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This was my senior capstone paper for my art history degree. |
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Arthurian Art And the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Shannon F. Messersmith December 1, 2005 ARH 3990 Methods and Research in Art History Messersmith 1 King Arthur, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Tennyson, myths and legends-these are the topics that helped influence both the first and second generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Its members had a set of ideas and a philosophy that was considered “radical” for their time. They were known as “rebels” and their work was heavily influenced by the time and place in which they lived, loved and painted. To understand the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood one must first understand the time in which they existed, the politics that surrounded them and the changes in their world during this time in history. The Brotherhood was seen as “Victorian Rebels” and this concept along with literary sources heavily influenced their work. Medieval themes were not their only source of inspiration through the years. They painted pieces with religious themes, nature works, the famous portraits of red-haired women by Rossetti and medieval/literary themes. The second generation of the Brotherhood was heavily influenced by what was seen as a “medieval revival” and it came from literary sources. Throughout their medieval pieces there is a common thread in the symbols that resurface again and again. These symbols are seen in the content and the context of their work and are directly influenced by the time in which this group of artists lived. Even though the two generations of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are closely linked on a time line there is a definite difference in their style, technique, iconography and theme. The second generations work is clearer, more cohesive and when it came to their choice theme; more unique. Messersmith 2 The first generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by seven young men; however, it was dominated by three. John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were the leaders and they quickly came to the forefront of the group not only with their works but with their ideas. A second generation soon followed. The name of the group developed out of a criticism that members of the group had with Raphael’s Transfiguration that is located within the Vatican walls. Making a joke a fellow student said that they were “Pre-Raphaelite” then in their thought process. The name stuck. The Pre-Raphaelites developed a philosophy for their work early on. A “go back to nature” concept was formed. This is due partly to the writings of John Ruskin. Ruskin was an important art critic and theorist of the time. In his work, Modern Painters, vol. 1 he stated “Go to nature in singleness of heart and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how to best penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good and rejoicing always in the truth.” Expanding on this thought process William Michael Rossetti continued by laying down four principles that the group would work by. This would be the PRB’s approach to their art. The aims were: “1. To have genuine ideas to express. 2. To study Nature attentively, Messersmith 3 so as to know how to express them. 3. To sympathies 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.” Hunt summarized it a little more effectively: “In short, what we needed was a new and bolder English art that turned the minds of men to good reflection.” The second generation soon formed and followed the same guidelines; however, they expanded on them. Artist such as James Archer, Edward Burne-Jones, Frederick Sandys, J.W. Waterhouse and William Morris, just to name few, became prominent during this phase of the PRB. The artists were influenced by the same ideas as the first generation. Both generations of the Pre-Raphaelites worked from the mantra established by John Ruskin and W.M. Rossetti. No matter the theme involved in their work there was always a sense of nature and they always sought to be unique. During the time of the Pre-Raphaelites the world was changing. The early PRB concentrated on themes dealing with religion, landscape and beautiful women. The second generation came into existence and the influence shifted. The focus became more centered on literary aspects. The works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Malory and especially Tennyson were of great interest and influence to this newer generation of painters. There was an interest in the “stories of old”. The concepts of fair damsels, knights in shining Messersmith 4 armor and chivalry appealed to the senses of these painters. Writers such as Sir Thomas Malory and Alfred Lord Tennyson put these stories to paper. The second generation of the PRB wanted to put