of things, would have been overcome at a much earlier age ; later, looking back at this time, he used to say that for all practical purposes at twenty-five he w^as fifteen. Fortunately, to his sensitive Celtic nature, was united much of the dogged tenacity of purpose and power of sustained effort which belong to the steady-going Saxon temperament ; and, with- out a doubt, his enthusiasm for his self-chosen master did much to sustain him through that first anxious period. Often indeed must his heart have sunk within him as he felt the difficulties which lay in his way, — but he had Rossetti's approval ; he was encouraged too by Morris's strong friendship, and the continued brother- liness of the Oxford band; besides — happy is he who has found his work," and he had certainly found that into which he could put his whole soul. Of the marvellously stimulating power of Rossetti's influence, Burne-Jones, in his quaint humorous way, once said, *'it would have trans- formed a turnip into a rose " ; and this was a case in which no transformation was needed — the per- fect flower was there in the bud : until now, its surroundings had not allowed it to blossom ; what Rossetti did was to recognise its existence and to give it the opportunity of unfolding itself. Nor did he try to force its growth to imitate his own ; on the contrary, as much as possible, he eff'aced his own personality, ever trying to lead Burne- Jones to find his own expression in his own way. From the first, he saw that the development of Burne-Jones's genius might be retarded by his 30 BURNE-JONES intense admiration for himself, and for that reason he withdrew his influence as much as possible the moment he thought his pupil capable of finding his own path. To these early days belongs the oft-told story illustrative of this : Rossetti found Burne-Jones at work one day on a woodland study, the one used later as a background to the picture of *'The Merciful Knight"; he watched him for some time, and then, asking him for some of his own drawings which he had given him to copy, tore them in pieces and went away without a word of explanation. Naturally Burne-Jones was much distressed at the destruction of his treasures, and it was a long time before he realised that the drastic action had been prompted by ad- miration for his work, and that Rossetti^s meaning was that he had nothing more to learn from him. For the encouragement and direction Rossetti had given him at a most critical moment of his career, Burne-Jones's gratitude was lifelong. ^' I couldn't bear with a young man's dreadful sensi- tiveness and conceit as he did with mine," he once wrote to Mr. Comyns Carr ; he taught me practically all I ever learnt ; afterwards I made a method for myself to suit my nature " ; and to Mr. Quilter he described his art as an enchanted world to which Rossetti had given him the key, and in which he had lived ever since. It was Rossetti, he would sometimes say, who had made him possible." The friendship with Rossetti and its influence was duly shared by Morris, who regularly spent his week-ends with his friend ; and the result was ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 31 that when Street removed his office from Oxford to London, Morris, who then came up with him, and shared rooms with Burne-Jones in Upper Gordon Street, determined to study painting as well as architecture, and *^to get six hours a day for drawing, besides office work." Mr. Mackail quotes a delightful letter from Burne-Jones, full of the joy of the new life : ^^Topsy and I live together, "he says — (**Topsy," frequently abbreviated to '*Top," was the nick- name given to Morris, from his hair, so charmingly described by Burne-Jones, as unnaturally and unnecessarily curly") — *'in the quaintest rooms in all London, hung with brasses of old knights and drawings of Albert Diirer. We know Rossetti now as a daily friend, and we know Browning, too, who is the greatest poet alive, and we know Arthur Hughes and Woolner, and Madox Brown — Madox Brown is a lark ! I asked him the other day if I wasn't very old to begin painting, and he said, * Oh, no ! there was a man I knew who began older ; by the bye, he cut his throat the other day, 'so I ask no more about men who begin late. — The Magazine is going to smash - let it go! . . . We cannot do more than one thing at a time, and our hours are too valuable to spend so." The hours were indeed priceless. Not only had Burne-Jones to make up for the time he had lost from the technical point of view, but he had at once to think of earning a livelihood by the art he was only just beginning to practise. All day he worked in his lodgings, and at night he and Morris drew in a life-class in one of the many art 32 BURNE- JONES schools in their neighbourhood. Fortunately the commissions which were not long* in coming after he had placed himself under Rossetti's guidance, soon saved him from anxiety as to the future ; Rossetti, with characteristic generosity, exerted himself to obtain work for his friend and pupil, and Messrs. Powell, of the Whitefriars Glass Factory, having applied to him for a design for stained glass, he excused himself on the ground that he was too much occupied, and obtained the commission for Burne-Jones. This led to others from the same source, and the connection thus begun did not cease till the establishment of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co." in 1861, from which date all Burne-Jones's decorative work was executed for his friend's firm. The first of his innumerable cartoons for windows was one representing *^The Good Shepherd.'