The Merciful Knight
The Merciful Knight | |
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Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Birmingham |
The Merciful Knight is a watercolour by the
History
This picture is based on an 11th-century legend retold by
John Gualbert was an Italian Roman Catholic saint, the founder of the
This arguably being Burne-Jones's most important early work,[3] it demonstrates a new and more personal style, evident in its design, technique and expression. It remained Burne-Jones's own favourite among his early works: this interest in knights and chivalry was aroused when painting the Arthurian Oxford Union murals in 1863 and was to remain with him throughout his life. In 1894 he tried to borrow The Merciful Knight to make a large oil version, and he was actually working on The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon when he died in 1898.[4]
In Burne-Jones preliminary sketches for The Merciful Knight, the kiss given by Christ is far more passionate, with strong
See also
- List of paintings by Edward Burne-Jones
- John Gualbert
- Arthurian legend
Notes
- ^ See the BM&AG webpages on this work [1].
- ^ A.J. Frantzen, Chivalry, Sacrifice & The Great War: The Medieval Contexts of Edward Burne-Jones "The Miracle of the Merciful Knight" (from 'Speaking Images. Essays in Honor of V.A. Kolve'). Pegasus Press (2001), pp. 618–625.
- ^ In the memorial biography of her husband, Georgiana Burne-Jones stated that it seemed: 'to sum up and seal the ten years that had passed since Edward first went to Oxford'. Cf. information at BM&AG website [2]
- ^ The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon is owned by the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico. However, it was shown for a short time at the Tate Britain in London while the Ponce Museum underwent restoration in 2009–2010. The painting was also on view at the Prado Museum in Madrid: The Sleeping Beauty. Victorian Painting from The Museo de Arte de Ponce (24 February 2009 – 31 May 2009). Cf. Wiki entry
- ^ F. MacCarthy, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, Faber and Faber (2011). See also entry for this painting, on C. Wood, Burne-Jones, Phoenix Illustrated (1997).
- ^ See BM&AG note [3] and their paper at [4]
References
- Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery (Learning Department), The Pre-Raphaelites (2010).Accessed 29 January 2012
- Frantzen, A.J., Chivalry, Sacrifice & The Great War: The Medieval Contexts of Edward Burne-Jones "The Miracle of the Merciful Knight" (from 'Speaking Images. Essays in Honor of V.A. Kolve'), Pegasus Press, The University of North Carolina at Asheville (2001).
- MacCarthy, F., The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, Faber and Faber (2011).
- Peterson, R. T., Sir Kenelm Digby,
- Wildman, S., Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-dreamer, Yale University Press (1998).
- Wood, C., Burne-Jones, Phoenix Illustrated (1997).