on canvas the visual realizations of these stories. Arthur and his knights lived in what was considered to be the greatest kingdom on Earth, Camelot. The same was true for these artists. They all lived during the height of the Victorian Era and the reign of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Queen Victoria ascended the English throne in 1837. Genre painting was the accepted norm for the time. Prince Albert, when discussing the art of the time made the statement it lay “’somewhere between religion and hygiene’: in other words between the poles of High Victorian morality (with its religious fervor for social reform) and the aesthetic doctrine of Art for Art’s Sake (with its concomitant of exaggerated personal attention). The Victorian Era was known for its formality and propriety. People lived and acted very proper and manners were important. There was a set protocol and society adhered very strictly to it. Any deviation was frowned upon. People saw an increase in what was considered to be the “moral tone”. The Pre-Raphaelites understood and took great pleasure in pushing against it. Many people referred to this as a “rebellion”. This was a time in history when England was making great strides in industrialism and commercial society. Art was academic and the PRB felt that this had created an impasse in creativity. They wanted, as artists, to go “back to the basics” and inspiration in the past. This went against the accepted grain but they felt that it would most likely provide them with a sense of artistic freedom that they had been lacking. Basically, they wanted to be a breath of fresh air. The breath of fresh Messersmith 5 air came in the form of a “Medieval Revival”. The “Revival” affected literature and architecture as well as painting when it took hold in the mid eighteenth century. Then it continued to gain momentum well into the nineteenth century. This inspired intense debate amongst theologians within the Anglican Church; however, it did finally manage to find a way to coexist. Hunt stated “it is simply fuller Nature we want. Revivalism, whether it be of classicism or medievalism, is seeking after dry bones”. The Pre-Raphaelites created a new way of looking at themes for art. The development of a “theme within a theme” came to the forefront. In short, they created their own spot in the cannon of art history only they had realized it yet. King Arthur made a promise to return one day. In Sir Thomas Malory’s work Le Morte D’Arthur he writes: “Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead and men say the he shall come again…I will not say it shall be so, but rather I will say here in this world he changed his life. But many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse: Hic Iacet Arthurus Rex, quondam Rex que Futurus. Here Lies Arthur, Once and Future King.” Little did people know that Arthur would indeed return-just not in the expected form. The revival of Arthur, his court and the women involved in his life made an unprecedented Messersmith 6 return to the forefront during the reign of Queen Victoria. Through poetry and paintings Arthur came to life again in all of his full glory. Arthur’s stories was used, adjusted and “tweaked” to fit the needs of the times. The stories were compared to the life of the Queen herself and changed around, if need be, to fit the situation. The cast of characters that exist in King Arthur’s world of the fabled Camelot are as varied as one could ask for. They provide any writer, poet or painter with people that are fabled yet at the same time fallible. Excellent creative material, exactly what the Pre-Raphaelites were looking for. Arthur, himself is human, not a god or immortal. Simply a man. A man who makes mistakes; he loves the wrong woman, trusts the wrong people and in the end loses his own life. However, he is noble and brave of heart. He comes from humble beginnings and rises to greatness. He believes in the concepts of chivalry and honor. His most fatal flaw is his capacity to love. Guinevere, Arthur’s queen and confidant, is beautiful yet again there is the fatal flaw. She is unfaithful. This can be traced back to the concept of Eve and the expulsion from the garden. She loves two men and in the end is with neither. She ends her days behind convent walls atoning for her sins. At the point, enter Morgan La Fay. She is Arthur half sister and is bent on destroying him. She plot and schemes throughout the Arthurian legend. She personifies the trait of deceit. Nimue shares the honor of that trait with Morgan La Fay. She lures Arthur sage advisor, Merlin, away. She enchants him into a deep sleep and locks him away in a cave where he is to this day. Elaine of Astolat is brought to life by Tennyson. She is his “Lady of Shallot”. Hers is the age old story of “girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy and boys loves someone else”. Messersmith 7 So, she dies of a broken heart and has her body place in a barge