Millais


Book Description

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.




Tate British Artists


Book Description

Christine Riding analyzes Millais' artistic career, his critics and his audience, exploring the broader issues which preoccupied Victorian Britain on the subject of art itself.







Princes of Victorian Bohemia


Book Description

This intimate picture of nineteenth-century artistic London is the first devoted exclusively to Wynfield's photography, and illustrates his unique contribution to the art.




Effie


Book Description

Effie Gray, a beautiful and intelligent young socialite, rattled the foundations of England's Victorian age. Married at nineteen to John Ruskin, the leading art critic of the time, she found herself trapped in a loveless, unconsummated union after Ruskin rejected her on their wedding night. On a trip to Scotland she met John Everett Millais, Ruskin's protégé, and fell passionately in love with him. In a daring act, Effie left Ruskin, had their marriage annulled and entered into a long, happy marriage with Millais. Suzanne Fagence Cooper has gained exclusive access to Effie's previously unseen letters and diaries to tell the complete story of this scandalous love triangle. In Cooper's hands, this passionate love story also becomes an important new look at the work of both Ruskin and Millais with Effie emerging as a key figure in their artistic development. Effie is a heartbreakingly beautiful book about three lives passionately entwined with some of the greatest paintings of the pre-Raphaelite period.




Ophelia's Muse


Book Description

"I'll never want to draw anyone else but you. You are my muse. Without you there is no art in me." With her pale, luminous skin and cloud of copper-colored hair, nineteen-year-old Lizzie Siddal looks nothing like the rosy-cheeked ideal of Victorian beauty. Working in a London milliner's shop, Lizzie stitches elegant bonnets destined for wealthier young women, until a chance meeting brings her to the attention of painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Enchanted both by her ethereal appearance and her artistic ambitions--quite out of place for a shop girl--Rossetti draws her into his glittering world of salons and bohemian soirees. Lizzie begins to sit for some of the most celebrated members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, posing for John Everett Millais as Shakespeare's Ophelia, for William Holman Hunt--and especially for Rossetti, who immortalizes her in countless paintings as his namesake's beloved Beatrice. The passionate visions Rossetti creates on canvas are echoed in their intense affair. But while Lizzie strives to establish herself as a painter and poet in her own right, betrayal, illness, and addiction leave her struggling to save her marriage and her sense of self. Rita Cameron weaves historical figures and vivid details into a complex, unconventional love story, giving voice to one of the most influential yet overlooked figures of a fascinating era--a woman who is both artist and inspiration, long gazed upon, but until now, never fully seen. An excerpt from Ophelia’s Muse Rossetti stood behind the canvas, pretending to study Deverell's painting while he admired its model. Despite Deverell's enthusiastic descriptions, Rossetti was completely unprepared for the glorious woman before him. She seemed to be from another age, as if she had sprung to life from an antique painting of an Italian saint. Seated before the window, her hair cast a slight golden glow in the afternoon sun, like a halo. She could not have been more perfect if he had sculpted her from marble with his own hands. Deverell claimed that he had found the perfect Viola, but this girl was far too beautiful to pose as some love-sick page. She was clearly meant to sit for the great heroines of history and myth, and Rossetti vowed to paint her as a queen. "Miss Siddal, has anyone ever told you that you were surely crafted by the gods in order to be painted? If you don't believe that yours is a beauty for the ages, you underestimate yourself." The force of his words struck Lizzie, and she wondered if he was serious, and if it could be true. Was this the thing that she had always been waiting for? Was she really meant to inspire great artists? Her head buzzed with the possibility, but the very allure of the idea felt dangerous. . .




Reading the Pre-Raphaelites


Book Description

This illustrated book focuses on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their radical departure from artistic conventions. Barringer explores the meanings encoded in Pre-Raphaelite paintings and analyses key pictures and their significance within the complex social and cultural matrix of 19th century Britain.




Pre-Raphaelite Sisters


Book Description

Overlooked stories of the female painters and subjects of Pre-Raphaelite art When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibited their first works in 1849 it heralded a revolution in British art. Styling themselves the "Young Painters of England," this group of young men aimed to overturn stale Victorian artistic conventions and challenge the previous generation with their startling colors and compositions. Think of the images created by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others in their circle, however, and it is not men but pale-faced young women with lustrous, tumbling locks that spring to mind, gazing soulfully from the picture frame or in dramatic scenes painted in glowing colors. Who were these women? What is known of their lives and their roles in a movement that spanned over half a century? Some were models, plucked from obscurity to pose for figures in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, while others were sisters, wives, daughters and friends of the artists. Several were artists themselves, with aspirations to match those of the men, sharing the same artistic and social networks yet condemned by their gender to occupy a separate sphere. Others inhabited and sustained a male-dominated art world as partners in production, maintaining households and studios and socializing with patrons. Some were skilled in the arts of interior decoration, dressmaking, embroidery, jewelry-making--the fine crafts that formed a supportive tier for the "higher" arts of painting and sculpture. Although their backgrounds and life experiences certainly varied widely, all were engaged in creating Pre-Raphaelite art. Containing over 100 beautifully reproduced images, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters illustrates the obscure stories of some of the movement's most familiar faces. "




Beyond the Brotherhood


Book Description

The term 'Pre-Raphaelite' is widely used but often little understood. This book untangles what Pre-Raphaelitism means. It includes the original Pre-Raphaelite Brothers, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and their immediate followers, Edward Burne-Jones and Evelyn De Morgan. It also looks at the assimilation of Pre-Raphaelites ideals and subjects into the Royal Academy tradition and the resurgence of mural painting and tempera in the early twentieth century. Even in the 1970s, the Brotherhood of the Ruralists attempted to recapture its spirit. Today it lives on in fantasy art and film; Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.0Rather than seeing Pre-Raphaelitism as an historic style, this publication argues it is a living tradition. Exhibition: City Art Gallery, Southamtpton, UK (18.10.2019-01.02.2020) / Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, Bornemouth, UK (21.02.-21.06.2020).




Following Ophelia


Book Description

When Mary Adams sees Millais’ depiction of the tragic Ophelia, a whole new world opens up for her. Determined to find out more about the beautiful girl in the painting, she hears the story of Lizzie Siddal – a girl from a modest background, not unlike her own, who has found fame and fortune against the odds. Mary sets out to become a Pre-Raphaelite muse, too, and reinvents herself as Persephone Lavelle. But as she fights her way to become the new face of London’s glittering art scene, ‘Persephone’ ends up mingling with some of the city’s more nefarious types and is forced to make some impossible choices. Will Persephone be forced to betray those she loves, and even the person she once was, if she is to achieve her dreams?