Edward Burne Jones Biography | Oil Paintings

Edward Coley Burne-Jones studied at Oxford where he met William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who persuaded him to give up his original intention of entering holy orders and concentrate on painting instead.

He was also heavily influenced by the art critic John Ruskin, who introduced him to the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and with whom he traveled to Italy in 1862. On his return to England, Edward Burne-Jones embarked on a series of canvasses that echoed the styles of Sandro Botticelli and Andrea Mantegna, adapted to his own brand of dreamy mysticism in subjects derived from Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, and medieval romance.

Burne-Jones, made a baronet in 1894, was closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement, designing tapestries and stained glass for William Morris, as well as being a prolific book illustrator.

Edward Burne-Jones was also highly influential among French Symbolism painters. His paintings are believed to have influenced the young J. R. R. Tolkien, then growing up in Birmingham.

No painter was ever more true to his aim. Ideals resolutely pursued are apt to provoke the resentment of the world, and Edward Burne-Jones encountered, endured and conquered an extraordinary amount of angry criticism. Seeing that this was coordinated against the absence of authenticity in his pictures, it was beside the point. The earth, the sky, the stones, the trees, the men and women of Burne-Jones are not those of this world; but rather they are themselves the world, predictable with itself, and has, consequently, its own reality.

Art Movement History: Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic.
Artists Influencing Burne-Jones: Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna.
He Traveled To France, Italy.
Painters Burne-Jones Influenced: John Melhuish Strudwick, T M Rooke, Charles Fairfax Murray.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist.