As I shared in The Magic Down the Rabbit Hole, immersing myself in a subject and following its trails is one of the biggest delights of my life. Since today is William Shakespeare’s birthday, I’m jumping headfirst into a few of my favourite Pre-Raphaelite works inspired by The Bard. When listing Pre-Raphaelite images of Shakespeare, there are many to feast…
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“Go to nature in all singleness of heart”
In Modern Painters, John Ruskin urged artists to “go to nature in all singleness of heart… rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth.” The Pre-Raphaelites and their followers took this advice to heart. In Millais’ Ophelia, for example, we can see botanical details recreated with beautiful…
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Notre Dame Still Stands
In 1855, Elizabeth Siddal visited Paris on a journey funded by her patron, art critic John Ruskin. I’ve often wondered what the experience was like for her. She had gone through so many thrilling changes in her life at this point, from shop girl to artist’s model, to gliding effortlessly to the other side of the easel and becoming an…
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Evelyn De Morgan Centenary Symposium
Celebrate Evelyn De Morgan’s centenary. Purchase tickets at Eventbrite. Learn more at the De Morgan Foundation. Evelyn De Morgan was a radical Victorian artist who defied her gender and upper-class upbringing to become a commercially successful, professional artist. Her style develops from Neo-Classical, Italian Renaissance influenced work, which she was taught at the Slade School of Art, to Pre-Raphaelite canvases,…
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The Tantalizing Case of Poirot and the Forbidden Fruit
David Suchet as Poirot. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Joan Hickson as Miss Marple. All have been on my lifelong menu for mental comfort food. Tonight, Poirot was served up deliciously in the 2008 ITV adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons. The episode takes place at an all girls’ school. Early on, my thirst for traces of Pre-Raphaelites…
