by Louise Lippincott
The arrival in Pittsburgh of two enormous paintings
by the most admired artist of late 19th-century England, Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones, is a cause in Pittsburgh for festivities, lectures and events
celebrating the life and culture of the Victorian era. The murals were
acquired for the museum from composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber, a distinguished
art collector whose first hit musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, had its
world premiere in Pittsburgh in 1971.
The story of these gigantic works of art and how they got from Victorian
England to late 20th-century Pittsburgh begins in Torquay, a prosperous
seaside resort town in Devonshire, England. It was there in the late 1880s
that the church of St. John, an elaborate Gothic Revival building by the
famous architect George Edwin Street, was finally approaching completion.
It had been commissioned as far back as 1861, but plans were still being
revised 20 years later, and the actual construction was not completed until
1885. That year the architects son, A. E. Street, added the churchs tower,
which the great architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner has described
as fatally ugly and a great pity considering the view of Torquay from
the harbour.
The involvement of pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
with the church of St. John had begun when the firm of Morris & Company,
architectural decorators, decorated its interior. Morris & Company
had been founded in the 1860s under the leadership of William Morris, a
protége and former assistant of Street. Burne-Jones met him while
both were undergraduates at Oxford and became a lifelong, founding member
of the firm. Despite very different personalities both men developed a
disgust for the bourgeois professions for which their parents had destined
them, along with a love of the art and poetry of the Middle Ages and a
burning desire to reform the industrial world by returning to pre-industrial
principles of craftsmanship and design. All of the members of this visionary
firm found inspiration in medieval art, and illuminated manuscripts in
particular. In a series of public and private decorative projects they
successfully revolutionized concepts of beauty and style in the latter
half of the 19th century. While Street and Morris emphasized medieval arts
rich polychromy and patterned ornament on walls, floors and ceilings, Burne-Jones
was drawn to the spiritual intensity and symbolic narratives of the paintings,
sculpture and stained glass. He designed the glass for St. Johns east
and west windows, the most important in the church. Thus, when the St.
Johns parishioners commissioned two huge mural paintings from Burne-Jones
for the north and south walls of the chancel in 1887, they were adhering
closely to the overall decorative program first sketched out in Streets
designs of the 1860s.
By 1887 Burne-Jones was probably the most admired and respected artist
in England, despite an invalidish, reclusive personality and a reluctance
to exhibit his paintings publicly. The son of a Birmingham shopkeeper,
he had been destined for a career in law, although his deeply religious
sensibility seemed to position him better for the ministry. Ultimately
he carried his sense of spiritual mission into the field of painting, which
he attempted, naively and amateurishly at first, in the 1850s. As his commitment
to art deepened, Burne-Jones bypassed the formal schooling offered by the
Royal Academy, London, and studied instead with the self-taught painter
and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose medieval interests and literary
imagination appealed directly to his own scholarly tastes. Because of his
association with Rossetti (a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood)
and his serious study of early Italian art (before Raphael, hence, pre-Raphaelite),
Burne-Jones is usually considered the last great figure in this innovative
group of Victorian painters. He came into his own as a history painter
at the first important showing of his canvases at the Grosvenor Gallery,
London, in 1877. By then he had formulated a distinctive style characterized
by subdued, cool-toned coloring; idealized, elongated figures; and religious
or mythological subject matter. His greatest paintings dating from the
1870s until the end of his career are simultaneously visionary and enthralling.
As he wrote to a friend, I mean by a picture, a beautiful, romantic dream
of something that never was, never will be, in a light better than any
light that ever shone, in a land no one can define or remember,–only desire.
(Masters in Art, vol. 2, p. 24) Although he shunned the horrors of industrialization,
mass production, and urban poverty and longed for the tragic heroes and
romantic simplicity of the past, he could be moved by the predicaments
of modern humanity, as we shall see below.
For the church of St. John, Burne-Jones produced the two paintings
now known as The Nativity and The King and the Shepherd. He probably began
with some small sketches in pastel, made at his home, Rottingdean, in April
1887. The two sketches made for The Nativity indicate that the main motifs
of the reclining Virgin and child, the three attending angels, and the
landscape background were already fixed in his mind. However, the position
of St. Joseph changed from one of anxious attendance on the far right,
to a seated, contemplative pose in the center of the composition. This
alteration increased his compositions resemblance to a famous nativity
scene on the walls of the Arena Chapel, near Padua, by the Italian painter
Giotto (1266-1336), which Burne-Jones would have known and admired. Once
the main elements were set in place, Burne-Jones proceeded to a series
of individual figure studies, each of which was then traced, squared to
be scaled up to life size, and inserted into the overall design. The process,
a centuries-old method of preparing monumental paintings, is illustrated
with the drawings for the seated St. Joseph. The paintings were executed
in Burne-Jones studio, probably with some help from a workshop assistant
as the artist was burdened during these years with increasingly poor health
and other important commissions.
