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Tag Archives: William Morris

William Morris & Walter Crane: Socialism

17 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Britain

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Haymarket Affair, Industrial Revolution, Japonisme, May 1st, Socialism, Walter Crane, William Morris

Walter Crane - Tile1

The Poppy Tile by Walter Crane (Photo credit: Google Images)

The Industrial Age and Socialism

In our discussion of art in Britain during the 19th century, I mentioned that William Morris and Walter Crane were socialist activists. The Industrial Revolution (beginning in the middle of the 18th century) led to an abuse of workers. Workers were often very young, they worked 60 hours a week over 6 days, the noise produced by machines was deafening, repeated movements, crippling, not to mention other detrimental consequences.

William Morris was born to a wealthy family and Morris & Co. was a successful business venture. By and large, employees of  Morris & Co. (now Liberty of London and Sanderson [the designs]) were craftsmen, as was William Morris himself. The Kelmscott Chaucer, printed at the Kelmscott Press, named after Morris’ Kelmscott Manor, which he rented, was a modern illuminated manuscript. Morris was a calligrapher and painter as was his friend Sir Edward Burne-Jones. When the Kelmscott Chaucer was published, in 1896, it was as a joint effort and the first two copies were presented to William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.

However, the work differed from a craft in that it was printed, which made it accessible to several individuals. The books produced by the Kelmscott Press are ancestors to books produced by the current Folio Society. In particular, the paper will not age into a brittle and yellow paper. It is acid-free paper or nearly so. It is the paper used by waltercolour artists and printmakers. An artwork will not otherwise survive.

Such were the books printed by the Kelmscott Press, established in 1881. Liberty of London has to use mechanization or it could not offer fabrics, etc. in bulk. But times have changed. The forty-hour week is no longer a rarity and workers use headphones to deafen the sound. However, the abuse has not ended and the working environments where abuse occurs are not restricted to factories.

Walter Crane - Neptune's Horses

Neptune’s Horses by Walter Crane (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Walter Crane

  • the arts domesticated
  • Arts & Crafts exhibition in the US

To keep this post brief, I will focus on Walter Crane’s activities as a member of the Socialist movement (socialism) to which he was introduced under William Morris‘ influence. As an artist, both he and Morris tried to “bring art into the daily life of all classes.” (See Walter Crane, Wikipedia.) The products of today’s Liberty of London can be described as carriage trade). For instance, the lovely tote bags it sells are not available to the poorer classes, poverty still exists, but it is art domesticated. There is truth however to the saying that no one is sufficiently rich to buy a product that will not last or to overindulge in the trendy.

william_morris_quote_artscrafts_framed_tile

Crane was not an anarchist, but when domestic and other art designed by members of the Arts and Crafts movement were exhibited in the United States, Walter Crane attended a social in Boston and said that the “Chicago four,” who had been executed, were wrongfully convicted. No sooner did he voice his opinion that he was shipped back to London. Workers were agitating in the hope of bringing the work week down from 60 hours to 48 hours.

William-Morris-SDF-Membership-Card

 

The Haymarket Affair & May 1st

On 4 May 1886, during a demonstration, in favour of the 48-hour week,  someone threw a dynamite bomb at the police. People then start to shoot. Seven (7) police officers and four (4) civilians died and many more were wounded. The Demonstration took pace at Haymarket Square in Chicago. (See Haymarket Affair, Wikipedia). The Chicago four were the four men who were hanged. Although none had thrown the bomb, one or more of the seven men who who were convicted had built it. One of the convicted men was sentenced to life imprisonment, but seven men were condemned to death. Among the seven, four were hanged, the death sentence of two workers was commuted to life imprisonment, and one committed suicide. Prisoners were pardoned in 1893 by governor John Peter Altgeld. Because of the Haymarket Affair, May 1st became the International Workers’ Day.

