Burne-Jones: The Life and Works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones

by Christopher Wood

80 color and 120 black-and-white illustrations. Bound in publisher's original cloth.

Genres: Art, Art History, Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Christopher Wood was Britain's leading writer and broadcaster on the subject of Victorian art. For thirteen years he worked for the London auction house Christie's, becoming director of nineteenth-century paintings.

Reviews

[Macey · Rating 3 out of 5]

as with most art books, i started reading it, and then gave up on the person's (disappointingly) pretty boring life and just looked at the pictures. Edward Burne-Jones is pretty cool, and I can sort of relate to his mental escaping to a largely imagined past, but also some of his paintings are just straight up weird, and the colours he uses make all the people look like they are anaemic. and all his watercolours look really grainy, like the paint was too dry. oh well, I guess art's subjective, but I was hoping this book would be better.

the medieval-styled paintings are the best, and some of the later ones, but overall it's a little bit odd, even for the pre-raphaelites.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous book. Lovely big photos of the paintings and drawings, excellent overview of Burne-Jones' life work. Can't look through this without being inspired. I especially enjoy the close friendship between Burne-Jones and William Morris - a beautiful instance of the writer inspiring the artist (Morris's "The Garden of Earthly Paradise" proved a well-spring of themes for the artist throughout his life - not to mention the illustrated Chaucer, an edition W.B. Yeats was to call "The most beautiful book in the world." which they worked on together). Burne-Jones is the Readers' artist, as nearly all his paintings are based on classic literature. The Greek myths especially, but also the Knights of the Round Table, fairy tales, Chaucer, poetry (Swinburne was a close friend), the Bible, medieval and Norse tales. He has this lovely dreamlike quality, but its his colours that really set the mood. His blues and greens suck me right into the paintings. Not only did he paint prolifically, but he designed stained glass windows and tapestries - was possibly the greatest tapestry designer of the 19th century. This book was informative as well as inspiring. Highly recommended.