* His artist friends were delighted with it ; Rossetti wrote: Jones has just been designing some stained glass which has driven Ruskin wild with joy. The subject is * The Good Shepherd.' Christ is here represented as a real shepherd, in such dress as is fitting for walking the fields and hills. He carries the lost sheep on His shoulders, and it is chewing some vine leaves which are wound around His hat. A lovely idea, is it not? A loaf, a bottle of wine, the Sacred Elements, hang at His girdle ; and behind Him is a wonderful piece of Gothic landscape. The colour of the whole is beyond description."^ 1 The Art Annual, 1894. ''The Decorative Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Bart.," by Aymer Vallance. ROSSEITI: THE NEW LIFE 33 This design was at once followed by two others representing St. Peter" and *'St. Paul." In the first, the sea is represented by conventional waves and fishes ; St. Peter kneels in his boat, symbolic of the Church, and receives the key from Christ, whose hand alone appears ; two crimson- winged angels bend above him, the one supporting five kneeling figures of mail-clad men with hands folded in prayer, — the other, the same number of women in the same attitude, robed in black, with high white coifs. These figures, representative of the humanity which the Church is to save, are on quite a small scale, and produce a quaint archaic eff'ect. In the second, St. Paul is repre- sented in armour and kneeling, while two angels bend over him, the one holding to his lips the Cup of the Sacrament, while the other girds him with the Sword of the Spirit. Three more car- toons, executed for Bradfield College, represent **Adam and Eve," *^The Tower of Babel," and Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. " All are treated with great breadth, and show fine feeling for design and colouring, while the way in which the possibilities and limitations of the material have been understood is remarkable ; and, when one considers to what a low level the art had fallen, and the youth and inexperience of the artist, they are truly, as Mr. Aymer Vallance has said, amazing accomplishments." It was not long before the proficiency Burne- Jones had attained in this branch of design was such as to allow of his giving a course of lessons on the subject at the Working Men's College, and D 34 BURNE-JONES thus sharing in the work about which he and Morris were so enthusiastic. This was about 1859, the year in which he designed The Legend of St. Frideswide ^ for the North Choir Chapel of Christ Church, Oxford, a gorgeous and elabo- rate piece of work, the beautiful cartoons for which were afterwards painted in oils and mounted into a screen. In this representation of sixteen incidents of the life of the Saxon saint, Burne- Jones follows her through all the details of her history, filling in with his own rich imagination the bare outlines given by the ancient chroniclers. Unfortunately, owing to a wrong set of measure- ments having been given, the designs were made on too large a scale ; in the reduction to which they had to be submitted, somewhat of the in- tended richness of effect was lost and a slightly confused aspect produced instead. The last window designed for Messrs. Powell was for Waltham Abbey. It is in three lights, representing, on one side, the Fall of Man, and the gradual ascent through the Patriarchs to the giving of the Law, shown by the figure of Moses holding the Tables ; on the other, the revelation of the Messiah is typified by the figures of the Prophets of the Old Testament and of St. John the Baptist surrounded by the herald angels. In the central light, as the eye travels upward from ^ St. Frideswide was a royal maiden of the eighth century, who, persecuted by Algar, King- of Mercia, finally retired to Oxford, where she became the original patroness of the church which is now the <::athedral of Christ Church. She died A.D. 740. ROSSETTI: THE xNEW LIFE 35 a symbolical representation of the Lion of Judah, through the curving branches which divide from one another the kingly descendants of David, it reaches two circular groups representing the Nativity and the Adoration, above which is the culminating point of the whole window — the Crucifixion.^ The designing of cartoons for stained glass by no means represented the whole of Burne-Jones's activity during those first years ; with that work to rely upon, he was able to devote the rest of his time to the carrying out of his pictorial ideas. Among his earliest works were some pen-and-ink drawings on vellum, wonderful for their imagina- tive power and delicacy of finish. It was in refer- ence to these that Rossetti wrote in February 1857 to William Bell Scott — ''Two young men, pro- jectors of The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, have recently come to town, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned artists instead of taking up any of the careers to which the University generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones's designs are models of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything except, perhaps, Albert Di'irer's finest works ; and Morris, though without practice as yet, has no less power, I fancy." A few months before, in December 1856, he had written to William AUingham — ''Morris and Jones have now been ^ All these cartoons, with the exception of those for the St. Frideswide window, are in the possession of Messrs. Powell, and can be seen at the Whitefriars Glass Factory. 