 |
[email protected] |
 |
3275638434 |
 |
 |
| Paper Publishing WeChat |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Edward Burne-Jones’s Spring: Art as a Living, Germinating Process
Liana De Girolami Cheney
Full-Text PDF
XML 23 Views
DOI:10.17265/2328-2177/2026.08.001
UMASS, Lowell, USA
This essay argues that Edward Burne-Jones’s Spring (1868 and 1884, oil on canvas, Koriyama City Museum of Art, Fukushima, Japan) visualizes spring as the generative principle that unites nature and artistic creation. Burne-Jones did not simply present Flora as the Roman goddess of flowers; he transformed her into a spring allegory of creative becoming, in which the blossoming of nature and the flowering of artistic imagination participate in the same process of renewal. Through this philosophical reimagining of classical mythology, spring ceases to function merely as a seasonal motif and instead becomes the condition through which beauty is conceived, imagination awakened, and artistic creation brought into being. Rather than depicting nature as an object to be imitated, Burne-Jones presented nature as the visible expression of an underlying creative order. The blossoming flower and the work of art emerge from the same generative impulse, each revealing an invisible principle of growth, transformation, and renewal. In this sense, Flora becomes more than the goddess of flowers: she is Spring, the personification of artistic genesis, presiding over the perpetual springtime of the creative imagination.
Spring and Flora symbolism, poiesis, beauty, color theory, Platonism, Pre-Raphaelite Art, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones
Allen, M. J. B., ed. and trans. Commentaries on Plato: Volume 1, Phaedrus and Ion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
———. The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.
Arscott, Caroline. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones: Interlacing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.
Bache, Richard Meade. American Wonderland (1871).
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Bache%2C%20Richard%20Meade.
———. Young Wrecker of the Florida Reef (1865).
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Bache%2C%20Richard%20Meade.
———. Vulgarism and Other Errors of Speech, 1869.
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Bache%2C%20Richard%20Meade.
Benedetti, Maria Teresa, and Gianna Piantoni, eds. Burne-Jones. Dal preraffaellismo al simbolismo. Milan: Gabriele Mazzota, 1986.
Braesel, Michaela. “The Influence of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts on the Pre-Raphaelites and the Early Poetry of William Morris.” Journal of William Morris Studies (2004), pp. 41-54. https://morrissociety.org/wp-content/uploads/15.4.Braesel.pdf.
Breuer, David et al. Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters: The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. Exh. Royal Academy. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2003.
Burne-Jones, Georgiana [G.B.]. Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1904, 1940.
Cheney, Liana De Girolami. “Edward Burne-Jones’s The Hours: ‘The Laps of Time.’” Iconocrazia 2 (18 December 2020), pp. 1-32. doi 10.15162/2240-760X/2140.
———. “Eward Burne-Jones’s The Mirror of Venus: Physical and Intangible Female Beauty.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies 9, 1 (2019), doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2019.01.000. https://eb-j.org/pdfViewer/articles/ODI1.
———. Edward Burne-Jones’ Mythical Paintings. London/New York: Peter Lang, 2014.
———. Edward Burne-Jones’s On Nature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021.
———. “Victorian Symbolism and Renaissance Humanism: Burne-Jones’s Flora in Dialogue with Botticelli’s Primavera.” Pre-Raphaelite Review (Summer 2026) [forthcoming].
Cecil, F. David. Visionary and Dreamer: Two Poetic Painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.
Christian, John. Commentary (2019) on Evening, The Evening Star, Hesperus, Vesper (first version). Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne. https://eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MjQzOA==.
Clifton-Mogg, Caroline. The Neoclassical Source Book. New York: Rizzoli, 1991.
Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.
Cumper, Vanessa. “This Week We’re Celebrating Burne Jones.” Online post from the De Morgan Collection. https://www.demorgan.org.uk/this-week-were-celebrating-burne-jones.
De Lorris, Guillaume, and Jean de Meung. The Romance of the Rose. Trans. Charles Dahlberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.
De Lisle, F. Burne-Jones. London: Methuen, 1904.
Dearden, James S. “John Ruskin, the Collector, with a Catalogue of the Illuminated and Other Manuscripts in his Collection.” The Library, 5th ser., 21 (1966), pp.124-153. doi 10.1093/library/s5-XXI.2.124.
Evans, Mark, and Stefan Weppelman, eds. Botticelli Reimagined. London: Victoria and Albert Publishing, 2016.
Ficino, Marsilio. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino. Vol. 1. London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1975.
———. Symposium, I. 3. In Opera Omnia. Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1561.
Fitzgerald, Penelope. Edward Burne-Jones: A Biography. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1975/1989.
Gaunt, William. The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942.
Goldberg, M.A. “John Keats and the Elgin Marbles.” Apollo (November, 1965), pp. 374-378.
Greenhalgh, Michael. The Classical Tradition in Art. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978.
Harrison, Martin, and Bill Waters. Burne-Jones. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1973.
