After a weekend of worldwide tragedy, to spend a day where Pre-Raphaelite art filled my Twitter feed was a welcome diversion. It was great fun and I’d like to extend a hearty thanks to the Pre-Raphaelite Society, Serena Trowbridge, and Madeleine Pearce for orchestrating #PRBday.
I took a few screenshots to share how beautiful Twitter looks on #PRBday. This are chosen at random, so I apologize if you don’t see a tweet of yours.
The Pre-Raphaelite Society posted questions every half-hour to facilitate discussion and Twitter users were able to vote for their favorite Pre-Raphaelite painting and poem. Sarah Doyle, the Pre-Raphaelite Society’s poet-in-residence will be composing a poem about the winning painting.
Although by nature Twitter conversations are short, I enjoyed the discussions immensely. I am especially grateful for Lynn Roberts’ tweets from The Frame Blog. I had no idea that many of Burne-Jones’ frames were embellished with swans’ heads and I was thrilled to learn this. I recommend you start following The Frame Blog, it’s a fascinating publication.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem Sudden Light was the winning selection for poetry.
Sudden Light
I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.
You have been mine before,—
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow’s soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall,—I knew it all of yore.
Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time’s eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death’s despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?
Sir Edward Burne-Jones Love Among the Ruins was the winning painting.
#PRBday blog posts included:
Willowwood by Robyne Calvert
Rossetti’s How They Met Themselves and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman by Ben Perkins
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Rossetti’s Radical Vision by Sally-Anne Huxtable
Happy #PRBday by Robert Parry is an excellent look at Millais’ The Blind Girl
Christina Rossetti, the unlikely flapper by Kirsty Stonell Walker
And my own post, The Faces of Elizabeth Siddal
The day before #PRBday, Verity Holloway wrote Visions of hope in Pre-Raphaelite art. After recent events, Verity’s post is a timely and important one about the healing power of art.
If you blogged for #PRBday and I missed it, please forgive me and send a link. I’d love to read and share it.
If you are interested in joining the Pre-Raphaelite Society you can find membership information here. I am a proud member and there is currently a special offer where new members can get fifteen months for the price of twelve.