Fairies in Victorian Painting - Hardcover

Wood, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1851493360 ISBN 13: 9781851493364

Publisher: Antique Collectors' Club, 2000

Synopsis

The golden age of fairy painting lasted between 1840-1870, when fairies found expression in most of the Victorian arts - paintings, illustration, literature, theater, ballet, and music. The genre had a strong literary background, from the books of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen to Shakespeare's The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. These works, along with the Victorian obsession with spiritualism and the supernatural, created an atmosphere in which Fairy painting flourished.

The work of the great fairy painters is examined - Dadd, Paton, Fitzgerald, and Richard Doyle - along with that of other Victorian painters like Landseer, Fuseli, Millais, Rossetti, and Rackham.

About this title

From Library Journal:

At first glance, it would seem that the depiction of airies in art was a relatively minor aspect of Victorian culture. But this book demonstrates the diverse ways in which fairies could be expressed on canvas. These depictions permitted what is here described as an unromantic, materialistic, and scientific society to escape into the world of magic, ghosts, "spiritualism, and psychology." More to the point, they allowed repressed subjects such as nudity and eroticism to be dealt with in a socially acceptable manner. A skilled and prolific writer on Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian art, Wood examines the origins of fairy painting in the works of William Blake and discusses the influence of theater and literature, in particular Shakespeare's use of fairies in The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream. We are then given samples of work by the leading Victorian fairy painters and a discussion of lesser fairy painters and illustrators. Throughout, the prose is clear, to the point, and informative. The uniformly beautiful reproductions show the superb technical skill of the painters, and it is fascinating to see how they imagined this "other world." Recommended for any art library. Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Antique Collectors' Club
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1851493360
• ISBN 13: 9781851493364
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200