Haskell, Francis, and Nicholas Penny. Taste and the Antique. London: Yale University Press, 1981.
Ionides, Julia. The Ionides Family. London, 1995.
Kelly, Douglas. Internal Difference and Meanings in the Roman de la Rose. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.
Kelly, Jason M. The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment. New Haven: Yale University Pess, 2020.
Kite, Stephen. “From Earth Veil to Wall Veil: Ruskin, Morris, Webb, and the Arts and Crafts Surface.” https://courtauld.ac.uk/research/research-resources/publications/courtauld-books-online/ruskins-ecologies-figures-of-relation-from-modern-painters-to-the-storm-cloud/5-from-earth-veil-to-wall/. doi 10.33999/2021.61.
Ladd, Henry. The Victorian Morality of Art: An Analysis of Ruskin’s Esthetic. New York: Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1932.
Laurent, Béatrice. “La plus belle couleur au monde: le blue dans l’oevre d’Eward Burne-Jones.” Textes & Contextes, 17, 2 (2022), pp. 1–24.
Levey, Michael. “Botticelli and Nineteenth Century England.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 23 (1960). doi 10.2307/750597.
Lightbown, Ronald W. Botticelli: Life and Work. 2 vols. London: Paul Elek, 1978.
Maeder, Ben, and Jonathan Swingler. “Roman Snail Dye Found in UK for First Time.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjje132jvygo.
McNally, Megan. “Myth and Meaning in Edward Burne-Jones’s The Flower Book.” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, Journal of Art and Visual Culture 22, 2 (2023). np. doi.org/10.29411/ncaw.2023.22.2.6.
Morris, William. Art and the Beauty of the Earth. Lecture delivered at Burslem Town Hall on 13 October 1881, then published in London: Longmans & Co., 1898.
———. The Beauty of Life. London: Brentham, 1974.
———. The Earthly Paradise. A Poem. London: F.S. Ellis, 1870 and 1871.
———. Poems by The Way. Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1891; repr. London: Reeves & Turners, 1891.
———. “Some Notes on the Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages, (1894).” In The Ideal Book: Essays and Lectures on the Arts of the Book by William Morris, ed. William S. Peterson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 10-14.
Nahum, Peter. Commentary (2023) on Spring; engraving after the painting by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries. https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MzU0MQ==.
———. Commentary (2023) on Temperantia, Temperance (Temperentia, model Maria Zambaco). Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne. https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MzU0MQ==.
Orr, Lynn Federle, and Stephen Calloway, eds. The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Gard 1860-1900. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012.
Pater, Walter. Plato and Platonism. London: Macmillan, 1893.
———. Studies in the History of the Renaissance. London: Macmillan, 1873.
Plato, Symposium 205b–c. Trans. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. In Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997.
Preston, Raymond. Chaucer. London: Sheed and Ward, 1952.
Ruskin, John. Collected Works. Ed. E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. The Library Edition. 39 vols. London & New York: George Allen, 1903-1912, 10:285
———. Modern Painters, 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1843.
Smiles, Sam. The Image of Antiquity in Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination. London: Yale University Press, 1994.
Smith, Alison. The Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality and Art. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.
Spencer, Robin. The Aesthetic Movement: Theory and Practice. London: Studio Vista Ltd., 1972.
Surtees, Virginia, ed. The Diaries of George Price Boyce. Norwich: Real World, 1980.
Symes, Michael. Mr. Hamilton’s Elysium: The Gardens of Painshill. London: Frances Lincoln, 2010.
Treuherz, J. “The Pre-Raphaelites and Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts.” In Pre-Raphaelite Papers, ed. Leslie Paris. London: Tate Gallery, 1984.
Tsigakou, Fani-Maria. The Rediscovery of Greece. New York: Caratza Brothers Publishers, 1981.
Turner, Frank M. The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain. London: Yale University Press, 1981.
Van den Doel, Marieke J.E. Ficino and Fantasy: Imagination in Renaissance Art and Theory from Botticelli to Michelangelo. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
Waterhouse, E. “The British Contribution to the Neo-classical Style in Painting.” Proceedings of the British Academy 40 (1954), pp. 57-74.
Waters, William. Commentary on Burne-Jones’s letter. In Frances Horner, Time Remembered. London: W. Heinemann, Ltd., 1933, an autobiography, p. 139.
Wildman, Stephen. Commentary (2019) on Sibylla Delphica (Sibylla Cumaea, The Cumaean Sibyl, The Delphic Sibyl), Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne. https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/MTM2NA==.
———. Commentary (2018) on The Merciful Knight. (The subject is taken from the life of the Florentine knight St John Gualberto, founder of the Valombrosan Order in 1039), Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne. https://www.eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/NjQx.
———. Commentary (2018) on Romaunt of the Rose (The Romance of the Rose): The Heart of the Rose tapestry, Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonne. https://eb-j.org/browse-artwork-detail/ODA3.
Wildman, Stephen, and John Christian. Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist-Dreamer. Exh. Cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.
Wood, Christopher. Burne-Jones. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1997.