36 BURNE-JONES some time settled in London, and are both, I find, wonders after their kind. Jones is doing designs which quite put one to shame, so full are they of everything — Aurora Leighs of art. He will take the lead now in no time." One of the most remarkable of these **Durer- esque " designs is that entitled *^The Waxen Image. " Executed in 1856, the first year of Burne- Jones's artistic career, it deals with the tradition of black art by which a subtle connection is sup- posed to exist between living persons and their waxen effigies. Rossetti had treated the subject in his weird ballad. Sister Helen ^ but though Burne-Jones was enthusiastic about that glorious stuff," as he called the poem in a letter to Madox Brown, his work was not an illustration of it, but told a story of its own. It is a design in two divisions, the first of which represents, with all the mediaeval accessories of trap-door, black cat, and toUing bell, a turret, in which a princess has sought out the witch w^hose incantations are to rid her of a hated rival : she kneels, with face averted from the fearful deed, while the image of her enemy is being melted in the furnace in the centre of the room. In the second compartment is shown the working of the evil spell — the hap- less victim expiring in the arms of her lover. Through the window the turret can be seen, and in the distance, a procession — probably meant to represent, as in the works of the early painters, another scene of the story, the girl's funeral — is wending its way through a great gate. At the end of 1856, a change the friends made ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 37 in their lodgings, which first called into activity Morris's genius as a decorator and manufac- turer, gave fresh scope to the energy of both. Morris had found out the impossibility of the double life he was leading, and Rossetti's in- fluence continuing in the ascendant, he decided to give up architecture for painting, and so left Street's office. The rooms they were in then became inadequate, and those in Red Lion Square, occupied in the early days of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by Rossetti and Deverell, happening to be vacant, the friends moved into them, and the question of furnishing arose. Hitherto they had perforce contented themselves with the commonplace furniture of their lodgings, and doubtless they had been obliged to endure all the horrors proper to the early Victorian period ; it became a different matter, now that they were to have their own properties," — only the furni- ture they wanted existed nowhere but in their own minds. Morris, with his practical genius, soon saw the way out of the difficulty ; since they could not buy what they required, they would design it themselves, and the local carpenter should make it. No sooner was the plan thought of than it was carried into effect : and the first results were — according to a letter from Rossetti to Allingham — a table **as firm and as heavy as a rock," and a chair such as Barbarossa might have sat in." Morris," he wrote on another occasion, *Ms rather doing the magnificent . . . and is having some intensely medijcval furniture made — tables and chairs like incubi and succubi. 38 BURNE-JONES He and I have painted the back of a chair with figures and inscriptions in gules and vert and azure, and we are all three going to cover a cabinet with pictures.'' Mr. Mackail gives Burne- Jones's own reminiscences of those times — the frequent amusing scenes with the carpenter — the arrival of the above - mentioned cabinet whose entrance choked the passages and stairs with ** large blocks of timber," and which when set up occupied one third of the studio — Rossetti's ap- pearance on the scene — always a terrifying moment to the very last" — and his laughing approval. It was on this historic piece of furniture that Rossetti painted his two well-known pictures of the ^^Salutatio Beatricis." Later it was removed to Morris's house at Bexley Heath, where it was put up as a fixture with a music gallery above it, and, when he left, it remained as part of the house. The priceless panels painted by the master's hand were however removed ; they are now in the possession of Mr. F. J. Tennant, of North Berwick. The next thing Morris required was a kind of wardrobe or cabinet, and this, in the spring of 1857, was decorated by Burne-Jones with his first oil-painting, an illustration of Chaucer's Prioress's Tale, The scene of Chaucer's story is ^^in Acy in a greet citee." It tells of a * Mitel clergeoun " (or chorister) ^^that seven years was of age," whose chief delight was in the praise of the Virgin ; twice a day he passed through the Jewry ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 39 on his way to and from school, singing Alma Redemptoris in her honour, and the Jews, angered t>y this, u j^^j^ conspired This innocent out of