Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris

He went to church every Sunday as a child. Bible stories took root in the fertile soil of his creative mind, as he wrote later of the Last Judgement, “though it did fill our childhood with terrors, it was an incitement to our imaginations, and there’s no telling what good there is in that”. The Last Judgement is the subject of the last stained-glass window Burne-Jones designed for Birmingham Cathedral, and it’s notable for the sheer ordinariness of its human figures and their landscape. It became characteristic of Burne-Jones to depict stories from the Bible as though they happened yesterday, in ordinary life. For him, the mystery and revelation of religion were to be found everywhere, every day and exalted. Thus, he used his daughter Margaret as a model for the angels in Birmingham’s windows; angels were as likely to look like her as an unearthly being.

One of the major shifts in Burne-Jones’ style happened after he fell under the influence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites. Rossetti’s paintings inspired Burne-Jones to develop a new style; his compositions became more detailed and had a more defined medieval and magical flavour, while his figures became flatter. The Burne-Jones dream worlds had emerged. Rossetti also changed the character of Ned (as Rossetti renamed him, shedding forever the Birmingham Ted), giving him the confidence that he should trust his judgement: “He taught me to have no fear or shame of my ideas, to design perpetually, to seek no popularity, to be altogether myself.”

Rossetti was not the only artist who unlocked something within Burne-Jones. On a visit to Paris in 1855, Wiliam Morris took Ned to the Louvre to show him paintings by Fra Angelico and other Italian artists of the period. Burne-Jones, who had never seen anything like them, told his studio assistant later that the experience changed his life and showed him how to be a painter.

He continued to be inspired and influenced by Italian painters. In 1871, he visited Italy to see the work of Michelangelo, Botticelli and Piero della Francesca again. From then on, the Italianate influence on Burne-Jones’ paintings and stained glass is clear. His paintings develop their peculiar, still atmosphere, as though waiting for something to happen. Burne-Jones came to see the intense Italian blue of clothes and sky as “the most pure and beautiful colour in all the world” and used it liberally in paintings and stained glass. His compositions also became noticeably more dramatic and dynamic.

Burne-Jones found inspiration in obscure labyrinths of knowledge, Bible stories, poetry, medieval legends, and the solemn beauty of Renaissance Italian paintings. He spun these diverse sources into magical dream worlds that were both odd and entirely convincing. It’s not surprising that JRR Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings and fellow King Edward’s schoolboy, was inspired by these extraordinary visions. Burne-Jones was clear about his intention, writing, “I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be – in a light better than any light that ever shone – in a land no one can define, or remember, only desire”. His stained-glass windows are also full of this sense of wonder and mystery, and Birmingham Cathedral will surely shine with “a light better than any light that ever shone” when they are unveiled after their restoration.

It’s often tempting to see the Victorian period as one of moral and religious certainty, in contrast to our increasingly secular and fractious age. Religion certainly loomed larger in the public consciousness than today, helped by an explosion in church restoration and new builds; there were over 7,000 of each in the 1830s and 1840s, including Pugin’s masterpiece St Chad’s in Birmingham. Burne-Jones, born in 1833, grew up in religious fervour.

But this glorious profusion of building masked a profoundly unsettled national mood. Darwin’s theory of evolution, the rapid spread of industrialisation and the increasing speed of scientific advances all conspired to create a crisis of faith expressed most clearly by artists and poets but felt at all levels of society. Even Tom Brown, whose eponymous Schooldays symbolised wholesome Victorian boyhood, went through “perplexities and doubts and dreams and struggles.”

Burne-Jones, a sensitive young man with a strong Christian faith, was bound to be strongly affected by the turbulent religious atmosphere of the time. Though baptised in St Philip’s in Birmingham, his father later bought a family pew in the more evangelical St Mary’s. However, young Ted (he didn’t become Ned until he went to Oxford) visited Hereford Cathedral in 1849, where the Reverend John Goss, a follower of the notorious Oxford Movement, captured his imagination.

Though it may now seem a historical oddity, the Oxford Movement profoundly affected Victorian religion in the 1830s and 40s. Started in Oxford by three leading churchmen and university fellows (including John Henry Newman) in 1833, it demanded a new interpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles and a restoration of the ritual and ceremony of the early church, with a renewed emphasis on the central sacrament of the mass. Anti-Catholic laws, in place since the Reformation, had only been repealed at the end of the 1820s, and Catholicism was still viewed with distrust by many, so the Oxford Movement’s sense of connection to ancient tradition and the sacraments meant that they were perceived as dangerous radicals. Everyone’s suspicions were confirmed when Newman was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845.

