Was Burne-Jones a reluctant radical?

The Radical Vision of Edward Burne-Jones

Andrea Wolk Rager (Yale University Press, £45)

‘I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream’

THE title of this book is, at first glance, a curious one. What exactly was radical about the medievalist, mystical and Michelangelesque paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones? They show a very Victorian dream world, comprising Arthurian legends, Classical mythology and Biblical incidents, all depicted in a style that draws on the Renaissance and earlier traditions. They are, without exception, otherworldly, escapist, even. The realms they conjure up seemingly have nothing to do with the age in which they were made.

According to the American art historian Andrea Wolk Rager, however, this reading misrepresents Burne-Jones’s intent. His pictures, she says, are, in fact, veiled indictments of the ills of the time: from Imperialist expansion