Measuring an impressive 81 x 124 inches each, they are among the artists
most original and elaborate treatments of this traditional Christian subject,
one of his favorites. The Nativity depicts the Virgin reclining on a straw-filled
manger or crib, embracing the swaddled Christ child. St. Joseph, his back
to the viewer, sits on the ground in the center of the composition; he
is reading a manuscript in Gothic script. To the far left stand three angels
bearing the crown of thorns, a container of myrrh and a chalice, emblems
of the passion and crucifixion. These grim symbols are echoed by the Virgins
white robe, reminiscent of a shroud, the childs shroudlike swaddling clothes
and the carefully formed draperies transforming the manger into a rustic
bier. These elements are also found in Giottos Arena Chapel fresco that
probably influenced the initial design. The mood is unusually solemn, even
melancholy. In combining the scene of Christs birth with portents of his
death, Burne-Jones revives a subject that had been popular in Europe during
the 13th and 14th centuries, the epoch of the Black Death. According to
Marina Warner, survivors of the great plagues had found consolation in
this conception of the Virgin sorrowing in the knowledge of the suffering
and death that awaited her son.
Why did Burne-Jones adopt such an antiquated and somber interpretation
of the nativity, one of the Christian churchs most joyful moments? It
is especially curious, given the Victorians lavish enjoyment of the Christmas
holiday. He gives us some clues in the Latin inscription emblazoned across
the golden sky in script similar to that in St. Josephs book: PROPTER
MISERIAM INOPUM ET GEMITUM PAUPERIS NUNC EXSURGAM DICIT DOMINUS [Because
of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now will I arise,
saith the Lord.]. There are several unusual aspects to this quotation.
It comes from the Gallican Psalter (Psalm 11, verse 6), St. Jeromes Latin
translation of part of the Greek bible. The Gallican Psalter has not been
found in bibles since the 17th century, however, because it had been determined
not to be the work of the psalms author, King David. Nor had the quotation
appeared, before Burne-Jones time, in association with the nativity, since
it refers more directly to the resurrection. Its very oddness and obscurity
(the translation was only found with the help of an internet search in
Latin!) signals its importance to Burne-Jones interpretation of his subject.
The verses reference to human misery relates it to the motif of the
suffering Christ and Our Lady of the Sorrows but offers hope in the promise
of the Resurrection. In the paragraph below, part of a conversation with
another friend about the role of the artist in contemporary life, Burne-Jones
developed further this story of nativity, crucifixion and human redemption
and of the artists role in its realization.
To me, this weary, toiling, groaning world is none other than Our Lady
of the Sorrows. It lies on you and me and all the faithful to make her
Our Lady of the Glories. Will she ever be so? Will she? Will she? She shall
be, if your toil and mine, and the toil of a thousand ages of them that
come after us can make her so!…That was an awful thought of Ruskins,
that artists paint God for the world. Theres a lump of greasy pigment
at the end of Michael Angelos hog-bristle brush, and by the time
it has been laid on the stucco, there is something there that all men with
eyes recognize as divine. Think of what it means. It is the power of bringing
God into the world–making God manifest. It is giving back her Child that
was crucified to Our Lady of the Sorrows.
The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, p. 257
In other words, Burne-Jones felt that these ancient descriptions of
human misery and a sorrowful world also described his own time and place.
In fact, when he chose the verse, it is quite likely that he was thinking
of reports of the bestial living conditions of the London poor that were
appearing in the press in the early 1880s. The violent strikes and vicious
riots in 1886, 1887 and 1888 (just as Burne-Jones was planning and executing
his paintings for St. Johns), during which outcast London invaded the
wealthy sections of town, were perceived as a true index of their desperation
and degradation. Public outrage and fear prompted both relief efforts and
movements toward political and social reform. One of the most outspoken,
visible and committed champions of the poor was Burne-Jones friend and
partner, Willam Morris. Burne-Jones himself gently deplored the political
activities that drew his partner away from their artistic projects while
sympathizing–at a safe distance–with the cause. He reacted privately
in a small, personal volume of drawings known as his Flower Book (1880s).
The tiny, carefully worked images take their names from flowers, but they
are not in the least botanical. Arbor Tristis [Tree of Sorrow] depicts
a ruined tree serving as the cross of the Crucifixion. It is surrounded
by dark huddled buildings, the slums of suffering urban masses. One can
only speculate, without firm evidence from the artist himself, that he
intended The Nativity as his public statement, albeit a muted one, on 19th-century
social horrors. Perhaps he hoped that like Michelangelo, he could capture
the Divine in paint, and so alleviate some of his eras sorrows.
The Nativitys companion piece, The King and the Shepherd, is,
in its own way, equally original and equally involved with 19th-century
reform politics. In this very simple composition, four figures emerge from
a wood where their paths meet. All seem to be moving toward the right.