According to Wikipedia, “[f]or a long time he [Crane] provided the weekly cartoons for the Socialist organs Justice, The Commonweal and The Clarion. Many of these were collected as Cartoons for the Cause. He devoted much time and energy to the work of the Art Workers Guild, of which he was master in 1888 and 1889 and to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, which he helped to found in 1888.”

However, Walter Crane is best known for his illustrations and, in particular, for his illustrated edition of Edmund Spenser‘s Faerie Queene (1894-96). But he was a socialist activist. William Morris was a card-carrying member, as may have been Walter Crane.

Britomart viewing Artegal
Britomart viewing Artegal
Holiness defeats Error
Holiness defeats Error
Florimell saved by Proteus
Florimell saved by Proteus

Conclusion

William Morris and Walter Crane were both associated with at least two of the art movements of 19th-century English. Crane started out with the Pre-Raphaelites as did William Morris. Both were members of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and both were socialist activists. As for the movements, all culminated in the aesthetic movement and art produced as the 19th century drew to a close often displays the curvilinear Art Nouveau style. The borders of Walter Crane’s illustrations for Spenser’s Faerie Queene are an example of Art Nouveau. So are the borders of the Kelmscott Chaucer (see Sources and Resources).

Morris was the giant, the businessman, the coordinator, and immensely eclectic. In Walter Crane, we have the most prolific illustrator of his times. But both realized the industrial revolution had brought misery to workers and, therefore, to the lower classes. Awareness of this misery is associated mostly with William Morris and Walter Crane, but the Arts and Crafts Movement was nevertheless a statement.

akelei

Flora’s Feast by Water Crane, 1889 (Photo credit: Google Images)

RELATED ARTICLES

  • William Morris’ Red House (8 December 2015)
  • Art in 19th-century England (19 November 2015)
  • The Golden Age of Illustration in Britain (30 October 2015)
  • Johann Amos Comenius: Word and Art (7 November 2015)
  • Word and Art (6 November 2015)

Sources and Resources

  • Kelmscott Chaucer at the British Library
  • William Morris, The Arts and Crafts Movement
  • The Victorian Web
Windrush

Windrush by William Morris (ink and watercolour for fabric), 1881-83

Walter_Crane_-_The_Lady_of_Shalott_-_Google_Art_Project

The Lady of Shalott by Walter Crane

© Micheline Walker
17 December 2015
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Art in 19th-century England

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Britain

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Aesthete Movement, Anglo-Japanese style, Art for Art's Sake, Cabinet-making, Japonism, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, The Decorative Arts, The Gothic, William Morris

boreas-1903_jpg!HalfHD

Boreas by John Willam Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org )

Prelude

Britain’s Golden Age of illustration, the illustration of children’s literature in particular, was ushered in, at least in part, by Japonism. Other factors contributed to the flourishing of children’s literature adorned with exquisite illustrations, but the beauty of the Japanese prints that flooded Europe after the Sakoku period elevated the status of illustrators whose art was engraved and printed. Moreover, the illustration of children’s literature allowed and sometimes required substantial creativity on the part of illustrators. For instance, as discussed in a previous post, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass (1871), featured literary nonsense.

But there is more to tell. We will now introduce Britain’s following  movements or style:

  1. the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1848)
  2. the Arts and Crafts Movement (1880-1910)
  3. the Anglo-Japanese style (c. 1850)
  4. the Aesthetic Movement (c. 1850)

I will also refer to the curvilinear and very popular and influential Art Nouveau. British illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872 – 16 March 1898; aged 25) is a representative of the style, but Art Nouveau is usually associated with Czech artist Alfons Mucha. It is a characteristic of art produced in the last decade of the 19th century and in the years preceding World War I.

