SIR EDWARD BURNE-JONES

Expert in Mermaidology

Tina Anderlini

PhD History of Arts

Communication made during the Conference Underwater Worlds: Aquatic Visions in Art, Science,

and Literature, An interdisciplinary conference at the University of Oxford, 15-16 September 2015.

Radcliffe Humanities Building.

(drawing by Raine Szramski, entitled : Ned likes Mermaid)

Burne-Jones' world contains two kinds of marvelous aquatic creatures, coming

from two different traditions :

The Classical Siren, who drives man to his loss

The Medieval mermaid, whose existence is not necessary linked to man's

destruction. There are two distincts ways to describe this creatures and they are

connected by a brand new science, created by the painter : mermaidology.

We could imagine that Classical and Medieval sirens live together in Burne-

Jones' world, but this is far from true.

Men-eaters.

Burne-Jones doesn't use the classical shape (birds with human heads). He still

calls them « sirens » but they're not half-fish/half women. They only live by the sea.

But do they live under it ? Can they be consider at mermaids ? That's not sure.

They appear in his world around 1870, far before his studies about

Mermaidology. There are several versions of the same subject (1890, National

Gallery of South Africa, Cape Town, 1891-1898, Collection of the John and Mabel

Ringling Museum of Arts, Sarasota, etc.) : a ship full of medieval knights has been

drawn by women. No bird or fish. These paintings are interesting as they appear to be

a game between the painter and the viewer. We know more than the poor knights as

they only see beautiful women.

Burne-Jones often spent years upon a project. So he wrote about these

paintings to his patron Frederick Leyland in 1891 :

I am making a plan for a picture that will not be very big and will not be very

pretty. It is a sort of Sirenland -I don't know when or where- not Greek Sirens, but

any Sirens, anywhere, that lure on men to destruction. There will be a shore full of

them, looking out from rocks and crannies in the rocks at a boat full of armed men,

and the time will be sunset. The men shall look at the women and the women at the

men, but what happens afterwards is more that I care to tell1

1 GBJ II, 222.

Actually Burne-Jones doesn't tell, but he leaves clues. We can see that the

knights are not the first ones to arrive there, and we guess what happened before.

Armours and weapons are useless against these women. With what remains on the

shore, it is obvious that these Sirens are not vegans. Burne-Jones shows that they

leave the sallets... We may intend to think that the idea of showing these remains is

coming from the painter's study of Vittore Carpaccio's work.

The medieval context, dear to Burne-Jones, is only an excuse to paint armours.

The sirens shown here are of the Classical kind. With one difference though.

Traditional sirens are terrible creatures as they are hybrids. These ones may be

more dangerous as they have the trivial appearance of innocent women. We could

imagine that these women belong to the « femmes-fatales » kind, a subject often

painted by Gustave Moreau or Rossetti and that we can find in few paintings of

Burne-Jones. Nevertheless, Ned didn't have the same opinion about women than

Moreau or Rossetti. He was far from being a misogynist like Moreau. Anyway, there

are few women that may be aknowledged as « femmes-fatales » : Sidonia von Bork

(1860, Tate Gallery, London), Morgana (Morgana Le Fay, 1862, private coll.), Circe

(The Wine of Circe,1863-69, private coll.), Nimuë (Head of Nimuë, 1873, Delaware

Art Museum, Samuel and Mary Bancroft Memorial, Wilmington, The Beguiling of

Merlin, 1873-1874, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), witches and magicians,

and, may be, the Goddess Venus in Laus Veneris (1873-1878, Laing Art Gallery,

Newcastle). Women who have magical powers. The Sirens look humans but are not.

Normal women are no real femmes-fatales. They more are victims of deceived blove

or of misunderstanding. They have to be considered apart from truly « femmes

fatales », powerful women, that Burne-Jones may have consider to be far more

dangerous. And we could think about the impact of his love affair with Maria

Zambaco. But this is another very complicated story...

It is now time to consider not sirens but Mermaids.

Confrontation between two worlds. The Earthly world Vs the Underwater

world.

This may be the most interesting part. In this category we place a famous

painting like The Depths of the sea (1887, Fogg Art Gallery, Harvard University,

Cambridge, Massachussetts, for the most famous version), and other works related to

this subject (for instance : book of drawings and watercolours given to Helen Mary

Gaskell, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1939.9).

These paintings show a mermaid and a man. Sometimes the man is still

fighting, sometimes he is already drowned, and dead.

We could think that we have another example of a « femme-fatale ». But it

seems that these interpretations would be a huge mistake.

One version of the subject, coming from the Flower Book2, Grave of the Sea,

shows a mermaid finding an already dead man in the depths of the sea. The facial

expression is important : the mermaid is sorry of what she found. These paintings

show impossibility it is for people coming from two different worlds to live together.

Mermaids desire men, but they don't understand men can't live under the sea. The

Mermaid of the depths of the sea is smiling because she thinks she won a lover when

she only won a dead corpse.

It's all about misunderstanding. We are not seeing a classical or femme-fatale

kind of a Mermaid. We are seeing mermaids coming from medieval bestiaries.

Mermaids who actually live under the sea, and who only know this world. They

cannot understand the earthly world. They can not understand human beings need air.

