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 a feed reader, you may not be able to see the video.)

Dr. Jan Marsh will be delivering a lecture on Pre-Raphaelite Women and the Isel of Wight May 26, 2012 at Dimbola Lodge.  What a fitting place, as Dimbola Lodge is the home of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
The lecture starts at 8.00pm.
Tickets are £7.00 each and can be booked by phoning Vic King of Vaguely Sunny at +441983-730930 , or
01983-730930 if you are dialling from the UK.   Vic also says that if you need advice on travel to the Island and accommodation for the evening, he would be happy to advise you.

Sadness, a photograph of Ellen Terry by Julia Margaret Cameron.

Originally published fifteen years ago, Yale University Press has released a revised edition of Reading the Pre-Raphaelites by Tim Barringer. It is an excellent book for any Pre-Raphaelite enthusiast to have, one I hazard that you will revisit repeatedly.  This edition contains  a new section on photography, which is fitting since Tim Barringer is also a co-author of The Pre-Raphaelite Lens.

Barringer brilliantly takes the title of his book from a metaphor of John Ruskin’s, who used the word reading as a way to describe the interpretation of a painting.  In the same manner in which we might read the details of a painting, the structure of this book allows us to analyze the influences, works and themes of Pre-Raphaelitism.

Pre-Raphaelite artists are often overshadowed by their own personal lives.  This book focuses on the work of the Pre-Raphaelites, not the dramas.  For example, because of my deep interest in Elizabeth Siddal, I am delighted that her death and famous exhumation are touched upon in one mere sentence while analysis of her drawings The Lady of Shalott and Pippa Passes the Loose Women are given the time and space they deserve.

The author traces the roots of Pre-Raphaelite art as well as adeptly putting the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in context.  I would highly recommend this book, especially to anyone newly interested in the Pre-Raphaelites.  It is an introduction so detailed that this is is not a book to barrel through, it is to be savored.

There are five lengthy chapters and I enjoy the way they are categorized, sectioning off and highlighting different aspects for us to analyze:  Rebellion and Revivalism, Truth to Nature, Modern Life, Art, Religion and Empire, and Pre-Raphaelites and Aesthetes.   The second chapter, Truth to Nature, stands out as a personal favorite of mine.  Truth to nature is such an important element of Pre-Raphaelite works and this chapter puts it all in context by looking at different elements that influenced the ‘Truth to Nature’ maxim:  the growing interest in science and nature of the time period, the relationship between John Ruskin and artist J.M.W. Turner, Ruskin’s work Modern Painters, and the development of the daguerreotype.

The fact that Pre-Raphaelite art did not shy away from social issues is also explored.  Not just in their depiction of fallen women as seen in Rossetti’s Found or Holman Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience, but in images of daily Victorian experiences such as work, family, and personal milestones such as marriage (touched upon in Millais’ The Bridesmaid and The Long Engagement by Arthur Hughes).  In particular, Barringer gives a thoughtful analysis of Ford Madox Brown’s Work, for which I am particularly grateful as it is a complex piece.

Work, Ford Madox Brown

It is heavily and beautifully illustrated, containing ninety color and thirty black-and-white reproductions.
Thank you to H Niyazi of Three Pipe Problem,  Inbooks and Yale University Press for kindly supplying me with a review copy.

In celebration of the Bard’s birthday, here’s a post from the archives:

King Lear is a tragic play filled with anger and grief.   It is wrought with suffering and explores issues of old age and family as only Shakespeare could explore them.  William Holman Hunt took inspiration from a quotation of King Lear for his painting The Hireling Shepherd (pictured above).  It is from the lines of the Fool, who says:

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?
Thy sheep be in the corn.
And for one blast of thy minikin mouth,
Thy sheep shall take no harm.

Hunt portrays the shepherd as neglecting his flock, too busy flirting with the shepherdess to see that they are falling ill.  In his hand he holds a death’s head moth.  The moth is impressive once you notice it, Hunt captured it in minute detail.   The shepherdess, also distracted and neglectful, has a young lamb in her lap that will also soon fall ill since it is eating a green apple.

Hunt’s painting is striking.  The colors are vivid and the detail is superb.  But it is Ford Madox Brown’s paintings of King Lear that excite me, because they were born from the passion of a viewer who was captivated by the performance of the play.  Lucinda Hawksley describes this in Essential Pre-Raphaelites:

“Ford Madox Brown’s fascination for Shakespeare’s King Lear began in 1843 (reputedly after seeing William Charles Macready playing Lear on the London stage).  Brown began to sketch scenes from the play feverishly — producing 16 in one year.  Henry Irving, who later played Lear to great acclaim, became the owner of several of these.”

