Burne-Jones representations of Nimue

Le Morte d’Arthur captivated Edward Burne-Jones. His passion for all things Arthurian dated back to his days as an undergraduate at Oxford, when he and close friend William Morris would read the tales together.  Burne-Jones painted Arthurian subjects several times in his career, including the famous The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon. Merlin was … Read more

William Morris and Le Morte d’Arthur

Since finishing Le Morte d’Arthur, I’ve been refreshing my memory and reading all the references I can find regarding Pre-Raphaelite art and Arthurian influences. My first choice was a William Morris biography that I happily stumbled across at a flea market a few years ago. There’s one paragraph in particular that always stands out to … Read more

Pre-Raphaelite Reading Project: Le Morte d’Arthur

For the next selection of the Pre-Raphaelite Reading Project, I’ve chosen a work that inspired many Pre-Raphaelite pieces and captured the Victorian imagination:  Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. We all know the Arthurian tales, they are embedded in our culture.  Every few years it seems as if Hollywood gives us a slick new version of … Read more