Burne-Jones not only responded to the mystery and ceremony of the High Church rituals of the Oxford Movement but also Newman’s doctrine of austerity. He later suggested that Newman had inspired his indifference to money, luxury, or other temptations in the “world’s trumpery treasure house”. Newman was appointed Superior of the new Birmingham Oratory, and young Ted walked miles to hear him preach, writing, "Wherever he had told me to go, then I would have gone. Lord! What a whey-faced maniac I was.”

At this stage, Burne-Jones was still intending to enter the church and had no thought of a career as an artist. This continued after he met William Morris at Oxford; the two shared similar religious convictions and even thought of founding a monastery together. But gradually, his focus shifted and widened until he and Morris made the painful decision in 1855 to devote themselves to art rather than the church.

Though Burne-Jones rejected the clerical life in favour of art, his work is permeated by a strong sense of religious belief. He carefully avoided all questions about his religious affiliations, so it’s impossible to know which branch of Christianity he affiliated with most strongly. He once mischievously exclaimed, “Belong to the Church of England? Put your head in a bag!” Georgie wrote in her posthumous biography of her husband Memorials that when asked about his religion, he quoted the words of a Samoan chief: “We know that at night someone goes by among the trees, but we never speak of it”. We must be content with the sense of mystery and wonder that all of us, of any faith or none, are inspired by when looking at one of Burne-Jones’s works. 

You probably know something about William Morris; you might have something in your home that bears one of the patterns he designed – a mug, a notebook, or even wallpaper or curtains. He said, “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be beautiful or believe to be useful.” So far, so predictable. But come with me beyond the Wikipedia entry and discover the man behind the myth. His designs may be a byword for restrained good taste now, but at the time, Morris’s ideas and designs were viewed as revolutionary.

Morris had a conventional start in life; he was born into a prosperous family in London in 1834. At Oxford, he met Burne-Jones, and the two instantly became friends, bonded by a shared love of Anglo-Catholicism, Arthurian legends and Shakespeare. Morris was a man of passions, including church architecture, embroidery and medievalism, which would become a central motif of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He had a fearsome temper, and many accounts survive in his friends’ letters of the short, portly Morris with his mop of curly hair stamping around a room in a temper.

Morris worked best in the companionship of other like-minded people and, after Oxford, became part of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a group of painters and poets which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt. The Pre-Raphaelites disliked modern fashionable artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds and were instead inspired by the colours, detail and intensity of Italian art of the 1400s. One of Rossetti’s models was the beautiful Jane Burden, with whom Morris fell deeply in love; the story goes that he was too shy to declare himself, so while painting her portrait, he wrote on the canvas, “I cannot paint you, but I love you.” It worked because they married in 1859. Janey played an important role in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and was an accomplished artist in her own right, becoming an expert embroiderer.

In 1861, Morris founded the company that would become Morris & Co., with Burne-Jones as one of the partners. The aim was to provide furniture and furnishings produced using techniques as close as possible to traditional hand craftsmanship in reaction to the increasing mechanisation and industrialisation of the Victorian period. The company also capitalised on stained glass fashion by offering a design and making service for private houses and churches. Morris’s father was in business and had a strong commercial sense, making him unusual amongst designers and enabling him to build Morris & Co. into a company that changed the face of Victorian interiors.

Morris had always been fascinated by architecture, though after an unhappy period working with a church architect in Oxford after he graduated, he recognised that his talents lay elsewhere. So he asked his friend and fellow partner in Morris & Co, Philip Webb, to design The Red House in Kent, with a steep roof and turrets, which Edward Burne-Jones called “the most beautiful place on Earth.” Later, he lived at Kelmscott Manor, and both houses were filled with a constantly changing variety of tapestries, furniture, paintings, murals and embroideries by Morris, his family and friends.

Morris was a man of extraordinary energy and talent. As well as a designer, he was a poet, fantasy writer and social activist. Though little read now, his poetry was celebrated in his lifetime, and his Utopian novel “News from Nowhere” profoundly influenced later fantasy and science fiction writers.

All polymaths are inevitably reduced to less than the sum of their parts. Morris, along with other giants of the nineteenth century, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, has certainly suffered that fate. But it’s hard to feel that the man who found such delight in colour and pattern, and for whom the imaginative and spiritual life was so central, would mind that Birmingham Cathedral’s windows are one of his greatest memorials.