this world to enchace. An homicide thereto han they hired, That in a ally had a prive place." And they Kut his throte and in a put him caste " — but a miracle was wTOught : the **pore widowe," his mother, discovered the place where his body has been hidden, by hearing him singing his favourite song ; the murderers w^ere brought to justice, and the child, **syngyng his song alway," was laid on a bier, and taken to the **next Abbay" for burial. On the abbot questioning him as to the cause of this wonder, he replied that it has been wrought that **thc glory of Christ may laste, and be in mynde, and for the worship of his moder deere," To me sche cam, and bad me for to syn^e This antym verraily in my deyin^'c, As ye have herd ; and whan that I had songe, Me thoug^lit sche layde a g-rayn under my tong-e. Wherefor 1 synge, and synge moot certeyne In honour of that blisful mayden fre, Till fro my tonge taken is the greyne. And after that thus saide sclie to me : ' My litil child, now will I fecche thee, Whan that the grayn is fro thi tongue i-take, Be not agast, I wol the not forsake.' " The abbot then removed the grain, and the child **gaf up the gost ful softely." The front of the cabinet is divided into two 40 BURNE-JONES doors, one about double the width of the other. On the narrower one, Burne-Jones depicted the Virgin, against a background filled with angels, ' starting on her mission. In the lower part of this panel, Chaucer is seen writing the story. On the other door, the Virgin is represented putting the grain in the child's mouth. Burne-Jones, with his characteristic horror of the repulsive, has left out all the hideous details of the story and retained only its sweet old-world mystical' char- acter. The child is rising as in sleep, with folded hands and closed eyes, from the ground above the cellar where he has been hidden by his murderers. The manner of his death is left to the irnagination ; there is no ghastly wound in the fair young throat as the innocent face is raised to the Virgin,— such a Virgin as her little worshipper must often have seen in his dreams, draped in deep blue and bending towards him with gentle face and motion. Beyond the figures is a turreted mediaeval town with a background of fields and trees silhouetted against a gold sky. In the town, different scenes of the story are represented ; the school with the scholars troop- ing in, and the child, distinguishable by his halo, sitting there singing; on the other side of the picture he is seen detained by a woman who is whispering to an accomplice. The colouring is extremely fine and the twice-repeated dark patch of flat colour made by the Virgin's mantle, enhances the richness and brilliancy of the whole effect. This cabinet, now lent by Mrs. Morris to the Oxford Museum, was one of Morris's most THE I'RIORESS'S TALE (Painted Cabinet) ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 41 treasured possessions ; the painting on it differs little, in the conception of the subject, from the picture which forty years later was the last work to leave Burne-Jones's studio for exhibition, — an example of the tenacity of purpose with which he worked out his artistic conceptions, living with them ever in his mind, and constantly seeking to give them more beautiful, more perfect expression. In August, 1857, Burne-Jones and Morris joined Rossetti and other of his friends in the attempt to decorate the walls of the Oxford Union Debating Hall.^ While on a visit to his friend Mr. Wood- ward, the architect of the Union, Rossetti had been struck by the possibilities offered by the broad space divided into ten bays, each pierced by two windows, which ran round the upper part of the room. In his magnificent way, he at once offered to come with his friends during the Long Vacation and, expenses being defrayed by the Union, to paint this space with subjects from the Morte d'ArtJmr, The offer was w^armly accepted ; Rossetti *Sssued his orders," and it was not long before a gloriously gifted company of young en- thusiasts — unfortunately totally inexperienced in methods of fresco-painting — rashly started work on the walls prepared only by a coat of white- wash. These were, besides Rossetti, Arthur Hughes, Spencer Stanhope, Val Prinsep, Hungerford Pollen, Morris, and Burne-Jones ; it was in vain that the last had tried to excuse himself on the ground of his inexperience. Munro, the sculptor, ^ Now the library of the Union. 42 BURNE-JONES had also been pressed into the service for a carving on the porch. The energetic Morris was the first to begin and finish his picture, How Sir Palomydes loved La Belle Iseult " ; he then set to work on the decora- tion of the ceiling and carried it out triumphantly. Burne-Jones had chosen as his subject Merlin and Nimue " ; he represented the wizard being drawn to his doom by the tall red-robed Nimue, who stands facing him as he approaches the enchanted well which is to be his prison. In spite of the ruin which has overtaken the work, its fine lines and careful execution are still distinguishable. It was finished in the autumn and Burne-Jones then returned to town. His Merlin and Nimue" was described by Morris as ^'a beautiful work which admirably suits its space as to decoration," and Rossetti wrote of it to Professor Norton : Jones's picture is a perfect masterpiece, as