The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-27
BURNE-JoNEs, THE MsTHErr.
He Is Not a Portrait Painter, but Depicts the
Sad Souls of Super1uous Women.


London Letter.
With the mind aud heart of poet, the means
| of expression of artist, he saw in certain
! English faces something which the great Ital
| ian artists saw in the faces of their time;
the unrest of life, the passion of it, the
! WEAKNESS of it, and the pallor OF unappeased
| desires. He saw in contemporary faces weari
ness, longing-as of Mariana in The 'Moated
| Grange" He has made a type of it; he has
| fixed it for all time 1t is in fact expressive
| inactive, forced to see the years swiftly fly
| away with the bloom of her youth; and she is
| left alone in an abnormal position While the
men of England coonze and conquer half the
world. the English girl remains at home de-
| frauded being, without husband over cu1tivat-
| Ell, perhaps, living in her imagination, in
! thought, not in deed. and seeking in novels a
! taste of the life which is denied to her Her
! brief happiness in pouring tea once
month for the curate is no theme for poet no
subject for an artist. The only thing interesting
! to both is the expression of her face-Uhe con
dition of her soul And the artist and poet, in
setting aside the prosaic form of her life, find in
! her look and in her heart all that is most inter
| esting Mr. Burne- ones without painting her
IN her habit as she lives, has yet given
the highest expression to her life.
Its form of melancholy, the music and
the passion of it, we can see all in Laus Veneris.
Here he lifts to the highest art and poetry, by
form, by color, the unappeased lives, tho inertia
and sadness of many thousand unmarried or
lovers possible husbands, are in the far parts of
the British enpire-bihous in India, brown in
Egypt, or wagihg ruinous upon
remote barbarians or sailing, steam
| ing. driving over the whole world.
while their women sit patient and
longing at homo. The sentiment, the sadness of
all this life has surged up in the foreign forms
| of Mr. Burne-Joness art In sentiment or ex
preston Us English the form of 1t is often for
| eign. If | am correct in this interpretation. I
have reached the reason why there is something
| in Mr.. Burne-Jones' art which pater familias
vaguely feels to De revelation of wrong; Of
something that he has not answered;
and when it is accompanied as it is
| in the works of Mr. Burne Jones
| with something must call seductive, and sug
| gestive of needs and emotions not provided for
by the English establishment, by family life. by
| mechanic duties, by regulated devotions. he is
| outraged by it as by something improper, dad
| he will none oft. Perhaps he knows it implies
I extravaganza, unrest, excess as the only
issue for strong compartments, out of the mo
notony and eruptivenoss of the elaborate
| tyrauy of his domestic life. Ard he says
| The faces holow-eyed pale. sad--they are not
| like many English girls. He forgets that his
roses fade. He says; This is not related to
| English life; do not understand it; it is morbid
| strange, fantastic, dseasedz unEngsh. But
! his very aversion to its moral sense, is a proof
that there Is truth in it. 1t is true enough
| to disturb him. and he is perhaps, TOO opaque to
be illuminated by t,vor to have the of 1t
| dawn in him.