Left, ‘The Beguiling of Merlin’, one the radical new works Burne-Jones exhibited at the groundbreaking Grosvenor Gallery exhibition in May 1877. The SPAB’s inaugural meeting two months earlier was probably not in the artist’s mind. The modern art sensation of its time, the exhibition marked a break from the Royal Academy’s stranglehold over painting. Above, Burne-Jones at his easel, self-parody c1885. Below, the artist sketched by George Howard around the time of the SPAB’s foundation


been aware of the ongoing crassness of the restoration. He had reported indignantly to Ruskin that already the whole north side of the cathedral had been “covered up and peeled off”. He feared that soon the only record of the original building would be the 15th-century Bellini painting Procession in Piazza San Marco, in the Accademia.


through her, was successful in enlisting the Liberal leader’s support. He told her: “It is such cursed work – so needless, so stupid, such devilry in short… A modern Homer wouldn’t be more useless, empty, and hateful to your father than the mockery of St. Mark’s will make to me. Do ask your father what is best to do.’” The Homer-loving Gladstone was amongst 2,000 signatories on the petition of protest


W


hen it came to the SPAB protest over St Mark’s, 17 years later, Burne-Jones took an active part. He was a friend of Gladstone’s daughter Mary and,


against the “restorations” which was sent to the Italian government. Burne-Jones was also prevailed upon by


Morris to be one of the six speakers at the SPAB St Mark’s campaign meeting held in the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. Usually he resisted public speaking and – apart from an embarrassing appearance at theWhistler vs Ruskin libel trial – this was the only time he ever spoke in public. Reportedly, Burne-Jones’s delivery was terrible. He muttered and he mumbled. But his sentiments were heartfelt. The whole idea of restoring ancient architecture was preposterous: “Who would think of restoring lost fragments to poetry, or of completing the Iliad?” Burne-Jones believed as passionately as


Morris in the supreme importance of buildings to a nation’s culture in providing a kind of moral yardstick. He reacted to architecture with abnormal sensitivity. “I wonder,” he asked, “if there are many in the world who are exhilarated by good architecture as I am – or crushed by bad ... Nothing in the whole world, in the visible world, affects me so much.” What were the types of building Burne-Jones


Cornerstone, Vol 32, No 3 2011 89


BRIDGEMAN


COURTESY THE CASTLE HOWARD COLLECTION


PRIVATE COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN


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