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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Edward Burne-Jones’s The Mirror of Venus: Physical and Intangible Female Beauty
Author(s)
Liana De Girolami Cheney
Full-Text PDF
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2019.01.010
Affiliation(s)
Independent Scholar
ABSTRACT
The Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898) conceived the subject of The Mirror of Venus between 1865 and 1867. He painted two versions: a small version in gouache and oil and a larger version in oil on canvas. In composing this subject Burne-Jones was inspired by the poetic and chromatic description of a lyrical stanza on “The Hill of Venus” in the long epic poem Earthly Paradise, written by his close friend and collaborator William Morris. This study comprises three parts: Burne-Jones’s history of the paintings, his iconographical sources, and an iconological interpretation of The Mirror of Venus.
KEYWORDS
Venus, astronomy, beauty, love, mirror, planet, star, water, symbolism, British poetry, Neoplatonism, Aesthetic Movement, Art Nouveau, Symbolists
Cite this paper
References
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Bell, M. (1899). Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A record and review. London: George Bell and Sons.
Benedetti, M. T., & Piantoni, G. (1986). Burne-Jones: dal pretafaellismo al symbolism. Milan: Mazzotta.
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Burne-Jones, G. (1904). Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (2 vols.). London: MacMillan & Co.
Caldwell, R. S. (Ed.). (1987). Hesiod’s theogony. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins, Company.
Cartari, V. (1556). Le Imagine de i Dei degl’Antichi. Venice: Francesco Marcolini.
Sullivan, G. A. et al. (2012). The encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (3 vols.). London: Blackwell Publishing.
Cecil, D. (1969). Visionary and dreamer: Two poetic painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cheney, L. D. G. (1993). Botticelli’s Neoplatonic images. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica.
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Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Giorgio Vasari’s Fine Arts from the Vite of 1550. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 7(February), 140-178.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2013). Edward Burne-Jones’s mythical paintings. New York: Peter Lang.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Edward Burne-Jones’s The Planet Mars. Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 24(3), 15-27.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Edward Burne-Jones’s The Planets: Musical spheres and visions of a Benevolent Cosmos. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 7(7), 1–57.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Edward Burne-Jones’s Luna: A Celestial Sphere. 283-300. In The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy, a special issue of Culture and Cosmos 21(1).
Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1994). A dictionary of symbols. London: Blackwell.
Cirlot, J. E. (1962). A dictionary of symbols. New York: Public Library.
Classen, A. (2018). Water in medieval literature: An ecocritical reading. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Coats, A. M. (1992). Garden Shrubs and their histories. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Cole, B. (2015). Jean Delville: Art between nature and the absolute. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Press.
Cooper, J. C. (1978). An illustrated encyclopaedia of traditional symbols. London: Thames and Hudson.
Cropper, E. (1976). On beautiful women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular style. Art Bulletin, 58(3), 374-394.
Danahay, M. (1994). Mirrors of Masculine Desire: Narcissus and pygmalion in victorian representations. Victorian Poetry, 32, 35-53.
De Lisle, F. (1904). Burne-Jones. London: Methuen and Co.
De Mailley Nesle, A. (1985). Astrology: History, symbols, and signs. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International.
Fahr-Becker, G. (2015). Art Nouveau. Cologne: H.F. Ulmann.
Ficino, M. (1561). Opera Omnia (All Works) (2 vols.). Basel: Petri.
Fierz-David, L. (1987). The dream of Poliphilo: The soul in love. Dallas, TX: Spring Publishers.
Fitzgerald, P. (1975). Edward Burne-Jones. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Flint, K. (1999). Edward Burne-Jones’s Mirror of Venus: Surface and subjectivity in the art criticism of the 1870s. In E. Prettejohn (Ed.), After the Pre-Raphaelites (pp. 152-64). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Fröhlich, F. (2010). The Mirror of Venus. In Exhibition catalogue at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Museum, Edward Burne-Jones: Earthly Paradise (pp. 97-99). Stuttgart: Hatje/Cantz.
Fleming, J. V. (1969). The Roman de la Rose: A study in allegory and iconography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gaunt, W. (1942). The Pre-Raphaelite tragedy. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Godwin, J. (1999). The strife of love in a dream. London: Thames and Hudson.
Godwin, J. (2002). The pagan dream of the renaissance. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes.
