Reviews from the SF Chronicle:
"The boundary between art with a capital 'A' and the decorative arts is traversed by these artists," says Orr, who describes flamboyant and eccentric artists like Whistler and Rossetti, famous for their art and affairs, as the Kardashians of the 1870s. "To design a beautiful dress was as significant to them as a painting."
"The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde 1860-1900," a large and caressingly lovely new show about the British Aesthetic Movement opening today at the Legion of Honor, invites visitors to view that era through a strikingly different and decidedly rosy lens. With its Pre-Raphaelite paintings of dreamy-eyed maidens and voluptuously writhing statues, blooming floral wallpapers and some strikingly modern furniture, the show captures the Aesthetes' driving "art for art's sake" ethos across a broad spectrum. Read more: SF Gate
Rossetti. Boca Bactia. 1859. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Informative page from the V&A: The V&A Aesthetic Movement
Naturally, there's an application for the iPad: iPad app for the cult of beauty
Naturally, there's an application for the iPad: iPad app for the cult of beauty
James Whistler, Battersea Bridge.
The artists
Whistler (From the Blog Lines and Colors, with an extensive list of links): http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/08/james-abbott-mcneill-whistler/
Leighton : http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/05/29/frederick-lord-leighton/
Aubrey Beardsley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley
Whistler (From the Blog Lines and Colors, with an extensive list of links): http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/08/james-abbott-mcneill-whistler/
Leighton : http://www.linesandcolors.com/2006/05/29/frederick-lord-leighton/
Aubrey Beardsley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley
Whistler, The Girl in White
Lines and Colors Blog: http://www.linesandcolors.com/2011/04/08/the-cult-of-beauty/
The Victorian Web: http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/prb/intro.html
Delaware Art Museum -They may have the most extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite works in the US. http://www.preraph.org/
Beardsley, Salome. The Climax
Delaware Art Museum -They may have the most extensive collection of Pre-Raphaelite works in the US. http://www.preraph.org/
2 comments:
A couple of years ago the BBC screened a three- or four-part series on the pre-Raphaelites. I have to say that the whole cult of beauty is interesting up to a point, then, it makes feel as if I've eaten too much chocolate. Still, one of my favourite authors, Oscar Wilde, was involved in the movement up to his neck, so it's only with painting that this happens. I like the ambiguity of Rosetti's Monna Vanna.
Greetings from London.
Greetings back at you from sunny SF. I agree with the ultra-richness of too much of their work, in one place, at one time. That's why I commented in my review at the Examiner.com that the curators have done us a favor by eliminating the domestic clutter of those homes and hanging the paintings rather far apart. Besides, we had a lovely palate cleanser in the satirical cartoons of the time - Punch in particular had a field day with Oscar Wilde (before his trial). Afterwards, it wasn't so funny.
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