and sailed past the walls of Camelot where Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur may view her. These stories were begging to be brought to life on the canvas and the second generation was happy to oblige. James Archer painted La Mort D’Arthur in 1860 (some have dated this work as early as 1850). The work shows Arthur at his death. He is already in Avalon and is being watched over by four queens. The two figures shown on the beach are believed to be Merlin and Nimue. Arthur is believed to be having a vision of the Holy Grail that is being held by what is believed to be an angel. This figure is in the top right of the painting. The colors are rich and deep. The figures of the women are clear and none are looking the viewer. However, the figure of Arthur himself is cast in half shadow and is not as crisp. William Morris soon followed suit with his La Belle Iseult (also called Queen Guinevere) in 1858. The model for this piece is Jane Burden, who later became Morris’ wife. It was inspired by Malory’s work and is rich in iconography. The dog shown on the bed is fidelity personified. The place of the animal is also significant. If it were placed in Guinevere’s lap it would represent martial fidelity. However, it is curled into a ball on the bed by itself. This is most like a reference to her affair with Lancelot. Guinevere decided to place her owns needs and desires above the ones of Arthur. Morris does not place his figure into the narrative. She is separate from it. She appears lost in her own thoughts. The bowl of oranges can be seen as a substitution for the apple in the representation of the Tree of Knowledge. This again refers the viewer back to the issue of fidelity and the biblical reference of Adam and Eve Tennyson portrayed Guinevere was a women who Messersmith 8 most like felt caught and stifled. Caught between two men and stifled by the world in which she loved. La Belle was Morris’ only completed piece in his career. Morgan La Fay by Frederick Sandys was painted in 1862-3. Morgan is shown weaving an enchanted mantle that she planned to murder Arthur with. This work is seeped in mythological iconology. The loom shown in the background is a mythological reference to the goddess Minerva. The leopard skin is a reference to the Greek god Bacchus who was considered to be a fertility god and those who worshipped him were often led into orgies. This could possibly be a reference to the many lovers that Morgan had. The ring on Morgan’s hand was a gift from Guinevere. Rings are seen as symbols of authority. Morgan was a powerful figure in Arthur’s court and many feared her. She learned her magic from Merlin himself. Also in 1860, G F Watts painted his Galahad. It was shown at the Royal Academy in 1862 and critics said that it was the perfect response to Tennyson’s poem. His piece has a certain “softness” about it. The figure of Galahad has an almost feminine look. This may be because Lancelot was his father and it was said that Lancelot was beautiful of face. He is shown with his white horse. White being the color of purity, making a point that he was pure of heart and the horse its self is considered to be the mount of warriors and kings. His armor is considered to be the dress of a warrior and his shield is slung over his back. This gives the impression that he is not preparing for battle but is perhaps being introspective. Messersmith 9 The Lady of Shallot was a favorite figure of J.W. Waterhouse. He painted her three times over the course of his career. For the purpose of this work, the focus will placed on 1860 rendering and the 1887-88 version. The way these two are significant is the fact that they are same character presented in two totally opposite ways. One shows Elaine in her tower pining for Lancelot’s love and other shows her right before her death. ‘”I am half sick of shadows”, said the Lady of Shallot’ was completed in 1860. Shows Elaine looking in her mirror (which is out of sight). Again, the iconography in this piece is vast. The mirror represents the naked truth. She is seeing Lancelot for who he really is. With the truth comes wisdom even if the choice made to ignore it. Throughout the work are spools of thread. These represent the thread of life that are spun by the three fates of Greek myth. The figure of Elaine is very voluptuous. She has a sensual quality to her. The balls of thread unwinding on the floor could be representative of life unwinding before her and going in all directions. The next work is The Lady of Shallot from 1887-88. This is the opposite end of the spectrum. The end of life is coming near and she is dying of a broken heart. She has let go of her boat’s chains and is drifting towards Camelot singing her last stanza: “A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy, She chanted loudly, she chanted lowly, Till her eyes were darken’d wholly, And her smooth face sharpen’d slowly, Turn’d to tower’d Camelot: Messersmith 10 For ere she