Burne Jones

Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, was born in 1833 and was a student at Exeter College, Oxford, when he came under the influence of the pre-Raphaelite movement, of which Gabriel Dante Rossetti and William Holman Hunt were the leaders. Mr. Burne-Jones became thoroughly imbued with two characteristics of the new school, a yearning for mystical and symbolical teachings of mediaeval asceticism and a faithful appreciation of minute details both in form and colour. Few have adhered so constantly to these first principles as he has done. For some years he worked mainly in water-colours or tempera, and was regarded rather as an amateur, filling his mind meanwhile with legendary lore gathered from the classics, the lives of the saints, and the northern sagas. Among his more remarkable works in recent years are The Days of Creation, Merlin and Vivien, The Mirror of Venus, Day and Night and the Four Seasons, Laus Veneris, Le Chant d'Amour, The Annunciation, Pygmalion, The Golden Stairs, The Wheel of Fortune, Cophetua and the Beggar Maid, The Depths of the Sea, The Mermaid, The Star of Bethlehem, and several designs of a decorative character, such as those illustrating The Myth of Perseus and The Legend of the Briar Rose.