The Anglo-Japanese Style

In Britain, Japonisme was applied to furniture making and was referred to as the Anglo-Japanese style. The Anglo-Japanese style was true to the idealism of the Pre-Raphaelites in that it rejected the depiction of “any thing [sic] or any person of a commonplace or conventional kind.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)

For instance, the sideboard shown below, designed in the Anglo-Japanese style by Arthur William Godwin (26 May 1833 – 6 October 1886), cannot be considered  “conventional”. It may reflect Japanese furniture, but it is also consistent with the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art, advocated by French poet Théophile Gautier (30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) and shared by certain members of the Aesthetic Movement, such as James Abbott McNeil Whistler. Yet, as noted above, the Anglo-Japanese style is partly rooted in the creed of members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. It is innovative, Charles Baudelaire‘s “du nouveau,” newness.

Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu’importe?
Au fond de l’Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau!

(See “Le Voyage” VIII, Les Fleurs du mal [The Flowers of Evil].)

Sideboard by Arthur Godwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sideboard by Arthur William Godwin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by British artists William Hunt (2 April 1827 – 7 September 1910), John Everett Millais (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882). As noted below (see 3), it would not allow any thing [sic] or person “of a commonplace or conventional kind.”

  1. The movement was called brotherhood, which could suggest equality and fraternity, but members of the brotherhood were brothers in that they rejected Sir Joshua Reynolds, (16 July 1723 -23 February 1792), renamed Sir ‘Sloshua’, the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts.
  2. Pre-Raphaelites also wished to return to the art preceding the High Renaissance  paintings of Raphael (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520).
  3. Pre-Raphaelites would not allow “anything lax or scamped in the process of painting … and hence … any thing [sic] or person of a commonplace or conventional kind.”[1] (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
  4. But the group “continued to accept the concepts of history painting, mimesis, imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
  5. The Pre-Raphaelites’ mentor was John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900), the most prominent art critic of the Victorian era who advocated “truth to nature.”
  6. It would be joined by other artists.[2]
    (See Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia.)
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt)

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, 1903 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

The Aesthetic Movement

  • roots in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
  • roots in the Gothic (William Morris & Edward Burne-Jones)
  • roots in Japonism (Impressionism)

The Aesthetic Movement promoted the concept of art for art’s sake, l’art pour l’art. Consequently, there are affinities between the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Aesthetic Movement. They may differ however in that the Pre-Raphaelites “continued to accept the concepts of history painting, mimesis, imitation of nature as central to the purpose of art.” This could explain why John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) praised the movement (see 5). He advocated “truth to nature”.

For Ruskin “truth to nature” did not seem consistent with the allusive nature of McNeill’s Impressionism. John Ruskin therefore criticized American, but London-based artist James McNeill Whistler stating that Whistler was a “coxcomb” who “asked two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” (See James Abbott McNeil Whistler, Wikipedia.) Such was John Ruskin’s description of Whistler’s “Nocture in Black and Gold, the Falling Rocket”. Whistler sued and won, but he had to declare bankruptcy and lost the “White House” designed for him by Arthur William Godwin, the cabinet-maker who created the “sideboard” shown above.

Yet if the Pre-Raphaelites are to be linked to another 19th-century British art movement, it would be the art for art’s sake Aesthetic Movement which paralleled, albeit to a lesser extent, the decadence of French poets and artists of the second half of 19th-century. French poets were drinking absinthe, which contained an hallucinogen, thujone. For his part, Dante Gabriel Rossetti took chloral.

Although James McNeill Whistler introduced Dante Gabriel Rossetti to Japonism in 1860, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is not related to Japonism. It remains however that if the Aesthetic movement could accommodate “Ruskinian Gothic,” not to mention the medievalism of such devotees as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, one wonders why it would reject Ruskinian “truth to nature”.

The Gothic

  • William Morris
  • Edward Burne-Jones

Arthur William Godwin‘s “sideboard” is in the Anglo-Japanese style,  which, as is the case with all the movements listed above, is a forerunner of Aestheticism. As an architect-designer, Godwin, who designed the desk displayed above, also drew his inspiration from “Ruskinian Gothic”. Although exotic Japonism helped shape the art of 19th-century Britain, the stained-glass pieces of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898) reached into the Medieval era, as did Arthur William Godwin’s gothic Northampton Guildhall. Morris and Burne-Jones met as students at Oxford and both were attracted to the Middle Ages, or Gothic, praised by John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) who was not only the most prominent art historian and critic of the Victorian era, but also a fine artist.