reach’d upon the tide The first house by the water-side Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shallot” Excerpt-Tennyson 1832 The figure itself tells us much about the story. She is dressed in white which is representational of virginity. The crucifix is placed in the front of the boat showing her devotion to Christ. The three candles are seen to represent the Purification of the Virgin and the number three is most likely representative of the holy trinity. During the last years of Pre-Raphaelitism Edward Burne-Jones brought about a new trend. He continued to painted but he added decorative arts to his resume and he could resist using the Arthurian cycle as subject matter. He did a total of three works that relate to Arthur and his companions. The first is the one he probably most famous for. The Beguiling of Merlin was finished in 1874. Nimue (also known as Vivien) is in the process of seducing Merlin. She told Merlin of her devotion and love and pushed her attentions away. So she began to, in essence, stalk him. “She followed him out of the court, across the seas to the forest of Broceliande, where she found him at the base of a giant oak, lost Messersmith 11 in melancholy contemplation.” When she would no longer handle being rejected, she urged him to tell her all of his magic. She then used it against him and enchanted him. She is very much seen as the “femme fatale” in this work. Merlin is shown trapped in a hawthorn bush. The hawthorn is considered sacred. Nimue is shown reading from Merlin’s own book of spells. She is one with the power. The background colors practically glow with the use of whites and gold’s and the clothing of the two figures are rich with shades of purple and blue. The fact that Merlin is dressed in blue is iconography. Blue is thought to keep evil away. The Attainment of the Holy Grail, The Stanmore Hall Tapestry dates 1898. The scene depicts the actual attainment of the Grail itself. The angels represent the messengers of God. They guard the Grail. The knights are shown kneeling in a field of flowers. Lilies represent the Virgin Mary (purity), carnations (Christ’s passion), columbine (dove of the Holy spirit), daises (innocence) and primroses (keys of heaven). Their shields are slung over their backs out of respect and their weapons are nowhere in site. This shows that they come in piece. A Pentecostal wind blows the curtains above the altar representing the Spirit of God. The Grail itself was copied from a reproduction of the eight century Tassilio Chalice in Kremunster Abbey, Austria. This work is currently in the private collection of Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Messersmith 12 Finally, there is Burne-Jones version of the Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon. It is dated 1881. The work was commissioned by Burne-Jones’ friend and patron, George Howard. Burne-Jones had intended this to be the most important work of his career. Sadly, it was never completed to Burne-Jones’ satisfaction. Howard eventually realized him from his contract for the work. He died in 1898. However, upon viewing the work most critics agreed that it is indeed finished. It shows Arthur on a draped couch under a bronze canopy. Sitting at his head and feet are again, as in Archer’s, the four queens. The guards are standing by holding horns that will sound Arthur’s return upon his awakening. The women figures again, as in Archer’s, are not looking directly at the viewer. Arthur also is not as defined as the women. The work is a large canvas, measuring in at eleven and a half by twenty-one and half feet. Burne-Jones never had any intentions of exhibiting it or selling it. At the end of his life he was still working on it three days a week. Burne-Jones did not look at Avalon as simply a mythical place; he viewed it as a state of mind. For him the Arthurian legend always had a deeply personal meaning. His wife, later on after his death, made the comment that the legend of King Arthur “lay deep in Edward’s mind and that he regarded the work not as a commission but as ‘a task of love to which he put no limit of time or labour’”. There lies a definite link between the first and second generation of the Pre-Raphaelites. It is not only in their philosophy but in their color choices and their color choices and subject matter. However, the second generation has a slight edge over the Messersmith 13 first and its lies in their technique. The works of the second generation are simply more proportionally correct. The figured within their works are a bit more fleshed out and not as elongated as they are in the first generation. Even though the second generation’s images were heavily influenced by literature there are still commonalities with the first. Religion still plays a heavy role in the paintings. In the second generations pieces it is not as apparent with the naked eyed. It is layered within the iconography. Symbols of marriage and fidelity or lack of