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The Merciful KnightEdward Burne-Jones
Date: 1863
Materials: Watercolour, bodycolour and gum
Important early work'The Merciful Knight' is arguably Burne-Jones's most important early work. In the memorial biography of her husband, Georgiana Burne-Jones stated that it seemed "to sum up and seal the ten years that had passed since Edward first went to Oxford". This was one of four major works shown at the Old Water Colour Society in 1864.
The works were given a mixed reception and provoked considerable hostility amongst the Society's members. The picture was exhibited under the quotation which appears on the frame.
Gualberto of FlorenceThis text, and the subject itself, derives from Sir Kenelm Digby's 'Broadstone of Honour', a kind of manual of romantic Christian chivalry that was first published in 1822. In the story, the eleventh-century Florentine knight St John Gualberto is miraculously embraced by a wooden figure of Christ, in token of a deed of mercy performed on a Good Friday.
The criticsThis obscure legend was unlikely to be familiar to a wide audience. F.G. Stephens, wrote in the 'Athenaeum' that he thought it a "strange half-mystical picture".The 'Art Journal' found Burne-Jones's drawing deficient and his treatment of such a subject at once too literal and irreverent. The magazine's critic wondering at the figure of the knight, "[who] seems to shake in his clattering armour", stated: "We cannot indeed but fear that such ultra manifestations of medievalism, however well meant, must tend inevitably, though of course unconsciously, to bring ridicule upon truths which we all desire to hold in veneration".
New styleIn terms of design, technique and expression, however, the picture demonstrates that Burne-Jones had reached the threshold of a new and more personal style. The colour harmonies and rugged handling of paint show that he was ready to tackle ambitious canvases as well as large scale watercolours and decorative work. |
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