The Mill (Burne-Jones)

Last updated

The Mill
The Mill by Edward Burne-Jones.jpg
Artist Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Completion date1882
Medium Oil on canvas
Dimensions91 cm× 197 cm(36 in× 78 in) [1]
Location Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Mill is an Aesthetic Movement, Renaissance-inspired oil on canvas painting completed by Edward Burne-Jones in 1882. The painting's main feature is three women dancing in front of a mill pond on a summer evening, with a vague wooded landscape spanning the background. The Mill is an oil on canvas painting. It is 91 centimetres (36 in) in height, and 197 centimetres (78 in) in width. [1]

Contents

Edward Burne-Jones took twelve years to complete The Mill, starting work in 1870 [1] and completing it in 1882. [2] Shortly after its completion, the painting was displayed at an exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery. [3] The Mill was inspired by The Allegory of Good and Bad Government , a mural painted by Italian Renaissance artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti between 1338 and 1340. [4] The dancing women in the painting were modelled upon women known to Burne-Jones personally: from left to right, Aglaia Coronio, Marie Stillman, and Maria Zambaco. [5] Aglaia was the daughter of Constantine Ionides, who, like Burne-Jones, was interested in art. Marie was a painter, [3] and Maria was Ionides' granddaughter. [6] At the time, Maria was Burne-Jones' mistress. [3]

The Mill is a vague and mysterious painting with no particular meaning. [3] It incorporates styles from the Aesthetic Movement and the Renaissance. [6] In the painting, three women wearing simple, Renaissance-style aesthetic dresses [3] are dancing in a garden on a summer evening. On the right of the dancing women, a musician of an indiscernible gender is standing under a loggia. [1] [6] A mill pond can be seen behind the women. [6] On the other side of the pond, there are several nude men, who are presumably swimming. In the background is an unspecific landscape consisting of various designs and types of architecture. [1]

Ownership

Constantine Ionides bought the painting on 21 April 1882 for £905. [6] It is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dante Gabriel Rossetti</span> English poet and artist (1828–1882)

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Rossetti inspired the next generation of artists and writers, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in particular. His work also influenced the European Symbolists and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Burne-Jones</span> English artist (1833–1898)

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, was an English painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's style and subject matter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Morris</span> English embroiderer and artists model (1839–1914)

Jane Morris was an English embroiderer in the Arts and Crafts movement and an artists' model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to her husband William Morris and to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Her sister was the embroiderer and teacher Elizabeth Burden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marie Spartali Stillman</span> English painter

Marie Stillman was a British member of the second generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Of the Pre-Raphaelites, she had one of the longest-running careers, spanning sixty years and producing over one hundred and fifty works, including Love's Messenger and numerous romantic scenes from the Divine Comedy. Though her work with the Brotherhood began as a favourite model, she soon trained and became a respected painter, earning praise from Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Roddam Spencer Stanhope</span> English artist (1829–1908)

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope was an English artist associated with Edward Burne-Jones and George Frederic Watts and often regarded as a second-wave pre-Raphaelite. His work is also studied within the context of Aestheticism and British Symbolism. As a painter, Stanhope worked in oil, watercolor, fresco, tempera, and mixed media. His subject matter was mythological, allegorical, biblical, and contemporary. Stanhope was born in Cawthorne, near Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, and died in Florence, Italy. He was the uncle and teacher of the painter Evelyn De Morgan and encouraged then unknown local artist Abel Hold to exhibit at the Royal Academy, which he did 16 times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Constantine Ionides</span> 19th century, Constantinople-born, British art patron

Alexander Constantine Ionides, also known as Konstantinos Ioannou or Iplixis was a British art patron and collector, of Greek ancestry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Zambaco</span> British artist and model of Greek descent (1843-1914)

Maria Zambaco, born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti, was a British artist's model of Greek descent, favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites. She was also a sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aglaia Coronio</span> British art collector

Aglaia Coronio was a British embroiderer, bookbinder, art collector and patron of the arts.

