Representations of Arthurian Legend in the 19th Century

The Long Absence of Arthur16th - 18th Centuries

Arthurian legend unpopular in 18th and early 19th centuries

1. Sexual misconduct of . . .

2. Catholic overtones of Grail episodes

Victoria and Albert

• Prince Albert’s tribute to Queen Victoria• Frescoes for Queen's Royal Robing Room

in Parliament• Paintings from Arthurian Legend

illustrating Christian virtues• Commissioned William Dyce (1806-1864)• Christian virtues from Malory?

The Royal Collection Windsor.

(1819-1901) (1819-1861)

4 frescoes personify British virtues illustrated in Arthurian legend: Religion, Generosity, Courtesy, Mercy. Merci (1848) shows Lancelot on his horse sparing the fallen Arthur.

Tennyson’s Idylls of the King

Tennyson made the legend acceptable to Victorian values– Very Christian king Arthur ~

Christ

– Arthur ~ King Alfred

– How does Tennyson deal with morally reprehensible elements in Malory?

The Moxon Tennyson

• Idylls of the King, 1857, published by Edward Moxon

• Started surge of book illustration in England

• 30 illustrations by the Pre-Raphaelites, and 24 by men of the traditional Victorian school

• 18 by Millais, seven by Holman Hunt and five by Rossetti.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

• Organized the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood to promote "genuine" artistic ideas, i.e., not conventions ordained by the Academy, to study art of the past, especially the Middle Ages and Renaissance before Raphael, and to study nature and pay attention to detail.

The Moxon Tennyson, cont.

Rossetti’s Palace of Art William Holman Hunt’s The Lady of Shalott

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

King Arthur's Tomb (detail) (1854 watercolor, only 9"x14", showing Lancelot and Guenever meeting over Arthur's corpse)

Rossetti, cont.

The Damsel of the Sanct Grail (1857)

How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and Sir Percival Were Fed with the Grail, but Sir Percival's Sister Died by the Way

(1864 watercolor)

Rossetti, cont.

William Morris (1834-1896)

Guenevere or La Belle Iseult 1854 (Morris' wife-to-be was the model)

EdwardBurne-Jones

(1833-1898)

The Beguiling of Merlin (Burne-Jones painted 5 versions of Merlin and Nimue)

Burne-Jones, cont.

The Dream of Sir Lancelot at the Chapel of the Holy Grail

John Collier(1850-1954)

Guinivere’s Maying

Frank Cowper(1877-1958)

The Damsel of the Lake, Called Nimue the Enchantress (1924)

Cowper, cont.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Four Queens Find Lancelot Sleeping

William Holman Hunt

(1827-1910)

The Lady of Shalott (1889-92)

John WilliamWaterhouse

(1874-1890)

“I am Half Sick of Shadows” Said the Lady of Shalott

c.1916

The Lady of Shalott (1889-92)

The Lady of Shalott, 1888

Waterhouse, cont.

Waterhouse, cont.

The Lady of Shalott, 1894

Sidney Meteyard (1868-1947)

"I am half-sick of shadows," said the Lady of Shalott (1913)

Edmund Blair Leighton (1853-1922)

Stitching the Standard (1911)

Leighton, cont.

God’s Speed or A Lady’s Favor

Leighton, cont.

Accolade

More Shalotts

Seymour Garstin Harvey (? - 1906)The Lady of Shalott (Beneathe a Willow Left Afloat)

More Shalotts, cont.

Briton Riviere (1840-1920)Elaine-The Dead Steer'd by the Dumb Went Upward with the Flood

More Shalotts, cont.

Arthur Hughes (1823-1904)

The Lady of Shalott 1872

More Shalotts, cont.

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1854-1906)

Elaine

More Shalotts, cont.

Sophie Anderson (1823-1903)The Lady of Shalott

The King's Farewell

Illustrators: Gustave Dore (1832-1883) Illustrated 4 poems for Tennyson's Idylls. Made 36 more drawings, which were copied by engravers and later published all together.

Finding Arthur

How Sir Lancelot Was Known by Dame Elaine.

Illustrators: Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)Created 500 black & white drawings for J. M. Dent's Le Morte D'Arthur, 1893-94. Art Nouveau style. Victorians were not enthusiastic about his tendency to portray men as passive, androgynous, unheroic beings often reclining, asleep, or naked, while his women and feys were more active.

How Sir Bedivere Cast the Sword Excalibur into the Water

The Little Novice and the Queen

Illustrators: Julia Margaret CameronTennyson asked her to illustrate his Idylls. Her photographs used top & side lighting, long exposure, and the wet collodion development process to create an otherworldly aura of the magical past. Published in 1874.

Vivien and Merlin

Cameron, cont.

Arthur

Wounded Arthur

Inside Cover

Illustrators: N. C. Wyeth

Illustrated Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur, 1917.

Then Sir Launcelot saw her visage,

but he wept not greatly, but sighed.