Exhibitions at Birmingham (part two) - Victorian Radicals

The other exhibition we saw while in Birmingham was Victorian Radicals at the City Museum and Gallery.  There are some really good stills of the exhibition on the site and much better photos than mine!  This exhibition again featured Pre-Raphaelite paintings and drawings, but also ceramics, sculpture, enamels, jewellery, stained glass, textiles and clothes, from the Victorian age. Above is Paolo and Francesca by Alexander Munro.

This small ink drawing is King Arthur and the Weeping Queens by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Again, being able to get up close meant we could see so much detail.

This is a sketch for a textile design by William Morris and it was beautiful.  

One of William's daughters, May Morris, was a skilled embroiderer and ran the embroidery department at Morris and Co. for some time.  Her embroidery is featured on this dress.

You can see it a little more clearly here.

This necklace was much brighter in real life.

A sketch of a boy used in Rossetti's The Beloved.  The painting is in the Tate here.

'The Last of England' by Ford Madox Brown is full of details, from the cabbages hanging at the front, to the children with their mother behind the main couple and the child inside the mother's shawl.  Apparently the pink ribbons took the artist four weeks to paint.

Kate Bunce's 'The Keepsake' featured the most stunning dress materials although you can't really see them that well in my photo. 

I do like the Persian pottery of William de Morgan - all those lovely blues!  (The 'Medea' by his wife was featured in the Scent exhibition in my previous post).

Wouldn't these tiles look lovely in a bathroom or kitchen?

This exhibitions showcased some wonderful work by some very talented artists and craftspeople.  I was really pleased to have seen it and it was well worth the entrance price (£11.00).   The people we met in Birmingham were really helpful, (particularly when we had gone the wrong way to the train station) and were very friendly too.

Exhibitions at Birmingham (part one) - Scent and the Pre-Raphaelites

 Last Saturday, we headed off to Birmingham to see two exhibitions, one called Scent and the Pre-Raphaelites at The Barber Institute and the other called Victorian Radicals at Birmingham City Museum and Art gallery.  Our journeys there and back were awful as although we went by train, earlier trains had been cancelled so we were all squashed in like sardines and far from comfortable.  We have decided not to try travelling on a Saturday in future!

However, the journey aside, the exhibitions were really good.  I had last visited the Barber Institute around seventeen years ago.  We were able to really get up close and see lots of details that are missed when you look at reproductions in books. There were eleven paintings featured in this exhibition, some lent from other galleries.

Chris was fascinated by this painting 'Thoughts of the past' by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope.    

When you can get close, you notice the veneer missing off the drawer, lots of items on the table, the reflections in the mirror and all the details.  

Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was one of the paintings which first got me interested in the Pre-Raphaelites.  He painted eight versions of this subject.  In this version, she has red hair.

'Medea' by Evelyn de Morgan was another painting full of fascinating details.

Some of the frames were as elaborate as the actual paintings they housed.

The Blind Girl by John Everett Millais had some incredibly vibrant colours.

This beautifully observed harebell is on the left on the painting, near the girl's hand. There was a podium where you could press a button and a scent would be released to go with a painting. One for this painting did smell like fresh grass, or hay.

I didn't much care for the central figure in Frederick Sandys' painting, 'Gentle Spring' but the details of the flowers and dandelions really grabbed my attention.

The gallery also houses this beautiful portrait by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun of 'Countess Golovina'.  There is more information about the painting here. (This face reminds me of an actor, Julia Sawalha.) 

This is another lusciously coloured painting, The Blue Bower by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of one of his muses, Fanny Cornforth.  No reproduction can do the colours justice, as they really are vibrant.  I particularly like the blue and white background. 

Victorian Radicals will follow...

New Books

I was lucky to get some money for my birthday last month, so I bought two books which have been on my wishlist for ages.  I am a huge fan of the Pre-Raphaelites (as anyone who reads my blog/knows me in person will know) and Jan Marsh is an expert on the subject, with many books to her credit.   I do wish that the women involved in the Pre-Raphaelites movement had left us more letters and diaries though, as it is them, whether muses or artists themselves, that I am most interested in.  