At the end of his life, Edward Burne-Jones wrote that “[William] Morris’s friendship began everything for me; everything that I afterwards cared for.” The two men shared a deep religious faith and an abiding love for all things medieval, but their upbringings, personalities, and appearances were wildly different. So what drew this odd couple together and kept their lifelong friendship alive?

Despite the disparity in their social backgrounds, the two men discovered an instant shared religious faith and an ambition to become clergymen. John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement had drawn them to the city. They planned seriously to found a monastery, and both at one point also considered converting to Catholicism.

There were also intellectual bonds between the two. On arriving at Oxford, they discovered a shared love of Tennyson, and Morris (who loved to read out loud) would read “The Lady of Shalott” to Burne-Jones (who loved to be read to) and the rest of the Birmingham Set, the group of friends, mostly from Birmingham, who later played an important role in the Arts and Crafts movement. Both were also already committed medievalists, steeped in the Arthurian legends, which would be a fertile source for their future work.

Many accounts exist of Morris and Burne-Jones at Oxford. They were a gift to the caricaturist: Burne-Jones was tall, thin, and often looked sickly, while Morris was much shorter, increasingly portly, with wild curly hair and a unique stomping walk. In addition, the two often wore matching purple trousers – it’s not surprising they caused such a stir.

Morris already had a sophisticated aesthetic sense and had been fascinated by medieval art since he was a child; when he was a small boy, his indulgent parents had a tiny suit of armour made for him to wear when riding his pony. At Oxford, he and Burne-Jones spent hours with the Bodleian Library’s manuscripts and wandering the streets looking at old buildings. The colours, shapes and design details seeped into their work, but the ideals of the medieval craftsman also became the philosophical basis for the Arts and Crafts movement.

By the time they left, Oxford Morris and Burne-Jones had decided not to become clergymen but to devote their lives to art. The couples became great friends after their respective marriages – Morris to Jane Burden in 1859 and Burne-Jones to Georgie Macdonald in 1861. They spent riotous weekends at the Morris home, The Red House, playing hide and seek and picking apples in the orchard. The families were further linked by their joint stake in Morris & Co., of which Burne-Jones was a founding partner. When children arrived, the families remained close, with Morris, for instance, reading poetry to the Burne-Jones children in their nursery while sitting astride a rocking horse.

Morris and Burne-Jones were extraordinarily talented and amongst the best in their field. But together, a kind of alchemy happened, each feeding the other intellectually, spiritually and aesthetically so that when they worked on joint projects, such as Birmingham Cathedral’s stained-glass windows, a soaring artistic triumph was achieved. Burne-Jones recognised this, writing to his friend Crom Price, “he has tinged my whole inner being with the beauty of his own, and I know not a single gift for which I owe such gratitude to Heaven as his friendship.” The story of that friendship is one more to add to the many that the Cathedral’s windows already have to tell.

William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were devoted lifelong friends and collaborators in art and business. Their private lives were also intertwined and became as complicated as one of Morris’s intricate wallpaper designs.

Everything started simply enough. Burne-Jones fell in love first, meeting Georgiana MacDonald (known as Georgie) in 1856, when he was 23 and she was 15. She was the daughter of a Birmingham Methodist minister, and the MacDonald family – Georgie had seven siblings – kept a jolly household, which made an attractive contrast to the cheerless Burne-Jones home. During the four long years of their engagement, Ned went away to Oxford, and Georgie studied art at the Government School of Design. When they married in 1860, they had only scraped together £30 and a deal table containing Georgie’s engraving tools, but they couldn’t wait any longer.

Morris fell in love with Jane Burden a year after Burne-Jones met Georgie. She was the 17-year-old daughter of an Oxford stableman whom the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti had spotted in the audience at the theatre in Oxford. He asked her to model for him, and she began to sit for Morris. Morris was smitten but too shy to declare himself, and the story goes that he wrote on the back of the canvas, “I cannot paint you, but I love you”. They became engaged, though Jane admitted she was not in love with Morris and married in 1859.

