BURNE-JONES, EDWARD. - Painter and decorator, b. in Birmingham in 1833, d. in London in 1898. He left his ecclesiastical studies to devote himself to painting following the enthusiasm aroused in him by the paintings of D. G. Rossetti (v.). Although he professed the theoretical principles of Pre-Raphaelitism (v.), he belongs to a later period; he began to work, in fact, when the original Pre-Raphaelite association had already dissolved. He was at first a faithful imitator of the master; he later made, under the guidance of Ruskin, two journeys to Italy (1859 and 1862), where he was able to become directly acquainted with the works of the Italian quattrocentists and to feel again the influence especially of Botticelli and Mantegna, which contributed decisively to the formation of the most original part of his style.
Besides subjects drawn from medieval legends or of a mystical-religious character, always vitiated by the literary taste peculiar to his school (Il cavaliere misericordioso, Elia nel deserto, etc.), he also treated mythological subjects derived especially from the Odyssey (La bevanda di Circe, etc.), for which he found a greater freedom of expression and a warmer coloring. His best works (La scala d'oro, Il re Cophetua e la piccola mendicante, Sponsa de Libano) show us his qualities as a fine colorist and as a fluent and pleasing composer, even though he never knew how to free himself from an external and mannered formal stylization: his figures with sharp contours seem to be inspired by a single model and all have the same posing in sinuous forms. Because of this tendency toward the ornamental he found a greater coherence in his works of a decorative character: stained glass (e.g., Adamo ed Eva e la torre di Babele in the chapel of the college of Bradfield), mosaics (e.g., in the Protestant church of St. Paul in Rome), tapestries (e.g., La stella di Betlemme in Exeter College at Oxford), wood engravings, book illustrations, etc.; works that he executed for the firm of W. Morris.
Bibliography5 works
Marta Prandi