As I get older, I find I am more drawn to the pencil /chalk drawings  or the preliminary sketches, rather than the final completed works, even though they are usually full of luscious colour. I remember visiting the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition in London in 1984 (and will forever be grateful to my Mum for going with me and enabling me to see it) and my abiding memory was the colour everywhere.  

I particularly like Rossetti's chalk drawings.   I do have quite a lot of books on the Pre-Raphaelites already, but there is room for one more...

The other one is about Jane Austen.  I enjoyed Lucy Worsley's TV programme about the places Jane Austen had lived and the effect these may have had on her writing (available on iplayer for 14 days here), so this book was added to my wish list too.  I really enjoy re-reading the novels as I find something different every time I read them. She was a very subtle writer and created many fascinating characters.  My favourite novel is Persuasion, closely followed by Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park (although my views of the seemingly weak and wimpy Fanny Price have changed through re-reading).  If you were to ask my favourite hero and heroine, I would say Mr Knightly from Emma and Anne Elliot from Persuasion (although I also like Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility).  (I am not a Mr Darcy fan - controversial, I know).  

I am really looking forward to sitting and enjoying both of these books. 

Coincidence? Lady Audley, Louisa Ruth Herbert, Mr Whicher and the Pre-Raphaelites...

Recently, I have noticed some rather intriguing coincidences happening in my life.  One happened a few weekends ago, when Chris and I were looking at used books in various charity shops.  I bought three books, each from different shops.  One was Lady Audley's Secret (1862) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, which had been on my radar for a while as it is a Victorian murder mystery and I had seen it mentioned on other blogs. One was The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Road Hill House Murder by Kate Summerscale and is an account of a true-life Victorian murder.  I was also aware of this as I had seen the TV adaptation. The final one was Desperate Romantics by Franny Moyle, about the Pre-Raphaelites, which I approached with caution as I didn't like the TV series based on the book.  However, I felt that if I hadn't read the book, I was in no position to be critical of it, or the series.  So, three books, all based in Victorian times.

(You will notice that Lady Audley's Secret is not in the photo above because I have lent it to a friend to read.)
Once I began reading, I noticed that the books were all linked.  In Lady Audley, there is a description of a painting of Lady Audley, by a Pre-Raphaelite artist (unnamed), which becomes important.

   

 "No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have painted, hair by hair, those feathery masses of ringlets with every glimmer of gold, and every shadow of pale brown. No one but a pre-Raphaelite would have exaggerated every attribute of that delicate face as to give a lurid lightness to the blonde complexion, and a strange, sinister light to the deep blue eyes. No one but a pre-Raphaelite could have given to that pretty pouting mouth the hard and almost wicked look it had in the portrait."

The painting above is of Helen of Troy by Rossetti with Annie Miller as the model, but the description of the colouring of the model in the fictional portrait does make me think of this one. This image can be found here.
There is also the possibility that a facet of the character of Lady Audley was based on one of the family involved with the Road Hill murder case, Constance Kent.  The first actress to play Lady Audley on stage was Louisa Ruth Herbert, who became a muse for Dante Gabriel Rossetti during 1858 -9. Here's what he wrote about her:

"I am in the stunning position this morning of expecting the actual visit at 1/2 past 11 of a model whom I have been longing to paint for years – Miss Herbert of the Olympic Theatre – who has the most varied and highest expression I ever saw in a woman's face, besides abundant beauty, golden hair, etc. Did you ever see her? O my eye! she has sat to me now and will sit to me for Mary Magdalene in the picture I am beginning. Such luck!"
 The author Mary Elizabeth Braddon said Louisa Ruth Herbert gave her favourite performance as Lady Audley.

Here is a carte de visite of Louisa Ruth Herbert in 1865.