5439074743_7a7c500cd2_b

Northampton Guildhall, built 1861-64, displays Godwin’s  “Ruskinian Gothic” Style (Photo credit: Flicker)

John Ruskin: The Stones of Venice

John Ruskin is the author of the Stones of Venice, published in three volumes between 1851 and 1853. William Morris was so impressed by a chapter entitled “On the Nature of the Gothic”, that he had it printed separately by Kelmscott Press, the Arts and Crafts press, named after Kelmscott Manor, the Morris family’s country residence. (See Morris and the Kelmscott Press, the Victorian Web.) In 1861, William Morris founded a firm, the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (See Peter Paul Marschall and Charles Joseph Faulkner, Wikipedia.)

The Peacock room, The Princess from the land of porcelain by William McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Peacock room, The Princess from the Land of Porcelain by William McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 Japonism and the Aesthetic Movement

Whistler was one of the first to appreciate the true significance of the Japanese prints which had begun to appear in the West after Japan’s centuries of isolation ended in the 1850s, and to see that such works, whose subject matter was generally unknown or without much meaning even when it was ascertainable, forced people to think and to see entirely in terms of pictorial qualities, of line and pattern and color; to adapt them as demonstrations of the principle that Reality in painting is intrinsic, not a matter of copying anything outside itself.[3] 

Japonism, however, would characterize the art of American but London-based James McNeill Whistler and American impressionist William Merritt Chase (1 November 1849 – 25 October 1916). Their Japonism is one of subject matter mainly, but exotic subject matter depicted in the rather allusive manner of Impressionism. Both showed blue and white porcelain, fans, screens and ladies wearing kimonos that displayed an oriental motif. “The Blue Kimono,” featured below, is one of the finest paintings created by William Merritt Chase.

The Blue Kimono by William Meritt Chase, 1898 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

The Blue Kimono by William Merritt Chase, 1898 (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Cult of Beauty or Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl) by James McNeill Whistler

Cult of Beauty or Symphony in White no 2 (The Little White Girl) by James McNeill Whistler (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whistler and Chase: the Decorative Arts

  • rooms copied
  • studios copied

Ironically, it could be said of both Whistler and Chase that their Japonism was of a decorative nature. The rooms they showed became fashionable and so did the clothes worn by the ladies they portrayed. Whistler’s “Peacock Room” is not altogether consistent with the domestication of the arts advocated by the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris. Whistler’s “Peacock Room” is a room, but it borders on art for art’s sake. It was designed in the Anglo-Japanese style and is housed in the Freer Gallery of Art, in Washington D.C..

The Teenth Street Studio by William Merrit Chase http://www.wikiart.org/en/william-merritt-chase/the-tenth-street-studio-1915

The Tenth Street Studio by William Merritt Chase (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)

Conclusion

  • the broadening of the arts
  • the versatility of artists

Anglo-Japanese Style was applied to cabinet-making. However, the 19th-century British art movement we tend to associate with interior design and the decorative arts is the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896). The Arts and Crafts Movement will be discussed in a separate post, but we have already witnessed a certain domestication of the art and a broadening of the field of art. Henceforth, it will include applied arts and such artists as William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones will be extremely versatile. Whistler, who designed the luxurious “Peacock Room” and sued revered Ruskin, was an interior designer, a painter, and a printmaker.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • William Merritt Chase: Japonisme in America (6 July 2013)
  • James McNeil Whistler: a Subtler Art (24 April 2013)

Sources and Resources

  • The Victorian Web, Kelmscott Press
    http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/morris/kelmscott.html
  • John Ruskin
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. I)
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. II)
    The Stones of Venice is an Internet Archive Publication (Vol. III)

____________________

[1] Timothy Hilton, The Pre-Raphaelites (Oxford University Press, 1970), p. 46.

