Huzzah! Once again it is #WombatFriday. Kirsty Stonell Walker has just written a fabulous post: The Illustrated Tennyson: A Brief History. So, in honor of Kirsty, today’s Wombat Friday has a Tennyson theme. Pictured above, our hero the wombat can be seen with my own illustrated copy of Tennyson and one of my favorite images: … Read more
“Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. “I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.” “You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.” This week, I blogged about Lewis Carroll and the Pre-Raphaelites and Alice … Read more
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
Happy Wombat Friday! You can follow Pre-Rapahelite Sisterhood on Facebook and Twitter. This week our hero the wombat appears with two book recommendations: The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal by Jan Marsh (nonfiction) A Curl of Copper and Pearl by Kirsty Stonell Walker (fiction) Wednesday marked the anniversary of Elizabeth Siddal’s death. In Dim Phantoms I talk … Read more
On this day in 1862, Elizabeth Siddal died. In many accounts of her, you will see her death described as suicide. Whether intentional or not, she lost her life due to an overdose of Laudanum. You can read a transcript of the inquest here. The hills grow darker to my sight And thoughts begin … Read more
This week, my website LizzieSiddal.com turned eleven years old! It and Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood are my labor of love and I appreciate your support and your comments, emails, and friendship. Through these sites I have discovered kindred spirits and I am grateful for you all. And thank you to those of you who have befriended me … Read more
I was recently in a bookstore that had a special section devoted to boxed sets of books packaged with their movie adaptation. A little girl picked up Frankenstein and handed it to her mother, who rolled her eyes. “You don’t want that. That’s for boys.” I assume the mother had never heard of Mary Shelley. … Read more
Happy Wombat Friday! This week marked the 101st death of Jane Morris. Kirsty Stonell Walker has a gorgeous post on John Collier. Via Cumbria Live: Teenagers bring the poetry of Christina Rossetti to life. The poetry of Christina Rossetti has been reimagined for the stage in The Blood Between Us which will play in the … Read more
Beatrice Buckstone posed for three of Millais’ works. She was the granddaughter of actor/comedian John Baldwin Buckstone. Finding Shakespeare has an interesting post showing Buckstone’s guestbook signature on his visit to the Bard’s birthplace, along with biographical information about the actor. Millais’ son wrote about her in The Life and Letters of Sir John … Read more
Happy #WombatFriday! You can follow Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood on Facebook or Twitter. Posts at Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood this week included Veronica Veronese and Aspecta Medusa, both by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Kirsty Stonell Walker reviewed the catalogue for Art & Soul: Victorians and the Gothic. And took a look at Selfies and self portraits. The William Morris Gallery is … Read more
“The girl is in a sort of passionate reverie, and is drawing her hand listlessly along the strings of a violin which hangs against the wall, while she holds the bow with the other hands, as if arrested by the thought of the moment, when she was about to play. In color, I shall make … Read more
It’s Wombat Friday! Our hero the Wombat can be seen here with William Holman Hunt’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil. You can see it and other versions of Isabella in Love, Death, Potted Plants. This week was the anniversary of Agatha Christie’s death, so here’s a post at The Kissed Mouth about Agatha … Read more
The day has its own bright beauty. Morning may bring the possibility of a new beginning, but at night, everything slows down and the world takes on a different mood. Night wears a deeper hue, things become varying shades of blues and purples. It’s a slower form of beauty. Introspective and melancholy. Is it any wonder … Read more
Sir Edward Burne-Jones’ painting King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid is based on the story of an African King who had never felt any attraction towards women until he spotted a beggar woman. In this tale of love at first sight, King Cophetua declares that despite her low social standing, she will be his queen. … Read more
I’ve added a new entry to the Unexpected Sightings page. ‘Reverie’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti can be seen in the background of NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This is Mr. Pitt’s apartment, where the character Elaine works as Mr. Pitt’s personal assistant. Sixth episode of the sixth season of Seinfeld, titled ‘The Gymnast’. To see Pre-Raphaelite works … Read more
When Millais first exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy, he displayed it with these lines of Tennyson: She only said, ‘My life is dreary- He cometh not’ she said She said ‘I am aweary, aweary – I would that I were dead.’ –From Tennyson’s poem Mariana The subject of Mariana was visited twice by … Read more
According to myth, after Prometheus stole fire from the gods, Zeus wanted to punish mankind. He ordered Hephaistos and other gods to create a woman that they would endow with gifts and beauty. Hephaistos created her lovely form; the Four Winds breathed life into her. Her beauty was given to her by Aphrodite. Zeus bestowed … Read more
Another portrait painted this year, that of Miss Fitzgerald, a young American girl. The art of portraiture he [Burne-Jones] considered very seriously from the point of what “expression” was allowable–a question that he had settled with regard to his imaginative pictures at an early date. Speaking of this in later years he said: “Of course … Read more
The tale of Thisbe comes from book four of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In ancient Babylon, the families of Pyramus and Thisbe live in separate houses that share a roof. Over time, the two youths fall in love but are forbidden by their parents to see each other. Undaunted, the lovers use a crack in the wall … Read more
“I was ushered into one of the prettiest and most curiously furnished old-fashioned parlours that I had ever seen. Mirrors and looking-glasses of all shapes, sizes and design lined the walls. Whichever way I looked I saw myself gazing at myself.”–Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle (Cheyne walk life), Henry Treffry Dunn. Henry … Read more
And her enchanted hair was the first gold./And still she sits, young while the earth is old –from Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet Lady Lilith Lilith appears here with pale skin and clad in a white gown, making her luxurious hair the most vivid thing in the room. In this painting, Dante Gabriel Rossetti is not … Read more
When it comes to ghost stories, the Victorians were absolutely the best. It was an era that birthed Industrialism and scientific discovery, yet people held firmly to superstition and folklore. Death closely hovered around every family, regardless of wealth or class. Mourning was so common that there were societal rules about it that were to … Read more
In Listening to my Sweet Pipings, Waterhouse has shown the figure of Earth reclining as Pan serenades her. Notice that Earth holds a poppy in her hand while Pan wears one in his hair. The title of Waterhouse’s painting is taken from Hymn of Pan by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The notion of Nature as feminine … Read more
William Morris’ fantasy books resonate with my bibliophile heart. Epic voyages told through folkloric narratives, his fantasies contributed to the birth of the Fantasy genre as we know it. As if that weren’t enough, he presented these works to the world in breathtaking volumes that are the epitome of typography and ornament. It is his … Read more
The Lost Pre-Raphaelite is a unique hybrid of biography, mystery, and architectural restoration that is unlike any book I’ve ever read. The book has been compared to A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession and as a devotee of Byatt’s work, I tell you that it lives up to the comparison. When Nigel Daly and his partner Brian Vowles … Read more