19th-century Arts and Hand-craftsmanship movement; William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Botticelli’s portrait known as Smeralda Bandinelli was treated in the paintings conservation studio of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2013–14 with the support of the Friends of the V&A. The painting had been identified for treatment in preparation for the recent Botticelli Reimagined exhibition (fig.1.15). While removal of the highly discoloured natural resin varnish was recommended to re-establish the cooler tonality of Botticelli’s original composition, the history of the painting and its ownership by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82), a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, complicated matters. Technical examination was undertaken to understand fully the condition of the painting and the interventions that had taken place to restore it in the past, shedding new light on Botticelli’s creation of the work as well as on its subsequent history. Ultimately we were able to go ahead with the cleaning and conservation treatment of the work, which revealed it to be a particularly beautiful example of Botticelli’s portrait oeuvre.

Emery Walker was a great admirer of arts and crafts, demonstrated through his beautifully adorned home which included work of his British peers and close friends William Morris, Philip Webb and William De Morgan, to name just a few. However, amongst his many possessions, Emery Walker had also collected a number of items originating from destinations across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, including those locations where Islam was or had been the dominant faith of the local population.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Emery Walker travelled to many places including almost a full tour of Spain and Morocco, home to the ‘Moors’ (Andalusian Muslims). These countries were places with a rich Islamic architectural and visual heritage stretching back hundreds of years. Within his letters and travel journals Emery Walker wrote of visiting the cities of Toledo, Seville, Granada, and Gibraltar, known for their beautifully decorated interiors and monumental facades. Here he would have been exposed to a myriad of bright and colourful patterns made with geometry, floral motifs and Arabic calligraphy, carved and painted onto plaster and wood. These stylistic elements within art and architecture were collectively referred to at the time as the art of the “Muhammadans”, now more commonly referred to as Islamic art.

Storia di un ritratto inedito del poeta Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854): da Londra agli Stati Uniti, passando per  Firenze si dipana il mistero di un ritratto del poeta dantista del risorgimento Italiano. Attraverso fonti documentarie, lettere, testimonianze dirette e indirette si ricostruisce qui un percorso storico-artistico di un'immagine e di un'epoca fino a coinvolgere seppur 'indirettamente' il movimento Preraffaellita.

This article considers replication, pattern, and repeating structures as a key feature across William Morris's work and thought in the decorative arts and in the art of the book, and focuses on the politics of replication within Morris's vision.

« Dans une lettre datée du 3 janvier 1891, William Morris évoque une « petite aventure typographique en préparation ». L’idée, modeste en apparence, va prendre une ampleur insoupçonnée. »

Comment changer la société et réenchanter le livre ? William Morris, scandalisé par la laideur des livres de l’époque victorienne, entend y parvenir en créant des livres inactuels et néo-gothiques, non pas simples pastiches des siècles passés mais inspirés des manuscrits médiévaux et des premiers incunables de sa bibliothèque personnelle. Livres qui, selon lui, doivent tendre vers la perfection et incarner l’idéal voulu par John Ruskin, à l’image de l’une des plus merveilleuses réalisations du private press movement, le magistral et testamentaire Kelmscott Chaucer, décrit par le peintre préraphaélite Burne-Jones comme une « cathédrale de poche ».

« En fait, un livre, qu’il soit imprimé ou manuscrit, tend tout simplement à être un bel objet, et, le fait qu’à notre époque nous produisions couramment des livres laids prouve assez, je le crains, une intention criminelle, une détermination à garder les yeux fermés en toute occasion. »

Florence Alibert offre ici de découvrir ou de redécouvrir au fil de la vie et des œuvres de l'artiste, la dernière croisade du peintre, dessinateur, homme politique, poète, architecte et imprimeur William Morris, qui séduira nombre de créateurs britanniques, belges ou allemands et ne donnera lieu en France qu’à de timides et partielles expérimentations. Cathédrale et imprimé fusionnent, le livre, à la conception architecturale, devient un tout harmonieux. Et alors qu’il l’évoque parfois avec légèreté, la « petite aventure typographique » de Morris, devenue projet de plus grande envergure, se pose comme une enclave possible contre les conventions de la modernité : « Je voulais imprimer quelques beaux livres. Et je voulais m’amuser. Et je peux dire que j’ai fait les deux. »

« Le 2 juin 1896, Morris, alors très malade, voire mourant, reçut le premier exemplaire de son cher Chaucer qui avait à la fois contribué à le maintenir en vie et à l’épuiser complètement. Sa fille May note au sujet de son père : « il avait l’air profondément mélancolique. Il se retourna vers moi et me sourit tendrement mais semblait se perdre déjà dans une très lointaine contrée […] et tout fut fini quelques temps plus tard. »

La place du rêve dans l'oeuvre d'Edward Burne-Jones et sa réception critique Le mouvement préraphaélite naquit en 1848 en Angleterre. Son histoire est tout aussi complexe que passionnante. Ce courant artistique se voulut novateur, et pour renouveler un art considéré comme sclérosé, se tourna, entre autres, vers le passé. Dans la lignée du romantisme et de la mode du néo-gothique, les pré-raphaélites s'inspiraient largement du Moyen Age. Après ses premiers pas au début des années 1850, le mouvement connut du succès en « seconde généra-tion préraphaélite » qui se forma, à partir de 1856, autour de Dante Gabriel Ros-setti. L'un des acteurs principaux de ce retour des préraphaélites fut un jeune artiste originaire de Birmingham, qui devint l'un des plus grands noms de la peinture anglaise: Edward Burne-Jones. Le catalogue de l'une des rétrospectives qui suivirent la mort de Burne-Jones en 1899 s'ouvrait sur une citation qui permet de mieux comprendre son ap-proche artistique:

Chapter in G. Brockington (ed.), Internationalism and the Arts in Britain and Europe at the "Fin de Siecle"
This collection of essays stems from the conference ‘Internationalism and the Arts: Anglo-European Cultural Exchange at the Fin de Siècle’ held at Magdalene College, Cambridge, in July 2006. The growth of internationalism in Europe at the fin de siècle encouraged confidence in the possibility of peace. A wartorn century later, it is easy to forget such optimism. Flanked by the Franco-Prussian war and the First World War, the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were marked by rising militarism. Themes of national consolidation and aggression have become key to any analysis of the period. Yet despite the drive towards political and cultural isolation, transnational networks gathered increasing support. This book examines the role played by artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals in promoting internationalism. It explores the range of individuals, media and movements involved, from cosmopolitan characters such as Walter Sickert and Henri La Fontaine, through internationalist art societies, to periodicals, performance, and the mobility of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The discussion takes in the geographical breadth of Europe, incorporating Belgium, Bohemia, Britain, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia and Slovakia. Drawing on the work of scholars from across Europe and America, the collection makes a statement about the complexity of European identities at the fin de siècle, as well as about the possibilities for interdisciplinary research in our own era.

May Morris: Art & Life. New Perspectives  is a new monograph on the craftswoman, bringing together a collection of essays, combining biography with design history.
Chapter 13 explores the posthumous memorialisation of William Morris and May Morris's life-long endeavours as the foremost keeper of her father's flame encompassing all aspects of his cultural legacy. She is therefore considered as the curator and gatekeeper of William Morris's estate. Protecting her father's public image and artistic standing were May's guiding principles. The chapter shows that the physical site, name, image and concept of Kelmscott were always present in all of her projects as an emblem of Morris's identity. Due to the immensity of the topic, the scope of this chapter is limited to three case studies: her role as editor of The Collected Works of William Morris (first considered in 1904); the strenuous fifteen-year process of formulating her will (1911-1926) - laying the foundation for the preservation of Kelmscott Manor as an ideological tribute to her father; and her active involvement in the 1934 Morris Centenary Exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Beale family were sole owners of Standen estate in East Grinstead, West Sussex from September 1890 until it was bequeathed to the National Trust in the early 1970s. It was in the spring of 1891 when they commissioned architect Philip Webb to design them a new house in the country. Although Standen is undoubtedly a fine and complete example of Webb's Art and Crafts architecture of the period, with many original William Morris wallpapers on display, little is known about how the family experienced the house or what they contributed to its creation. This talk examines the nature of the relationship between Philip Webb and his clients, James and Margaret Beale and how this impacted on the design of Standen before the final plans were approved in 1892. It will illustrate that many of the design decisions agreed between architect and client were not only influenced by the Beales' lived experience but also by their practical needs and creative vision.

ATMOSPHERE 10 explores Fabrications. Fabrications implicate diverse artifacts and modes of making, together with the places, practices, contingencies and intentions that enable and contextualize making. In other words, this symposium will examine not simply what, how and why we make, but sites and situations of making. The aim is to explore how cultural and environmental circumstances become meaningful catalysts of design, building, teaching and research. This theme encompasses manifold concerns beyond the digital: complexities of urban and social fabrics; intricacies of environmental skins; potentials of building sites and workshops; as well as the stories and arguments through which we craft shared understandings of our fabricated world.

Abstracts due Nov 1, Symposium Feb 1-3, 2018 University of Manitoba, Winnipeg.

Keynote Speakers include: Brian MacKay-Lyons & Philip Beesley
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/brian-mackay-lyons.html
http://umanitoba.ca/faculties/architecture/atmosphere/2018/philip-beesley.html

Presentation at MLA 2018, January 4-7, part of panel "Pre-Raphaelites and the Pierpont Morgan Library."

In 1898, an anonymous contributor to the Daily Chronicle suggested that William Morris had dishonestly failed to acknowledge the role of Robert Catterson-Smith as collaborator of Edward Burne-Jones in the Chaucer. Such accusations brought the legacy of the Kelmscott Press under attack and prompted responses from both Catterson-Smith and Sydney Cockerell, private secretary of the Press and Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum. “Fingers, eyes, and sympathy I brought,” wrote Catterson-Smith, “but Sir Edward was responsible for every line and dot in the eighty “Chaucer” drawings which I did under his guidance.”

What, exactly, was Catterson-Smith’s role as collaborator? Examining such a question relies upon the Pre-Raphaelite archive at the Morgan Library. The Morgan’s holdings include a number of Catterson-Smith ephemera and correspondence, including an autographed manuscript in which Catterson-Smith describes his intensive process of translation (MA 8593). Far more importantly, the Morgan holds the aforementioned Chaucer illustrations: 86 platintotype reproductions of Burne-Jones’s drawings, reworked in black and white Chinese ink by Catterson-Smith for the engravers of the woodcuts. In this presentation, I examine the Morgan’s holdings to reproduce the collaborative process between Catterson-Smith and Burne-Jones. This archive preserves the individual stages of what Morris called “sympathetic translation,” and provides significant insight into the creation of what is commonly perceived as a joint project between Burne-Jones and Morris. Probing into the complexity of the Kelmscott collaborations attests to the sociability of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Pre-Raphaelite focus on cooperation and lived communal experience.