Review: Edward Burne-Jones and Seen & Heard

My latest exhibition review for Church Times covers Edward Burne-Jones: Pre-Raphaelite Visionary, at Tate Britain and Seen & Heard: Victorian Children in the Frame, at Guildhall Art Gallery.

'Offering us a visual narrative for the huge cultural shift in how society viewed, and treated, children over the course of the “long 19th century”, “Seen and Heard: Victorian Children in the Frame” plunges us into the maelstrom of innovation and exploitation, compassion and sentimentality, which characterised Victorian society.'

'Tate Britain’s exhibition, by bringing together more than 150 works in different media, including painting, stained glass, and tapestry, presents Burne-Jones as the polymath that he would have appeared to be to his contemporary audience; to whom he was a designer and decorative and fine artist with an exceptionally wide range of literary reference.'

The review also considers the legacy of the Victorians, a legacy that I also examined in a review for ArtWay of Adrian Barlow's book Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe:

'The legacy and reputation of many significant Victorians is complex and contradictory because their often great achievements were fashioned on the oppression of Empire and the superiority and arrogance which fuelled aggressive expansion presenting exploitation of others and their natural resources as being the introduction of civilisation.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rush - The Garden.

The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe

My most recent book review has been published by ArtWay and is of Adrian Barlow's Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe (Lutterworth Press 2018).

'Kempe offers a radical revaluation of the life, work and reputation of Charles Eamer Kempe (1837–1907), one of the most remarkable and influential figures in late Victorian and Edwardian church art. Kempe's name became synonymous with a distinctive style of stained glass, furnishing and decoration deriving from late mediaeval and early Renaissance models. To this day, his hand can be seen in churches and cathedrals worldwide.

Drawing on newly available archive material, Adrian Barlow evaluates Kempe's achievement in creating a Studio or School of artists and craftsmen who interpreted his designs and remained fiercely loyal to his aesthetic and religious ideals. He assesses his legacy and reputation today, as well as exploring his networks of patrons and influence, which stretched from the Royal Family and the Church of England hierarchy to the literary and artistic beau monde. These networks intersected at Kempe's stunning Sussex country house, Old Place, his 'Palace of Art'. Created to embody his ideals of beauty and history, it holds the key to understanding his contradictory personality, his public and private faces.'

In the review, I state that: 'Kempe’s is a fascinating story of a self-made man in tune with his own era who built a brand able to endure for sixty years. In common with A.W.N. Pugin, William Morris and G.F. Watts, he also created a home which fully expressed his personal inspiration and vision and was considered a masterpiece in its day. In one volume Barlow tells Kempe’s story and that of his collaborators, assesses key works and considers Kempe’s legacy and reputation. He brings Kempe’s faith-full practice to life while arguing for the ongoing significance of work based on an unchanging belief that past styles of faith were the best expression for contemporary faith.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edward Elgar - The Spirit Of The Lord.