The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination

Faber & Faber, 2011. Hardcover. As New/As New. The very best biographies recreate not just the life of their prime subjects but also that of their worlds. Fiona MacCarthy's fine new biography of Sir Edward Burne-Jones relates the story of his life in impressive detail as well as beautifully depicting the artistic and social milieu in which he moved. And what a glorious milieu it was: Pre-Raphaelitism, Symbolism, and Aestheticism all have their claims to Burne-Jones, but he can no more be defined by a single school than could any of his friends and associates throughout his rich life: Swinburne, Ruskin, Wilde, Whistler, Beardsley, Morris, to name only a few. It was a magnificent age in which to live, and in many ways Burne-Jones was the epitome of the best it had to offer in his appreciation for dreamy beauty in all its manifestations. Burne Jones was born plain Edward Jones in the industrial city of Birmingham. Never receiving much formal art training, he exhibited his great artistic ability from an early age. Falling under the spell of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the other Pre-Raphaelites, he began painting in and adding to their style, encouraged by several long trips to Italy and France. He fell in love with and eventually married a lovely girl several years his junior, Georgiana Macdonald, whose large family made him brother in law to the painter Edward Poynter and eventually uncle to Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin. Fortunately Georgie was patient and long suffering, for she had to share her husband with a number of women in semi-platonic relationships. Most of these women were part of the Souls, making them part of the larger artistic world. Burne-Jones' fame increased throughout most of his working life, though by the time of his death in 1898 he had fallen a little out of artistic fashion. In the years since he and the other Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetes have waxed and waned in popularity, and they are now enjoying a new and much deserved renaissance. Fiona MacCarthy's biography is scholarly but engaging and lively. It is beautiflly designed and copiously illustrated, though I wish more of Burne-Jones' own works had been included. The Last Pre-Raphaelite should become one of the essential works on Burne-Jones and his associates and the glorious artistic period in which they lived.