This is the kind of tale that resonates with me. I can easily imagine an artist being swept away by an outstanding performance, a performance that inspired him to create his own images of the saga. It is a completely different experience for us now. Most of us see movies far more often than a live production. And if we want, we can easily own the movie on dvd for us to watch again and again. But what of Ford Madox Brown? A play is a different animal entirely. Performances can differ from night to night; with each new audience a new experience is created. So I see Ford Madox Brown’s work as an attempt to capture what was inspired by that one performance. He may not have painted the exact actors, scenery or costumes from that performance, but he painted the passion for the story of King Lear that the performance inspired.

Ford Madox Brown’s painting Cordelia at the Bedside of Lear:

Cordelia is modeled by Brown’s wife Emma. The Fool, staring so intently at Lear, was modeled by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Later, Brown painted an earlier scene from the play.  Cordelia’s Portion:

In Will of the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, author Stephen Greenblatt proposes that Shakespeare was possibly contemplating retirement –and thinking about its perils– when he wrote King Lear.  “The tragedy is his greatest meditation on extreme old age; on the painful necessity of renouncing power;  on the loss of house, land, authority, love, eyesight, and sanity itself.”  Greenblatt describes it well.  It is one of the most tumultuous Shakespearean dramas I have ever seen.

When I decided to write this post, I read King Lear in its entirety.  It is a beautiful text to read, but I was left feeling dissatisfied.  This was not the experience I wanted to have.  Shakespeare did not write his plays to be read, he wanted them to be seen!  I wanted to be involved in the story as Ford Madox Brown was.  Searching for an adaptation to watch, I was happy to find a production of King Lear starring Sir Ian McKellen on Netflix.  I highly recommend it. It is a masterful performance with a talented ensemble.   And I’m not alone in my admiration of it — visitor comments on the PBS Great Performances page describes King Lear as a  “life-altering experience, proving, once again, how great art presented intimately and at home, can illuminate the intricacies of a classic play in startling new ways.” Reading Shakespeare can be a beautiful experience, but it can never be the same as seeing it performed.  Not just performed, but performed well.

There is a life cycle to art and creativity.  Shakespeare continues to inspire.  As do the Pre-Raphaelites.  Since starting this website, I have been lucky enough to have found talented artisans whose work is often a nod to the Pre-Raphaelites and their associates.  I love Ford Madox Brown’s representations of King Lear because it is a perfect example of how someone’s creativity will stimulate the inventiveness of others.  In Act 1, Scene1 of King Lear, Shakespeare wrote that “Nothing will come of nothing.” And now it is my firm belief that Art will come from Art.

Valerie Meachum offers up an intricate, one of a kind needlepoint based on a Dante Gabriel Rossetti portrait of Lizzie Siddal. Available at etsy.com.
The hand-embroidered inscription on the linen border refers to a letter to the artist’s sister, the poet Christina Rossetti, in which he mentions a black silk dress Lizzie had recently made for herself and calls her a “rara avis in terra,” quoting the Satires of the classical Roman poet Juvenal, who wrote of “a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan.”

The broadcast can be purchased and downloaded from AudioGo.  Thank you Cathy Baker for sharing the link with me!  I downloaded and listened to it and it is a beautiful reading and a perfect way to start my morning.

Lamia (1905) by John William Waterhouse

I just discovered that in January there was an adaptation of Keats’ Lamia on BBC Radio 4.  I’m sorry that I missed that.  Lamia is one of my favorite works, here are two passages I enjoy the most. (You can read the complete poem here)

Lamia has vivid imagery:

“She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -”

Perhaps my favorite part is the description of transformation:

Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,
Her mouth foam’d, and the grass, therewith besprent,
Wither’d at dew so sweet and virulent;
Her eyes in torture fix’d, and anguish drear,
Hot, glaz’d, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,
Flash’d phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.
The colours all inflam’d throughout her train,
She writh’d about, convuls’d with scarlet pain:
A deep volcanian yellow took the place
Of all her milder-mooned body’s grace;
And, as the lava ravishes the mead,
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,
Eclips’d her crescents, and lick’d up her stars:
So that, in moments few, she was undrest
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.
Still shone her crown; that vanish’d, also she
Melted and disappear’d as suddenly;
And in the air, her new voice luting soft,
Cried, “Lycius! gentle Lycius!” – Borne aloft
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar
These words dissolv’d: Crete’s forests heard no more.

Keats wrote to his brother in 1819 ‘I have been reading over a part of a short poem I have composed lately, called Lamia, and I am certain there is that sort of fire in it that must take hold of people some way; give them either pleasant or unpleasant sensation–what they want is a sensation of some sort.’  (via online-literature)

Oh yes, there is fire in it indeed.