Here is a pencil sketch Rossetti did of her in 1859 from wikipedia - there is a hand to the left of the picture with the word 'stunner' beside it - Pre-Raphaelite slang for a beautiful woman.  Of course, she appears in the book Desperate Romantics (which is much better than the awful TV series made from it).
Then on Friday, I was reading blog posts that I follow and on Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, appeared a post all about - yes, you guessed it - Louisa Ruth Herbert!  There was also a link to another blog, The Kissed Mouth, with a post all about her, including some photographs of her, showing that she really did look like Rossetti's drawings.
So what does all this mean? Well, it could just be one of those things - as there is an obvious link through Victorian culture.  However, I like to think I was meant to buy and read the books and remind myself of Louisa Ruth Herbert too.  (She and I have a connection of about thirty years, as I also used the black and white drawing of her as the basis of part of an A level art work, many years ago...spooky!)

Rossetti and one of his Stunners

I haven't posted a Wombat Friday post for a while, so thought I should remedy this, even though it is Saturday.  I am currently completely obsessed by The Pre-Raphaelites again (this is something that happens every so often and has done since I was about 16). This obsession manifests itself in finding images on the internet and spending on more books about the Pre-Raphaelites (Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown (although he wasn't really one of them, but was a huge influence) and Rossetti at the moment).  I am also fascinated by the models they used in their paintings and their lives as real women, not just immortalised in paintings and drawings. I have found that the Pre-Raphaelites are a bit like Marmite - there doesn't seem to be any middle ground - either love or hate. The paintings are so brilliantly coloured that you can't help but look at them, but I am finding as I age (mature?!), that I am preferring the preliminary drawings and studies to the finished works.
Having just finished the above book by Kirsty Stonell Walker about one of Rossetti's models, Fanny Cornforth (original name, Sarah Cox), which was fascinating, I wanted to find some images of her in drawings rather than paintings. (Kirsty's Blog is a fabulous one if you are at all interested in Victorian Art - link here)  Fanny Cornforth was unusual because she was not a sylph-like, frail Victorian woman; she was healthy and often called 'fat' - somewhat unfairly, I feel.  Her waist was not corseted down to 18 inches, or some ridiculous measurement, so for that, she was unusual.  She had a beautiful face and beautiful hair and it was this attribute which Rossetti first saw.  Apparently, he accosted her in the street, grabbing at her hair and pulling all the pins out.  Kirsty Stonell Walker says that this was like someone coming up to you in the street now and undoing your blouse - a huge and personal intrusion, verging on assault.  However, from this rather 'violent' beginning, they had a long relationship, although she was often thrown aside when another model or muse took his fancy.  His drawings of her are, I think, stunning.

 He was a master of chalk drawings.

 A delicate drawing showing a pensive expression.

 Her hair is a focus of these drawings.

 A very wistful and melancholic expression. She was also one of the only models who had earrings included in drawings or paintings.

 Another lovely chalk portrait.

 

 

The famous hair again.



In this portrait, I think I can detect a slightly suspicious expression and almost a frown, although her hair is still the main focus.



 This was one of her most famous images - that of a prostitute, in the unfinished painting 'Found'.

Here is a photograph of her, echoing the pose from the portrait above and wearing the same earrings.  Not a terribly enlightening photograph - it would have been interesting to have seen her face, rather than her profile.  The end of her life is a little mysterious - Kirsty Stonell Walker thinks she may have died abroad.  She came from humble beginnings, was a servant, then came to London and was probably a prostitute, before modelling for Rossetti.  She always seemed to be on the edge of society - Rossetti's friends didn't like her much and were suspicious of her.  However, she was a loyal lover and friend of Rossetti, and I have a great deal of respect for her.

Images from various sources including: Birmingham Museums and Art Galleries, National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain. 

Addition:

 Here is the photograph of Fanny facing the camera mentioned in a reply (see below), but unfortunately, she still appears annoyingly unclear.  it was taken by Downey in 1863 and includes from left to right, Swinburne, Rossetti, Fanny and William Michael Rossetti.

Even with a close up, I'm not sure we are any the wiser.  Very enigmatic...