[2] They would be joined by painters James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti’s brother, poet and critic William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor Thomas Woolner,  Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and John William Waterhouse.

[3]  Alan Gowans, The Restless Art: a History of Painters and Painting 1760-1960 (Philadelphia and New York:  J. B. Lippincott Company, 1966), p. 237.

Nathan Milstein plays Jules Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs

boreas-1903_jpg!HalfHD

© Micheline Walker
19 November 2015
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Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément…

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fashion

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, Georges Barbier, Morris, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Wikipedia, William Morris

En effeuillant la marguerite

A new day has dawned that has a purer taste.  I am therefore featuring another George Barbier illustration for its youthfulness.  I am also featuring textile designs by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896), a British designer, writer, printer: the Kelmscott Chaucer, a close friend of Sir Edward Burne-Jones: a man of many talents.

Un peu, beaucoup, passionnément…

In Barbier’s illustration, the Lady wonders whether he loves her un peu, beaucoup or passionnément…

When I was very young, long before I was interested in men, I would pick the petals off daisies.  The last petal told me an imaginary truth.  It’s a lovely memory, but it was another age.  An age when you waited for the gentleman to phone you.  An age when you were afraid he would turn his back on you if you showed your true feelings.

I am glad times have changed.  A woman should be able to phone a man and suggest a date.  But I miss picking at a daisy and I would like to wear that dress, but not to walk in the countryside.  I would wear it to walk in a beautifully manicured garden with little paths.

According to Wikipedia, William Morris was a “libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement. He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti.”  I have featured works by William Morris in other posts.

As for George Barbier (1882-1932), he was a French illustrator.  The work shown above is entitled “N’en dites rien,” (Do not say a word about it).  It was featured in an exclusive fashion magazine called: La Gazette du Bon Ton, in 1913.  “Bon ton” means good taste.

George Barbier is featured with permission from Art Resource, NY.  As for the samples of textile designed by Mr Morris, Wikipedia was my source.

© Micheline Walker
9 July 2012
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A Reading of Perrault’s “Cinderella”

10 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Fairy Tales, Folklore, Illustrations

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Cendrillon, Charles Perrault, Giambattista Basile, Gustave Doré, passivity, seventeenth-century France, sources, the brothers Grimm, William Morris

—  Cinderella by William Morris

For the English text of Charles Perrault‘s (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) fairy tales, beautifully illustrated by Gustave Doré, click on fairy tales.  For information on William Morris, click on Arts and Crafts or on William Morris. But if you click on this Cinderella, you will see that there are many retellings of Cinderella or Cendrillon.  The Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella does not feature a fairy godmother, but Cinderella prays on her mother’s tomb and is helped by all the animals, birds in particular.  They bring her the beautiful gowns she wears while dancing with the Prince.  However, she does lose a shoe because the prince has put pitch on the steps.  On the same website, you may also read that the story of Cinderella is almost as old as the world.

A Fairy tale

Cinderella is a fairy tale, so it belongs to a literary genre and genres share, to a lesser or greater extent, the same narrative structure.  With fairy tales, the “hero” goes from rags to riches and does so through the timely intervention of a fairy godmother, or a clever cat.  Therefore, the protagonist or hero, is at times rather passive, as is, for instance, Puss in Boots‘ disappointed master.  As I pointed out in an earlier post, were it not for his cat, the third son of the miller might not have become a prince.  It is the cat who takes him from rags to riches.

Traditionally, the protagonist of fairy tales, i.e. the third son or a Cinderella has a fairy godmother who appears at the opportune moment, i.e. kairos, to transform a Cinderella or some other character, into a beautiful person to whom the opportunity is given to be seen at his or her best.  This could suggest a lack of resourcefulness in the central character of a fairy tale, a point we will discuss after writing a summary of the plot.

