Burne-Jones, Sir Edward (redirected from Sir Edward Burne-Jones)

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 1833–98. English painter and decorator, b. Birmingham. Expected to enter the Church, he went to Exeter College, Oxford, where he met William Morris, who became his lifelong friend. He left Oxford to study painting with Rossetti in London and joined the Pre-Raphaelites. Burne-Jones's early work shows Rossetti's strong influence, which was later replaced by his emulation of Botticelli and Mantegna. Burne-Jones rose to success in 1877 with the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery. Among his well-known paintings are King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884; Tate Gall., London); Depths of the Sea; and Star of Bethlehem (Birmingham Gall.). His works described a dreamlike, medieval world, a vision popular with his contemporaries. His designs for stained glass, executed by Morris and Company, may be seen in churches throughout England. Burne-Jones also created the woodcut illustrations for the Kelmscott Press edition of the works of Chaucer. In his day he received many honors, and his delicate, though mannered, work continues to be admired.

Bibliography

See his drawings, studies, and paintings, ed. by Piccadilly Gallery (1971); studies by L. D. Cecil (1960) and M. Harrison and B. Waters (1973).

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Burne-Jones, Sir Edward (Coley)

(born Aug. 28, 1833, Birmingham, Eng.—died June 17, 1898, London) British painter, illustrator, and designer. At Oxford he met his future collaborator, William Morris. In 1856 he became apprenticed to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. His paintings portray the romantic medieval imagery favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites, and he drew inspiration from the elongated, melancholy figures of Fra Filippo Lippi and Sandro Botticelli. He first achieved great success in 1877 with an exhibition of paintings including The Beguiling of Merlin (1873–77). He was a founding member of Morris & Co. (1861), notably as a designer of stained glass and tapestries, and he executed 87 designs for the Kelmscott Press edition of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896), considered one the world's finest printed books. His work had great influence on the French Symbolist movement, and his revival of the ideal of the artist-craftsman influenced the development of 20th-century industrial design.