<i>Pygmalion and the Image</i> series Painting series by Edward Burne-Jones

Pygmalion and the Image is the second series of four oil paintings in the Pygmalion and Galatea series by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones which was completed between 1875 and 1878. The two collections may be seen below, in the Gallery, the first being now owned by Lord Lloyd Webber, and the second housed at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. This article deals with an appraisal of the second series.

<i>Love and the Maiden</i> 1877 painting by John Roddam Spencer Stanhop

Love and the Maiden is an oil painting on canvas by English Pre-Raphaelite artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope that is currently housed at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

<i>The Flower Book</i> (Edward Burne-Jones) Series of watercolour paintings

The Flower Book by Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) is a series of 38 round watercolours, each about six inches across, painted from 1882 to 1898. The paintings do not depict flowers; rather, they were inspired by the flowers' names. Burne-Jones called them "a series of illustrations to the Names of Flowers". "Not a single flower itself appears", according to his wife Georgiana. They were painted for his private pleasure, many while he was resting at his summer home in Rottingdean, and were described by his wife as the "most soothing piece of work that he ever did". In 1905 Georgiana, by then a widow, published a limited edition of high-quality colour facsimiles.

<i>Loves Messenger</i> Painting by Marie Spartali Stillman

Love's Messenger is an 1885 watercolor by Marie Spartali Stillman in which a dove has just carried a love letter to a woman standing in front of an open window. She wears a red rose, and has just put down her embroidery of a blind-folded Cupid.

<i>The Golden Stairs</i> Painting by Edward Burne-Jones

The Golden Stairs is one of the best-known paintings by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. It began in 1876 and was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1880.

Hope is a late oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. It was painted on commission for Mrs. George Marston Whitin of Whitinsville, Massachusetts in 1896.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaetano Meo</span> Italian-British artists model and painter

Gaetano Giuseppe Faostino Meo was an Italian-British artist's model, landscape painter, and a noted craftsman in mosaic and stained glass. His unpublished autobiography is a useful source for art historians of the Aesthetic Movement and Edwardian Era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Madox Brown</span> British artist, author and model

Lucy Madox Brown Rossetti was a British artist, author, and model associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. She was married to the writer and art critic William Michael Rossetti.

<i>The Day Dream</i> (Rossetti) Painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Day Dream or, as it was initially intended to be named, Monna Primavera, is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founder member Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The work, which measures 158.7 centimetres (62.5 in) high by 92.7 centimetres (36.5 in) wide, was undertaken in 1880 and depicts Jane Morris in a seated position on the bough of a sycamore tree. In her hand is a small stem of honeysuckle – a token of love in the Victorian era – that may be an indication of the secret affair the artist was immersed in with her at the time. The artwork was left to the Victoria and Albert Museum by Constantine Alexander Ionides in 1900.

Kate Faulkner (1841–1898), was an Arts and Crafts artist and designer.

<i>Love Among the Ruins</i> (Burne-Jones) Painting by Edward Burne-Jones

Love Among the Ruins is a painting by English artist Edward Burne-Jones which exists in two versions, a watercolour completed in 1873 and an oil painting completed in 1894. It depicts a man and a woman amid ruined architecture. The work is a synthesis of influences from the Pre-Raphaelite, Symbolist and Aesthetic art movements. The ambiguous scene without a clear narrative is considered one of Burne-Jones' best works.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Patrick Bade (22 December 2011). Burne-Jones. Parkstone International. pp. 33, 36. ISBN   978-1-78042-414-9.
  2. 1 2 "Study of a Dancing Woman for 'The Mill' c.1870–82". tate.org.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Kimberly Wahl (2013). Dressed As in a Painting: Women and British Aestheticism in an Age of Reform. UPNE. p. 84. ISBN   978-1-61168-415-5.
  4. "Portrait of Marie Spartali, Mrs W. J. Stillman (England, c.1880)". leicestergalleries.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
  5. The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination. Harvard University Press. 5 March 2012. pp. 203–204. ISBN   9780674065796.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Mill: Girls Dancing to Music by a River". collections.vam.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2015.

Further reading