Cendrillon by  Gustave Doré

The Plot: rejected girl needs a fairy godmother, but the shoe fits

This is how the rags-to-riches narrative of Cinderella unfolds.

A widower who has one daughter marries a widow who has two daughters.  In Charles Perrault’s version of the fairy tale, the widow’s two daughters are less attractive than Cinderella, so Cinderella is reduced to removing the ashes from chimneys and wears soiled clothes.

There is a ball to which the young women of the land are invited.  In fact, in some versions of Cinderella (the Brothers Grimm), there are three balls, or three days of festivities, the number three being the most important number in fairy tales.

When Cinderella arrives in the carriage her fairy godmother has magically fashioned out of a pumpkin, just as she has magically fashioned the horses, the coach, and the magnificent gown Cinderella wears, she is stunning, not to mention the beauty and uniqueness of the slippers she wears, translated as glass but perhaps otherwise crafted: “vair,” a  material, is pronounced the same way as “verre,” glass.  This matter is one scholars have studied without reaching a consensus.

During the last ball, Cinderella is so enjoying herself that she forgets that midnight is approaching and that, at midnight, she will return to her station as the girl who cleans the ashes out of chimneys.  She is running away so fast that she loses one of the slippers or shoes.

Cendrillon by Gustave Doré

So Cinderella may be Cinderella again, but the prince has picked up the shoe and wants all the young women of the land to try it on.  Whom will it fit?  In Perrault’s version, when her sisters try on the shoe, Cinderella is her shabby self, but the prince has noticed her and he suspects beauty behind deceptive appearances.  Cinderella is therefore asked to try on the shoe and the shoe fits.  Cinderella is once again transformed into the beautiful young woman she was at the balls and will be the prince’s bride.  Matters end the same way in the Brothers Grimm’s Cinderella except that birds blind her two sisters permanently, which is somewhat gruesome.

Origins of “Cinderella”

I will note later that Cinderella is rooted Rhodopis, 700 BCE, in which a slave girl marries the kind of Egypt, but tales often originate in India.  However, as we know, the five stories that make up the Pañcatantra, were written in Sanskrit, by Vishnu Sharma and then, in 750 CE, they were translated into Arabic, as Kalīlah wa Dimnah, by Persian scholar Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa’.  However there were other translations of the Pañcatantra, and other tales, before it was translated by Abdullah Ibn al-Muqaffa’. Furthermore, Vishnu Sharma may have taken his content, or subject matter, from an oral tradition. I will therefore be cautious as there may be a more ancient Cinderella, than Rhodopis.

Immediate sources

But Perrault did not draw his material directly from an ancient source.  Cinderella was part of the tales of Giambattista Basile (c. 1575 –  23 February 1632), the author of the Neapolitan Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiento de peccerille, later entitled Il Pentamerone.  Giovanni Francesco “Gianfrancesco” Straparola (c. 1480 – c. 1557) also wrote fairy tales, but he did not write a Cinderella. 

Pot by William Morris

Resourcefulness on Cinderella’s part

As stated above, the point that needs examination is the extent to which Cinderella participates in her transformation.  The short answer is that she needs help but is not as passive as she might seem.  She has gone to her father to ask for his help but her father, who loves his new wife, has refused to intervene on behalf of his daughter, which is not very fatherly.  However, had he intervened, he might have made matters more difficult for his daughter.  Cinderella’s stepmother has two daughters whose looks could jeopardize their ability to find a spouse and her daughters come first.

Other factors may be at play.  For instance, this is a fairy tale, not a comedy. Unlike the characters of comedies, Cinderella does not have a gentleman friend who can help her fight a heavy father, pater familias.  Nor does she have clever servants who would assist her and her gentleman friend. That happens in comedies, not in fairy tales. Perrault’s Cinderella truly needs a fairy godmother and she is fortunate that the prince happens to see beauty beneath deceptive appearances.  Despite their lovely gowns, the stepmother’s daughters have not been noticed by the prince who can see beauty in an unadorned Cinderella.