fidelity are laced within the works. The symbols of the spiritual realm are present and common everyday items take on a new meaning and context when placed within the canvas. Even though the stories are about Arthur; the paintings of the time mostly center on the women figures within the legend. They, themselves are iconographical in a sense. These women represent three traits that the Victorian world looked down upon. The fallen (adulteress) woman, the deceitful woman and the scorned (unrequited love) woman. Guinevere was a poor choice of wife by Victorian standards. According to Victorian standards she was better suited to the role of the “other woman”. It is a character fault that haunts her throughout the history of the telling of the legend. Different writers have shown her in different lights but in the end she is always depicted to some degree as an adulteress who ends her days in a convent. Tennyson shows her as a very “earthly” woman; an adjective that no self-respecting Victorian woman would use to describe herself. The “high-minded reverence” that Messersmith 14 surround Arthur was not what Guinevere craved. “She wanted a partner, not a paragon; a flawed character appealed to her more than a ‘passionate perfection’”. To her ideal, Lancelot was that partner. Even Lancelot tried to convince her otherwise. She very quickly let him know her preference. “Arthur my lord, Arthur, the faultless King, That passionate perfection, my good lord- But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven? …to me He is all fault who hath no fault at all: For who loves me must have a touch of earth; The low sun makes the color: I am yours.” (“Lancelot and Elaine,” 11.121-23, 131-34) The Victorian view of marriage of one of a business arrangement and not a passion filled life. It allowed not excuses for a woman to be unfaithful to her husband. The deceitful woman is personified by both Morgan La Fay and Nimue. Nimue plays dual roles in the Arthurian legend. She is both deceitful and scorned. However, the concept of a deceitful woman traces back to biblical times with Eve in the garden. It is looked as both the original sin and the ultimate deception. Again, according to Victorian society, a woman must be paragon of honesty. She was considered a femme fatale. Her Messersmith 15 beauty was irresistible to all and she drew men in with it. “Her motives were rarely explained, her dangerous potential was fully comprehended. Enemy to all men and to the male order, she incarnated the deeply rooted misogyny of the period. A woman who scorned family, responsibility, her proper place, and male superiority endangered all who came in contact with her. She was in every sense a deadly force. But unlike the tragic heroine who suffered for the consequences of her flawed soul, the femme fatale had no conscience, and others paid dearly when victimized be her perversity.” Morgan La Fay showed Victorian women that it paid to be a responsible wife who knew her place and listened to her husband. La Fay was a popular subject with the second generation. Burne-Jones painted her as a seductress and Sandys shows her “concocting a spell in her satanic den to harm her royal brother” Perhaps, however, the most poignant are the women of the Arthurian legend who are scorned and their love unrequited. Elaine of Astolat (The Lady of Shallot) and the enchantress Nimue suffered the most. Again, their character flaw is brought to light. The flaw is the ability to love. Victorians, again, did not marry for love. They married as business arrangements, for social standings and even for money, but hardly ever for love. Elaine loved Lancelot to the point that it killed her and Nimue loved Merlin to the point that she took drastic measures to have her revenge on him. Both of these actions could be seen by Victorian society as reprehensible. Messersmith 16 The Pre-Raphaelites allowed themselves to become immersed in the literary sources of the time. This in turn allowed them to paint with a creative freedom. The second generations work is more layered in its meaning and iconography. Their technique is more refined and expansive. They progressed from oil into the mediums of watercolor and the decorative. The Pre-Raphaelites era ended around 1898 with the death of Burne-Jones. Not much attention was paid to their works until the 1960’s. Until the 1960’s there was even a certain amount of rejection of their work. However, upon the rediscovery of the works of both generations there developed an appreciation for the richness of what was on the canvas. The Pre-Raphaelites work had “a complexity and at times paradoxes of art that occupies an intriguing position in the history of the nineteenth century. The Pre-Raphaelites had begun their quest in a spirit of rebellion against the art of their time; today they embody the essence of the great Victorian dream, at the same time archaizing and modern.” |
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