Search Results for: ford madox brown

Link Love: ‘Salutation of Beatrice’, Madox Brown’s grave, Elizabeth Siddal’s ‘True Love’

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Via Dinah Roe’s twitter (@preraphsrule):  Audio.  Peter Brown, Director of Victorian & British Impressionist Art, Christie’s, discusses Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Salutation of Beatrice. Islington Tribune: Ford Madox Brown relative joins campaign to clean up Pre-Raphaelite artist’s grave Beautiful, moving, haunting.  Valerie Meachum reads Elizabeth Siddal’s poem ‘True Love’. (If you are reading this through … Read more

Emma Madox Brown

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Artist Ford Madox Brown was a widower with a young daughter, Lucy. Although not officially a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was closely involved with most of them, especially Rossetti. Emma began posing for Brown in 1848, the year the Brotherhood was formed. Romance blossomed and eventually the two unmarried lovers conceived a child. … Read more

The Pre-Raphaelite Recipe

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Pre-Raphaelite art is known for its exquisite luminosity – but how was this effect achieved? Why was it so radical at the time? The Status Quo In the early nineteenth century, the majority of work produced by British artists consisted of darkly-colored paintings – partly because of their reverence for seventeenth century masterpieces, but also … Read more

Women of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle

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Christina Rossetti Sister of Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and critic William Michael Rossetti. A talented poet in her own right, Christina can be seen in several early works of her brother’s, namely The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary and Ecce Ancilla Domini. Read more. Elizabeth Siddal Lizzie helped shape the concept of a “Pre-Raphaelite … Read more

Marie Spartali Stillman

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Marie Spartali Stillman’s beauty is apparent in works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, but her talent shines in the exquisite Pre-Raphaelite paintings she herself created. Marie was the daughter of a wealthy Greek cotton merchant; both artistic talent and beauty were family traits. Artists Maria Zambaco and Aglaia Ionides were her cousins. … Read more

A Pre-Raphaelite Look at Hitchcock’s Vertigo

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Warning: This post contains spoilers. If you have not seen Vertigo, you might want to back away slowly because I do not want to ruin your experience You have been warned. “Do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter and take possession of a living being?”–Gavin Elster to Scottie in … Read more

The Faces of Elizabeth Siddal

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Elizabeth Siddal made great contributions to the Pre-Raphaelite movement; she appears in a number of important works.  After posing for Deverell, Holman Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti she bravely moved to the other side of the easel and became a Pre-Raphaelite artist in her own right.   She has fascinated me throughout my adulthood and today I’d … Read more

Celebrating Shakespeare

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Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare, born on this day in 1564.  Today is also the anniversary of the Bard’s death.  Dare I say it?  Dying on your birthday is a dramatically Shakespearean thing to do. When a young group of artists founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 they drew up a list of ‘Immortals’, made … Read more

Aesthetic Vampirism

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Literature is filled with fictional portraits. Visual art and the written word can intertwine in glorious ways. Dorian Gray’s mysteriously aging painting springs to mind and both the image of Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret and descriptions of art in The Woman in White are excellent examples of Pre-Raphaelite principles used within a novel. … Read more

May the Force Be With You

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When Victorian artist Ford Madox Brown saw William Charles Macready play King Lear, the performance inspired the artist so much that he passionately sketched and painted several depictions of it. (You can see one above. Cordelia is modeled by Brown’s wife Emma, the fool is fellow artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.) He may not have painted … Read more

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Models

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Like his Pre-Raphaelite brethren, Dante Gabriel Rossetti used live models in his works. Throughout the course of his career, the same faces grace his canvasses, ranging from family members to lovers. Occasionally, models Elizabeth Siddal and Alexa Wilding are confused for each other. Other models may be misidentified completely, so this post is intended to … Read more

#PRBday: The Faces of Elizabeth Siddal

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Elizabeth Siddal made great contributions to the Pre-Raphaelite movement; she appears in a number of important works.  After posing for Deverell, Holman Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti she bravely moved to the other side of the easel and became a Pre-Raphaelite artist in her own right.   Since she has fascinated me throughout my adulthood, I think … Read more

Did Elizabeth Siddal inspire Bram Stoker?

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Photograph of Elizabeth Siddal

In the early years of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, artist Walter Deverell discovered Elizabeth Siddal working in a millinery shop.  After modeling for his painting Twelfth Night, Siddal posed for several Pre-Raphaelite painters, including William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. It was the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was most captivated by her. He drew … Read more

Freddie Mercury and the madness of Richard Dadd

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Richard Dadd is a Victorian artist that both shocks and fascinates me.  He demonstrated a great talent for drawing early in life and entered the Royal Academy at age twenty. He founded The Clique with fellow artists Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, Henry Nelson O’Neil, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward. Which means that … Read more

The Unrequited Love of Dante and Beatrice

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Dante Alighieri first saw and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari when he was nine years old. He would later write about his instant love for her in Vita Nuova, saying “Behold, a deity stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.” He loved her from afar for the rest of her life. She would die … Read more

Alas, poor Wombat…

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This week marks the birth of William Shakespeare, so in celebration I shared several Pre-Raphaelite and Shakespeare related links on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood Facebook page and Twitter.  “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, … Read more

Pre-Raphaelites and the Bard

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If you are looking for Shakespeare inspiration today, you are in luck!  Visit happybirthdayshakespeare.com for a large collective of bloggers sharing posts in honor of the day! At the end of this post, you will find links to other Pre-Raphaelite images of Shakespearean works on PreRaphaeliteSisterhood.com. In celebration of the Bard’s birthday, here’s my favorite Shakespearean … Read more

Lewis Carroll and the Pre-Raphaelites

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Alice in Wonderland has a strong hold on our popular culture.  Over a century has passed since it and the sequel Through the Looking Glass were written and Alice’s strange journeys charm us still.  How many times can we reinterpret this book on screen?  It seems to be an endless source of inspiration and the … Read more

Shades of Dante

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Victorian poet, painter and co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, grew up in the shadow of Dante Alighieri.  Although he lived several centuries before, Medieval poet Alighieri was a permanent fixture in the Rossetti household. Rossetti’s father, Professor Gabriele Rossetti, was an Italian expatriate who came to London in 1824. He was a … Read more

Forbidden Fruit

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Mauvais Sujet is not your stereotypical, chocolate-box-pretty Victorian portrait.  She’s almost uncomfortable to look at, as she is both very young and almost sensual. On her desk you can see her name, Mary, scrawled in a childlike hand.   I’m not exactly sure what Madox Brown wants us to feel about her.  She’s obviously idle, choosing … Read more