Book description
From the prize winning author of William Morris comes a new
biography of Edward Burne-Jones, the greatest British artist of the
second half of the nineteenth century. The angels on our Christmas
cards, the stained glass in our churches, the great paintings in our
galleries -- Edward Burne-Jones's work is all around us. The most
admired British artist of his generation, he was a leading figure with
Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic movement of the 1880s, inventing what
became a widespread 'Burne-Jones look'. The bridge between Victorian
and modern art, he influenced not just his immediate circle but
artists such as Klimt and Picasso. In this gripping book Fiona
MacCarthy explores and re-evaluates his art and life -- his battle
against vicious public hostility, the romantic susceptibility to
female beauty that would inspire his art and ruin his marriage, his
ill health and depressive sensibility, the devastating rift with his
great friend and collaborator William Morris as their views on art and
politics diverged. With new research and fresh historical perspective,
The Last Pre-Raphaelite tells the extraordinary, dramatic story of
Burne-Jones as an artist, a key figure in Victorian society and a
peculiarly captivating man.
A well known broadcaster and critic, Fiona MacCarthy established
herself as one of the leading writers of biography in Britain with her
widely acclaimed book Eric Gill, published in 1989. Her biography of
Byron was described by A. N. Wilson as 'a flawless triumph' and
William Morris, described by A. S. Byatt as 'large, delicious and
intelligent, full of shining detail' won the Wolfson History Prize and
the Writers' Guild Non-Fiction Award.
