J. B. Bullen

Roger Fry

Twenty-five essays by distinguished British art critic and painter reveal his wide-ranging interests. Writings explore such diverse topics as the art of the Bushmen, African sculpture, ancient American art, Giotto and the art of Florence, the paintings of Dürer, El Greco and William Blake, contemporary architecture, and more. Also includes Fry's "Essay in Aesthetics." 13 black-and-white illustrations.

Vision and Design

Lenore A. Beaky

Rosalind White

This book includes two previously unpublished works that offer insights into the Pre-Raphaelites and the cult of spiritualism. William Michael Rossetti's séance diary, a recording of twenty séances he attended in the 1860s, and a letter to Dante Gabriel Rossetti from spiritualist medium Anna Mary Howitt are presented with extensive introductions.

The Séance Diary of William Michael Rossetti

Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World

Dante Gabriel Rossetti is the most intriguing and flamboyant figure in nineteenth-century British art. He inspired the first Pre-Raphaelite generation of 1849 and the second generation ten years later and both brought about significant changes in British art. His poetry, too, acted as a stimulus to many writers at the end of the century, who saw in his subtle manipulation of the sonnet and the ballad forms ways of giving expression to issues that were peculiar to the that century. Dominant among those issues was that of sexual desire, for Rossetti, more than any other artist in this period, struggled with the contradictions of sexuality. When he died in 1882 people knew of him as the painter of alluring women with exotic names - Lilith, Monna Vanna, Fiammetta - and the writer of subtly erotic verse. He projected onto women his anxieties, his pleasures and his needs. He also mythologized them, so that Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth, Jane Morris and others became for him Beatrice, Guenevere, and Isolde. In doing so he shaped them, he changed the direction of their lives, and in some cases he both made and destroyed them. This richly illustrated book, by tracing the development of Rossetti's painting and poetry in the context of the drama of his life, follows this powerful thread. Sometimes sensual, at others spiritual, Rossetti's mission was to transcend the Manichean division that separated body and soul and, through the visionary power of art, reconcile what he saw as elements fundamental to human experience.

Painter and Poet

Rossetti

Ben Brewster

Professor of English J B Bullen

Lea Jacobs

Pre-Raphaelitism was the first avant-garde movement in Britain, and it shocked society. This study traces the source of that shock to the representation of the human body, the sexualization of the female body, and lurid interest in the 'fallen woman'.

Fear and Desire in Painting, Poetry, and Criticism

The Pre-Raphaelite Body

Thomas Hardy’s Wessex is one of the great literary evocations of place, populated with colourful and dramatic characters. As lovers of his novels and poetry know, this ‘partly real, partly dream-country’ was firmly rooted in the Dorset into which he had been born. J. B. Bullen explores the relationship between reality and the dream, identifying the places and the settings for Hardy’s writing, and showing how and why he shaped them to serve the needs of his characters and plots. The locations may be natural or man-made, but they are rarely fantastic or imaginary. A few have been destroyed and some moved from their original site, but all of them actually existed, and we can still trace most of them on the ground today. Thomas Hardy: The World of his Novels is essential reading for students of literature and for all Hardy enthusiasts who want to gain new insights into his work

J. B. Bullen

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