is all he does." But alas for all the loving labour which had been spent on the unprepared surface ! Six months had not gone by before the paintings began to blacken and peel, and to-day little remains of that glory of colour which, for a brief period, made the walls look ^Mike the margin of a highly illuminated manuscript." ^ Szc transit gloria mundi. Yet this attempt was not without far-reaching results, chief among which was the bringing of Rossetti into personal contact with the Oxford group. His art, his way of looking at things, were impressed on their ^ Article by Coventry Patmore in The Saturday Revieiv^ December, 1857. ROSSETTI: THE NEW LIFE 43 culture, but he was also strongly influenced by the new and stimulating" environment in which he found himself, and from this time the Pre- Raphaelite movement, of which he had been the soul, entered upon a new phase of which he, Morris, and Burne-Jones were the leaders. It was a growth which had in common with the original P.R.B. the aims which had originally united their members, and which are thus enu- merated by Mr. W. M. Rossetti : — i. To have genuine ideas to express ; 2, To study Nature, so as to know how to express them ; 3, To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote ; and 4, And most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues."^ To these aims was now added another : — the de- velopment of the decorative side of art, and the union of the element of perfect ornamentation to the expressive power of the original Brotherhood.'- The Oxford paintings thus mark the period of transition between the Pre-Raphaelite movement and the Neo-Pre-Raphaelite, or — to use a much- abused word — Esthetic movement, which followed it. ^ Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His family letters. With a Memoir by William Michael Rossetti. London : Ellis and Elycy, 1895. - Address on a collection of paintings of the English Pre- Raphaelite School^ delivered by William Morris at the City of Birming-hani Museum and Art Gallerv, 2nd October, 1891. CHAPTER IV PERIOD OF ROSSETTl'S INFLUENCE 1857-1863 Return to London — Influence of G. F. Watts — The Hogarth Club — Marriage of W. Morris — First visit to Italy — Pen- and-ink work — ' ' Sidonia " and ' ' Clara von Bork " — Marriage — The Red House frescoes — The Firm — ^Work for the Firm — The Bodley Triptych — Early water-colours — Connection with Dalziel — Second visit to Italy — Pictures and illustra- tions for Dalziel — More water-colours — The Merciful Knight." O URNE-JONES, his painting finished, returned ^ to Red Lion Square ; but Morris, who had made the acquaintance in Oxford of the beautiful Miss Burden whom he married in 1859, remained there for some time, though hardly a week was allowed to pass without the two friends meeting. In the spring of 1858, Burne-Jones, never of a strong constitution, fell ill, and was taken away from his lonely lodgings to be nursed back to health by his friends the Prinseps at Little Holland House ; there he stayed several months, occupy- ing himself with the cartoons for Powell, and with drawings in pen-and-ink on vellum of subjects mostly taken from Arthurian romance. To this period belong the fine drawings of *'The Knight's Farewell " and Sir Galahad. 44 PERIOD OF ROSSETTFS INFLUENCE 45 It was about this time that Burne-Jones first felt the influence of G. F. Watts. The great master, his senior by nineteen years, was already in the plenitude of his powers, and well able to advise his young friend, who, having- begun his study of art comparatively late in life, felt thirty years his junior " ; it was Watts who made him feel that while Rossetti's advice, never to allow himself to be stopped in the expression of his idea by difficulties of execution," was good and valuable, yet its eff'ect would be bad if it led him to neglect the technicalities without which that expression could be but faltering. It was Watts," Burne-Jones told Mr. Comyns Carr, **who compelled me to try and draw better." The year 1858 saw the foundation of the Hogarth Club, and it was no slight honour to the youth who had so lately joined the ranks of art, that he was elected a member of it, and thus entitled to exhibit his works with those of such distinguished artists as Rossetti, Madox Brown, Holman Hunt, Frederic Leighton, and G. F. Watts. There his pen-and-ink drawings and cartoons were first shown. ^ The following spring, Morris's marriage took place, and the rooms in Red Lion Square were given up. Burne-Jones moved into lodgings in Charlotte Street, and in the autumn went on his first journey to Italy. This was a great event in his life, for there he found the land of his dreams, and, in the beautiful old cities of Florence, Pisa, and Siena, the works of the painters with whom 1 The Hogarth Club lasted till 1S64. 