On the far right, an angel, finger to lips, leads a tattered man who raises
his right arm as if gesturing in speech. He may in fact be pointing to
the Latin inscription at the top of the composition: TRANSEAMUS USQUE BETHLEHEM
ET VIDEAMUS VERBUM QUOD FACTUM EST QUOD FECIT DOMINUS [Let us go over to
Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made
known to us.]. Unlike the bizarre quotation in The Nativity, this one comes
directly from St. Lukes description of the annunciation and adoration
of the shepherds in the New Testament (Luke 2:15), and it clearly describes
the situation. Next to the shepherd and his guide, however, march another
angel and a richly dressed, bearded man who must be one of the magi, bearing
his gift. The story of the wise men is told in Matthew 2:1-7, and it is
very clear from this text that they arrived in Bethlehem to investigate
and worship long after the departure of the shepherds; moreover, they had
no dealings with angels but only with stars and dreams.
Significantly, this is the only treatment (of which I am aware) of the
adoration of shepherds and magi which places them on a canvas separate
from the Holy Family. This worked well in St. Johns, for when The King
and the Shepherd hung across the chancel from The Nativity, it represented
literally humanity approaching, and recognizing, the Divine. Furthermore,
Burne-Jones insistence on the equality of the king and the shepherd–the
rich and the poor–gains prominence in the absence of the Holy Family.
The composition is divided evenly between them while the center, the position
of honor, is empty of figures. They are equal in height, and the richly
dressed king fails to outshine the ragged shepherd. Each has his angel.
Perhaps Burne-Jones gives slight preference to the shepherd, making him
spokesman for the group and situating him closer to the bend of the path
presumably leading to the Holy Family. (The poor often have been considered
to be closer to God.) Many years before, the great art critic John Ruskin
had chastised the artist for favoring the shepherds. Burne-Jones recalled
the moment in a letter to Ruskin (c.1888-89): Do you remember ages ago,
in Milan it was, when in the impudence of youth I said I liked the subject
of the Shepherds best, and you straightway blew me up, and said No, Ned,
they had everything to gain by coming, and it was greater grace in the
kings to leave their kingdoms and come. At which I was abashed and fell
to thinking. So I am taking great pains over the kings, and have repented.
(Memorials, p. 176-77) Repentant or not, Burne-Jones seems here to be suggesting
that shepherds and kings are equal in the eyes of God and would do well
to approach the future together.
Burne-Jones was not the only late19th-century artist to consider massive
social ills in a religious context. There were many artists, angered by
the cruelties and excesses of the Gilded Age, who posed the question: what
would happen if Christ returned to this modern society? One need think
only of James Ensors brutal Christs Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888,
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles), where the mob rants on, oblivious to
the tiny figure of Christ, or Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouverets enormous
painting of The Supper at Emmaus (1896, Carnegie Museum of Art) where the
artist and his family contemplate the resurrected Saviour with both reverence
and skepticism. Perhaps it is no coincidence that these works of the 19th-century
fin-de-siecle are enjoying resurrections of a sort as we approach not only
a fin-de-siecle of our own, but also a new millennium.
Coincidence was a factor, however, in the history of the two Burne-Jones
paintings. In the 1980s the church of St. John developed problems with
its roof, and to pay for a new one sold the two paintings, its most valuable
treasures. Andrew Lloyd Weber, benefitting from an astonishing string of
hit musicals beginning with Jesus Christ Superstar, bought the pair for
his burgeoning, first-class collection of Victorian paintings in 1989.
Then, luck and coincidence came together with astonishing rapidity in the
fall of 1996. Art experts visiting Lloyd Webers collection in September
advised him that his fine Victorian drawings, many hung near windows, would
suffer irreversible damage if continuously exposed to light. They advised
him to move all of the drawings to darker rooms, preferably to the very
dark entrance hall which housed The Nativity and The King and the Shepherd.
The problem of how to reorganize his collection and find a new place for
his enormous Burne-Joneses was therefore very much on Lloyd Webbers mind
when he came to Pittsburgh in October 1996 to receive an award from the
Civic Light Opera. Pittsburgh had been the site of the 1971 world premiere
of Jesus Christ Superstar, and the composer seems to have remembered
the town with fondness. Luckily for the Carnegie, he found time to visit
the museum during his brief stay in the city. Describing his experience
in Pittsburgh for the London Telegraph, he wrote, Andrew Carnegie founded
a massive gallery that contains everything from dinosaurs to brilliant
contemporary purchases of American 19th-century pictures. Then, of course,
theres Andy Warhol. Theres an art gallery devoted to the local boys
wares, … In fact, he perceived that Pittsburgh is no different from
every town whose loot came from 19th-century industry. The North Side
reminded him of industrial Liverpool, while the grand residential East
End mansions might legitimately call to mind the suburban development of
Victorian Torquay. In the end, he offered his Burne-Joneses to the museum,
feeling that in Pittsburgh they would find a suitable and sympathetic home.
We hope he comes to visit them often.
Louise Lippincott is curator of Fine Arts at Carnegie Museum of
Art.
References:
Edward Burne-Jones, The Flower Book (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen,
1994).
Georgiana Burne-Jones, Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (New York:
Macmillan Company, 1906).
Burne-Jones in Masters in Art, vol. 2 (Boston: Bates &
Guild Company, 1901).