The early years of both marriages were idyllic. The two couples were great friends and spent uproarious weekends at the Morris home, The Red House, playing hide and seek, picking apples in the orchard, and working together on ambitious decorating projects. The firm that would become Morris & Co. was founded in 1861, and both women were involved; Georgie painted tiles, and Jane directed the embroidery arm of the business. Georgie’s involvement ended when she gave birth to her first son, Philip, as Victorian mothers were expected to devote all their energies to their children. Georgie and Ned would have two more children, Christopher and Margaret, though Christopher was born prematurely and died soon after birth. Ned was a devoted father and used Margaret as a model for the angels in Birmingham Cathedral’s stained-glass windows.

Jane and William Morris also had children – daughters Jenny and Mary, known as May. May learned embroidery from her mother and became one of the most influential figures in the field. She took over the Morris & Co. embroidery department from Jane and was later involved with the Royal School of Needlework.

While their work and families continued to flourish, Morris and Burne-Jones’ relationships with their wives were less satisfactory. Burne-Jones carried on a long affair with his troubled model, Maria Zambrano. After her tragic suicide attempt, the heroic Georgie forgave him and nursed him through his subsequent physical and emotional collapse, writing, “I know one thing, and that is that there is love enough between Edward and me to last out a long life if it is given to us.” Perhaps it was this extraordinary display of selflessness that made Morris finally fall in love with her after years of platonic friendship, or maybe it was the fact that Jane Morris had been drawn back into the arms of Rossetti after the tragic death of his wife, Elizabeth Siddal.  No one knows what happened between Georgie and Morris, but Georgie destroyed all his letters to her from this period.

Georgie Burne-Jones and Jane Morris were both artistically talented women in their own right and had they lived even fifty years later, their talents might have been recognised, as were those of Jane’s daughter May. As it is, it’s impossible, particularly in the case of the selfless Georgie, to wonder what she might have become had she not had to devote so much of her energy to supporting her husband.

The Arts and Crafts movement was so influential that by the end of the nineteenth century, nearly every British middle-class home contained some decoration inspired by it. “Arts and Crafts” may sound vague, but the movement had a clearly defined philosophy, and its aesthetic is instantly recognisable. It also spread across Europe and America, making it one of Britain’s most important contributions to international design.

The term “Arts and Crafts” was first used by artist and bookbinder TJ Cobden-Sanderson at a meeting of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1887, though the style and the principles which inspired it had been developing since the 1860s. William Morris, art critic John Ruskin and historian Thomas Carlyle were influential in its beginnings. Morris and Ruskin believed that modern production methods should react to what they saw as the harshness of late nineteenth-century industrialism; the creation of hand-made goods should replace machine uniformity.

Morris and others also believed that goods made by factory processes were inferior, as demonstrated in The Great Exhibition of 1851. Six million Victorians (then a third of Britain’s population) visited the Exhibition in Joseph Paxton’s giant, glittering Crystal Palace to see examples of the newest technology and design. But for Morris and the rest of the Arts and Crafts movement, these technologically advanced goods were unnecessarily ornate and somehow dishonest because they were not true to the qualities of the materials used to make them.

While no identifiable Arts and Crafts style existed, some common design factors existed. Form and shape were usually simple and pragmatic, made to suit the item’s purpose, sometimes with a hint of the medieval. Materials were hand-made and hand-decorated, and colours could be bright but not lurid. British plants or animals often inspired patterns.

The Arts and Crafts movement sought to reform both manufacturing and design. The desire to abolish the divisions between art and industry and between art and craft drove Morris to found Morris & Co., where artists such as Edward Burne-Jones created designs for tapestries and stained-glass windows. Morris himself designed commercially successful wallpapers and textiles. A central argument of the Arts and Crafts movement was that separating the intellectual act of design from the physical act of creation was damaging to society. As Morris put it, “Without dignified, creative human occupation, people became disconnected from life”.

One of the reasons that the Arts and Crafts movement was so influential was that it was accessible to amateur enthusiasts and professional artisans alike. Craft guilds of professionals were formed, such as the Guild of Handicrafts in Chipping Campden and Eric Gill’s community in Ditchling, Sussex. These craftsmen and their families lived and worked together, often teaching locals craft skills. Home hobbyists also embraced the Arts and Crafts aesthetic.

By 1920, the Arts and Crafts movement had encompassed architecture, furniture, book illustration, ceramics, fashion, and jewellery. It was the dominant aesthetic of the British thinking classes for forty years and spread throughout Europe and North America. The shiny gewgaws of The Great Exhibition may not have lasted, but the honest simplicity of the Arts and Crafts movement has certainly stood the test of time.