So I wonder whether Cinderella can do much for herself other than assist her fairy godmother by fetching a large pumpkin and helping her empty it of its contents so that it can be transformed into a princely carriage.  But, by an large, other than fetching the pumpkin and performing little task, Cinderella is very much in need of a fairy godmother, not to say a miracle.

The Perfect Candidate

However, destiny, the fates, have given Cinderella a fairy godmother.  But more importantly, destiny has given her beauty and grace.  Other than an opportunity to be seen by the prince, an opportunity which a fairy godmother orchestrates, it could be that Cinderella has all that is required of her.  Moreover, only she can wear the shoes, which is very much to her advantage. So the long answer may be that she cannot do much for herself, but that she has been so blessed by Lady Fortune that she really does not need to do much for herself.  In other words, although she needs and has a fairy godmother who arranges for her to meet the prince, her beauty and grace make her the perfect candidate for victory.  Besides, the prince notices her and the shoe fits.

So Cinderella does not rise from her own ashes, but she rises from ashes.

RELATED ARTICLE

  • The Brothers Grimm’s “Ashenputtel” (8 August 2015)

 

Mozart: 12 Variations sur ‘Ah ! vous dirai-je Maman’ en Ut Majeur, K.265, Aldo Ciccolini, piano (please click on title to hear the music

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The Columbine Tile: William Morris

16 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, England

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arts and Crafts Movement, Columbine Tile, illustrations, John Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris

columbine.2

The Columbine Tile by William Morris
(Photo credit: artpassionsnet)

 

Yesterday, I decorated an appreciation post by inserting a picture of one tile, William Morris‘s Columbine Tile.

So let me now honour its creator: William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896).  I found a picture of this tile on a website you can access by clicking on William Morris.  Moreover, the tile is on the market.

William Morris is remembered mainly as a textile designer.  I became acquainted with his work when I visited the Metropolitan Music of Art, in New York.  But my interest grew when I realized that he was the illustrator of the 1896 Kelmscott Press edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400).

Morris’s illustrations are reminiscent of illuminated medieval books, books enhanced by enluminures or illuminations are now prized chiefly because of their fine calligraphy and their enluminures.  As I noted a few days ago, we remember John Amos Comenius because he published the first illustrated textbook.

However, let us return to William Morris to tell that he was also a writer.  Among other works, he wrote News from Nowhere (1890), a book considered as utopian.  He was also a predecessor to J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling, in that he published a fantasy novel entitled The Well at the World’s End (1896).

In the world of fine arts, Morris is associated with two Movements:

  • the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and
  • the Arts and Crafts Movement.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Pre-Raphaelites championed the art of Michelangelo and, particularly, the paintings of Raphael, or Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1529), not to mention Leonardo da Vinci.  So here we are once again at the Renaissance court of Urbino, the court where Castiglione observed courtly behaviour.  Il Libro del Cortegiano (The Book of the Courtier), published in Venice in 1528, is a description of courtly life as Castiglione knew it from his long stay at the court of Urbino. The Louvre houses Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

As for the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris founded the Movement.  He had been inspired by the writings of John Ruskin (1819–1900), the foremost art critic of his time.  Members of the Movement were traditionalists and advocates of fine design and decoration, values often belittled by artists whose works require a neutral background in order to be best shown.  Beauty is everywhere, including in the manner one sets food on a plate.

Design for Trellis wallpaper by William Morris, 1862

Design for Trellis wallpaper by William Morris, 1862 (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

William Morris is also associated with Sir Edward Burne-Jones (28 August 1833 – 17 June 1898), a friend and a business partner.  Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s paintings can be mistaken for medieval works.

The tile I have shown is a classic on the art of gradation.  The design is dark at the very bottom, which sits it, so to speak, and then, as we near the top, the blues mutate progressively to lighter and nuanced shades of blue.

imagesE9RJ8PC1

© Micheline Walker
16 November 2011
WordPress

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