Wombat Friday, Jane Morris and extolling the virtues of lemon curd

Here is my offering for this week's Wombat Friday.  Accompanying my wombat today is the painting 'Proserpine' by Dante Gabriel Rossetti - the first painting of his that made an impression back in my teenage years.  He painted several versions of this image of Jane Morris and I was fascinated by the colour of her dress, ranging from teal green, through green/turquoise and purple/blue, depending on which version you see.  I was also fascinated by the model - feminine but with a masculine jaw.  Was she real and if she was, did she really look like that?  Yes and yes was the answer.

Jane Morris was the wife of William Morris (the Victorian version of a 'Renaissance Man') and she really did look like that.  I was particularly envious of her beautiful curls as my hair was (and still is) fine and straight as a poker.
I have also managed to include cake this Friday, which is homemade lemon curd and buttercream sponge.  The lemon curd came about as I had been seeing it on various blogs which I follow and decided I needed to make some.  Having bought lemons, I set to, following Nigel Slater's recipe ( link here):

Nigel Slater's LEMON CURD

Most lemon curd recipes instruct you to stir the mixture with a wooden spoon. I find that stirring lightly with a whisk introduces just a little more lightness into the curd, making it slightly less solid and more wobbly.

Makes 2 small jam jars
zest and juice of 4 unwaxed lemons
200g sugar
100g butter
3 eggs and 1 egg yolk

Put the lemon zest and juice, the sugar and the butter, cut into cubes, into a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, making sure that the bottom of the basin doesn't touch the water. Stir with a whisk from time to time until the butter has melted.

Mix the eggs and egg yolk lightly with a fork, then stir into the lemon mixture. Let the curd cook, stirring regularly, for about 10 minutes, until it is thick and custard-like. It should feel heavy on the whisk.

Remove from the heat and stir occasionally as it cools. Pour into spotlessly clean jars and seal. It will keep for a couple of weeks in the refrigerator.

 It made two and a half small jars of the most delicious, mouth watering lemon curd.  I didn't have unwaxed lemons, so just omitted the zest (I don't really like 'bits' in the lemon curd anyway).  I am going to make some sponge buns with lemon curd in their middle as I think that would be gorgeous too.  With the weather the way it is at the moment, and winter still very much in charge, we all need some sunshine, whether in the floral form of daffodils, or the edible form of lemon curd.

My first Wombat Friday

 Yes, I know, this is rather an odd title for a post.  I blame Kirsty at The Kissed Mouth and Stephanie at Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood for making this such an irresistible idea!  I am supposed to include cake on Wombat Friday too, but have failed at that part.  Still, I have got a toy wombat (who is really sweet and is nameless at the moment) and a Pre-Raphaelite painting.  Now before you all click away, shaking your heads and thinking "She's flipped!", a wombat was one of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's favourite animals and he had a real one.  In case you are not familiar with Mr Rossetti, he was a Victorian artist and poet and one of the founder members of the Pre-Raphaelites.  I love their work and their draughtsmanship was phenomenal; in my opinion, they created some of the most beautiful drawings of women ever made.

I have had a long relationship with the Pre-Raphaelites; I first saw April Love by Arthur Hughes (in the background) in a book in the school library when I was about 16, I think, and from then on, have been a huge fan.  I was lucky enough to go to the major Tate Exhibition in 1984, which made a big impression, as it was so full of vibrant colour.  The early works are known for this vivid colour and extreme realism and it is difficult to find reproductions which do the originals justice.  In reality, the purple of the girl's dress is stunning - a wonderful mixture of lilac, purple, blue. 
I have since collected (and am still collecting) many books about them - both the artists and their wives and models - and find more and more fascinating information out about them.  I have always enjoyed social history and have a particular love of the Victorian age.  The women involved in the group and those who were influenced by them also hold a fascination for me.  Who were they? Where did they come from? What happened to them?  I have enjoyed being able to find out.
So, here's to Wombat Fridays - perhaps I may not be able to join in every week, but I'll do my best.
If you are interested in the Pre-Raphaelites, both of the above mentioned blogs are excellent.
Also, a huge welcome to my recent new followers - I hope you will enjoy reading my blog.