46 BURNE-JONES he at once felt his spiritual kinship. There, in the season Of art's spnng--btrth so dim and dewy," in the frescoes and pictures of Orcagna, Benozzo Gozzoli, Luca Signorelli, Simone Memmi, Taddeo Gaddi, Mantegna, and above all Botticelli, he found the same temper of thought which so delighted him in Chaucer and his contemporaries. The spiritual feeling, which, in the works of the early painters, is combined with so refined a sense of decorative design, appealed to him in an extra- ordinary manner, and in the company of the Primitives he felt himself in his own true at- mosphere. He came back to London full of renewed health and aspirations, and again applied himself to pen-and-ink work. One of the most interesting of the subjects thus treated was The Wedding of Buondelmonte," that first episode in the story of the dissensions which for so many years disturbed the peace of Florence. In this drawing, containing about seventy figures, two scenes of the story are shown, but the tragedy itself is only suggested by the introduction of the antique statue of Mars, which held so important a place in the superstitious regard of the early Florentines, and at the foot of which the murder of Buondelmonte by the kinsmen of hi:^ forsaken bride-elect is said to have taken place. This statue, ominously dark, occupies the centre of the picture ; the god of Strife is represented in the act of casting his spear in the direction of the young man to whom the lady of the Donati is PERIOD OF ROSSETTrS INFLUENCE 47 presenting her daughter ; the Arno flows past the foot of the statue, and, on the other side of the composition, the lady of the Amadei, unwitting of her lover's desertion, is seen approaching on her barge which is guided by a blindfolded figure of Love ; she is surrounded by ladies, and the town is full of preparations for the celebration of the marriage. It is an elaborate and intricate drawing, slightly confused in its elaboration of detail, but of wonderful delicacy and minuteness of execu- tion. The background is full of the artist's new knowledge of Italy, — hills and streams, olive trees and cypresses, quaint mediaeval buildings and old gardens. Other pen-and-ink drawings of this and the following year, were Alys la belle Pelerine," Going to the Battle," Kings' Daughters," and the intensely tragic Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins," in which the Foolish Virgins are shown in the faint light of a stormy dawn, knocking at a low door at the end of a narrow drawbridge ; beneath them the stream rushes by with the relentlessness of lost time, and, in the dark landscape beyond, the wind-tossed trees are swaying against the troubled sky. The *^St. Frideswide " cartoons for Messrs. Powell, mentioned in the last chapter, and several fine water-colours belong to 1859. Among the latter are two famous paintings representing the heroines of a weird romance written by the Swiss clergyman Meinhold, and purporting to be, not a modern work of fiction, but a newly discovered manuscript revealing the authentic and hitherto 48 BURNE-JONES unknown history of the beautiful and wicked Sidonia von Bork, who by her sortileges destroyed the royal house of Pomerania, and finally, in her old age, was put to death as a witch. * * Meinhold, says Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in words which explain the fascination this curious book had for Rossetti and Burne-Jones, — was pecuHarly painter-like as regards accuracy of costuming and detail, pre- senting the outer aspect of a past century with all the precision of a contemporary portrait. He gives it in action, and in minutiae of incident and manner, and in all those numberless small points of externals, which made the same thing done in the past look differently from what it does in the present." Burne-Jones's two pictures of Clara and Sidonia von Bork " show the influence of Rossetti, yet the method of work is already decidedly his own, and it would be impossible to mistake them for the work of the elder master. They are painted in body-colour, and attain a depth of intensity in the shadows, and a quality of technique which could not be surpassed in oil. Like *'The Prioress's Tale" and the cartoons for windows, they show the extraordinary instinctive feeling with which, from the beginning, Burne- Jones *Maid on pigments and the colour came." Clara von Bork, one of Sidonia's many victims, advances slowly, in an amber-coloured robe with brown sleeves ; her pure and gentle character is symbolised by the nest of fledgeling doves she carries, and which the witch's cat is greedily watching. Sidonia, with magnificent gold hair PERIOD OF ROSSETTFS INFLUENCE 49 bound in a fillet, wearing* a white gown covered with a black open-work robe of an intricate pattern which suggests writhing and knotted snakes, is glowering angrily, as with clenched hand she drags at the necklace at her throat. She seems the very incarnation of the spirit of revengeful hatred. In the mysterious backgrounds of both pictures, figures are seen moving about in dimly lighted rooms and passages. By this time Burne-Jones's career was well assured ; his cartoons for glass promised constant occupation ; and, besides this, Rossetti, in his gener- ous friendship, had brought him to the notice, not only of Ruskin, who took the keenest interest in the young classical scholar with the great gift for art, but also of Mr. Leathart who bought both the *'von Bork " water-colours, Mr. William Graham who became a close friend, and other early patrons of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, all of whom were encouraging in their support. Henceforth the young artist could feel sure of sympathetic ap- preciation from an ever-growing circle of intelli- gent art lovers.^ In the month of June i860, he was married in Manchester Cathedral to Miss Geor