Fiona MacCarthy

From the prize-winning author of William Morris comes a new biography of Edward Burne-Jones, the greatest British artist of the second half of the nineteenth century. The angels on our Christmas cards, the stained glass in our churches, the great paintings in our galleries - Edward Burne-Jones's work is all around us. The most admired British artist of his generation, he was a leading figure with Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic movement of the 1880s, inventing what became a widespread 'Burne-Jones look'. The bridge between Victorian and modern art, he influenced not just his immediate circle but artists such as Klimt and Picasso.In this gripping book Fiona MacCarthy explores and re-evaluates his art and life - his battle against vicious public hostility, the romantic susceptibility to female beauty that would inspire his art and ruin his marriage, his ill health and depressive sensibility, the devastating rift with his great friend and collaborator William Morris as their views on art and politics diverged. With new research and fresh historical perspective, The Last Pre-Raphaelite tells the extraordinary, dramatic story of Burne-Jones as an artist, a key figure in Victorian society and a peculiarly captivating man.

William Morris (1834-1896) was an artist, craftsman, designer, poet, polymath, and visionary thinker. Well known for advocating that objects of beauty be accessible to all, Morris had a tremendous impact on the British Socialist movement, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Garden City movement, as well as on successive generations of artists and thinkers in Britain and beyond. In this fascinating book, Fiona MacCarthy examines Morris's vision of a society in which art could flourish, and how this idea resonated over the ensuing century. Anarchy and Beauty takes the reader through Morris's fascinating career, from the establishment of his decorative arts shop (later Morris & Co.), to his radical sexual politics and libertarianism, and the publication in 1890 of his novel News from Nowhere, which envisions a utopian socialist society. MacCarthy then looks at the numerous artists and movements that bear the influence of Morris's ideas: Arts and Crafts and the Garden City, which took hold in both Europe and the United States; artists' communities that sprung up during the interwar years; and the 1951 Festival of Britain, whose mission was to bring the highest standards of design within the reach of everyone. -- Publisher.