This was explained by Julia Cartwright in one of the very few articles about him that

Burne-Jones considered good, even brilliant :

A mermaid, with a strange smile on her lips, is seen dragging her mortal lover

down to her home in the rocky column and shell-strewn caves of the deep, all

unconscious that the breath has left his body and that the manly form she clasps in

her arms is growing cold in her embrace.3

These paintings are rather dramatic. We could think that the Mermaids world is

a sad place. But this is not true. Burne-Jones made his own bestiary, focused upon

2 Book of watercolours painted between 1882 and his death, left unfinished. Now in the British Museum. 3 Julia Cartwright, The Life and work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones Bart, in The Art Annual,1894, 24. Burne-Jones

referred to her as Mrs Ady (her married woman name), « a very nice and clever woman » in a letter to Helen Mary Gaskell from november 1894, British Library, Manuscripts, London, Add. 54217, vol. II, f. 332r.

mermaids. And for this, he did what was necessary : study them.

Mermaidology.

In 1880, Ned bought an house in Rottingdean, near Brighton. He often went

there for holidays, and the place became dear to his most famous nephew : Rudyard

Kipling. Moreover, Burne-Jones, his wife, and other members of his family, like their

grand daughter the novelist Angela Thirkell, chose Rottingdean as their last resting

place. In this place Ned painted most of the watercolours which are now in the

Flower Book.

The medieval bestiary Mermaids appeared soon after. Sad ones, neutral ones,

happy ones. The Sirens have to live with the Mermaids.

The first one of this kind is the Sea-Nymph (1880, private collection), painted

at the same time than the Woodnymph ( National Gallery of South Africa, Cape

Town). Once again, Julia Cartwright explains what the artist meant :

The two pictures (…) both painted in 1880, are another instance of the magical

effect the artist can produce by working in a single color. Both were originally

intended to be executed in plaster, and are accordingly more purely conventional in

character than most of Burne-Jones' work. The Wood-nymph is seated in the heart of

a laurel thicket, surrounded by foliage of every shade of green. Her ocean-born sister

dances on the blue waves, sporting with the fish that dart to and fro, and the ruddy

locks of her hair wafted on the breeze, repeat the undulating flow of the billows.4

The first official study of Mermaidology is Mermaids in the deep (1882,

private collection). Behind the watercolour is written « Study from nature, at

Rottingdean, August 1882 »

More will follow. Paintings, drawings... Everyday scenes... A Virgin and Child

becomes a Siren and her baby (1882, Tate Gallery, London).

Some sirens seem to come from his beloved Arthurian Legend, like the Lady of

the Lake... Other are funny ones. Most of them are poetic visions

4 Id, 22-23.

Conclusion

Burne-Jones is only depicting what he sees, as he wrote it behind Mermaids in

the deep. Poetry appears stronger than science. Burne-Jones is often mocking science.

The new establishment.

Mermaids are not malefic creatures. Like in Arnold Böcklin's paintings, who

appears to be the closest painter to Burne-Jones' spirit, scenes depicting evil sirens

come alongside with Mermaids everydaylife scenes. Burne-Jones considers himself

as a great scientist, that is the message of Mermaids in the deep. He made his study at

Rottingdean, and, at almost the same time than Böcklin, he created this new science :

Mermaidology.

More seriously, all these works about Mermaids show a very important side of

Ned's art. The rejection of this new cult from the 19th c. : Science. Science, in this

victorian society tends to analyses, theorizes, explains, until the very dept of each

thing, leaving nothing to imaginery, dreams nor fantasy. It is, a sad cold world

smothered by the fog of London. Burne-Jones and other painters appear to be

impervious to this new society and prefer to join a marvelous world safe from

Scientism and materialism. With the Mermaidology, or even more in the Flower

Book, Ned is making fun of science, and prefer to explain the world throught poetry

and dream. Underwaterworld is one of the last shelters. A non-explored place, like the

skies. He told Oscar Wilde that the wings of his angels were his protest against the

new rising world.

And I remember once, in talking to Mr Burne-Jones about modern science, his

saying to me, « the more materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I

paint : their wings are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul » 5

He painted wings. A lot of. But he also painted fins. These are the marks of

creatures that were still protected from science and experimentation. Magical

creatures could, at Ned's time, still hope to live in peace in the sky, the stars, and

5 Oscar Wilde, the English Renaissance of Art. Essays and Lectures. Methuen and co, London, 1908. reed. Manor, Rockville, Maryland, 2008, 68.

underwater. Only the last dreamers could reach them, live by their side and reunite

two worlds, first considered as incompatible.

Thanks to Aurélien Nouvion for the corrections and to Raine Szramski for letting me use her

drawing of Burne-Jones at sea :

Illustrations (from Wikimedia Commons or different sources. They should be removed on request)

They may differ from the one shown during the communication. More were shown there, from the

Gaskell book from the Ashmolean, The Secret Book of Design (British Museum), The Flower

Book, for instance, as well as few references coming from my PhD dissertation.

1875 version. Location unknown. Sallets are on the lower right.

Morgan Le Fay The Wine of Circe

Laus Veneris

The Depths of the Sea Grave of the Sea (from the Flower book)

A Sea-Nymph(source : http://www.dinahroe.com/blog/top_5_pre_raphaelite_waterlogged_maidens)

Mermaids and Sea-Babies (source :

http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/mermaids/)

Arnold Böcklin, das Spiel der Najaden, 1886, Kunstmuseum, Basel.

Key of Spring (Flower Book -fac-simile) : Burne-Jones explanation of spring