Grafton, A. ( 2000). Leon Battista Alberti: Master builder of the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hall, J. (1974). Dictionary of symbols in art. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers.
Hanser, D. (Ed.). (1984). Fimitas, Utilitas, Venustas: Architecture and society. Dubuque, IA: Kendal Hunt.
Healey, R. P. (2011). Italian literature before 1900 in English translation: An annotated bibliography 1929-2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Howe, J. (1982). The symbolist art of Fernand Khnopff. Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press.
Jayne, S. R. (1985). Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s symposium. Washington, DC: Spring Publications.
Jung, C. J. (2001). On the nature of the psyche. Trans, R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge Classics.
Kincaid, A. (2018). Self, psyche and symbolism of the Roman de la Rose. http://psyartjournal.com/article/show/todeyself_psyche_and_symbolism_in_the_r oman_d
Kristeller, P. O. (1985). The letters of Marsilio Ficino (3 vols.). New York: Ginko.
Lippert, S. (2017). Space and time in artistic practice and aesthetics: The legacy of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. London: IB Tauris.
Mancoff, D. (2004). Unpainted masterpieces: The drawings of Edward Burne-Jones. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 32, 44-55.
Most, G. W. (Ed.). (2007). Hesiod’s theogony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library.
Mulryan, J. (2012). Vincenzo Cartari, images of the gods of the ancients: The first Italian mythographer. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS.
Mussell, J. (2013). Specular reflections: John Brett and the Mirror of Venus. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, np. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.670
Orr, L. F., & Calloway, S. (Eds.). (2012). The cult of beauty: The Victorian avant-garde 1860-1900. London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
Pater, W. (1893). Plato and Platonism. London: MacMillan.
Sale, W. (1961). Aphrodite in the theogony. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 92, 508-521.
Samuel-Lasner, M. (1978). Note on Burne-Jones’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Pre-Raphaelite Review, 1, 110.
Schurr, G., & Pierre Cabanne, P. (Eds.). (1996-2003). Dictionnaire des Petits Maîtres de la peinture, 1820-1920 (2 vols.). Paris: Editions de l’Amateur.
Sewter, A. C. (1977). The stained glass of William Morris and his circle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Seznec, J. (1953). Le manuels mythologiques et leur diffusion en Angleterre à la fin de la Renaissance. Mélanges d’histoire d’archéologie, 50, 276-292.
Seznec, J. (1953). The survival of the pagan gods. (B. F. Sessions, Trans.). New York: Harper and Row.
Spencer, R. (1972). The aesthetic movement: Theory and practice. London: Studio Vista Ltd.
Sticher, C. (2014). Wasser: Symbol des Lebens un des Glaubens. (Water: Symbol of Life and Believe). Stuttgart: Katholische Biblework.
Stimili, D. (2005). The face of immortality: Physiognomy and criticism. New York: State University of New York Press.
Straffon, C. (1997). The earth goddess: Celtic and pagan legacy of the landscape. London: Blanford.
Sweeney, J. L. (Ed.). (1956). The painter’s eye. Notes and essays on the pictorial arts by Henry James. London: Rupert Hart-Davis.
The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art. (2003). Auction cat. (3 vols.). London: Christie’s.
Thiébaut, P. (2018). Mucha et l’Art Nouveau. Paris: Éditions du Chêne.
Under Cover: Artists’ Sketchbooks. (2006). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universities Art Museums.
Vaenius, O. (1608). Amorum Emblemata (Emblems of love). Antwerp: Henrik Swingen, English trans. Richard Verstegan, 1615-1620.
Varner, G. R. (2009). Sacred well: A study in the history, meaning, and mythology of holy wells and water. New York: Algora Publishing.
Vitruvius. (1960). The ten books on architecture, M. H. Morgan, (Ed.). New York: Dover.
Waters, B., & Harrison, M. (1973). Burne-Jones. London: Barrie and Jenkins.
Wood, C. (1999). Victorian painting. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
Wood, C. (1998). Burne-Jones: The life and works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898. New York: Steward, Tabori & Chang.
Zatlin, L. A. (2007). Aubrey Beardsley and the Shaping of Art Nouveau. In J. Allison (Ed.), Bound for the 1890s: Essays on writing and publishing in honor of James G. Nelson (np). Buckinghamshire: Rivendale Press.
Zuffi, S., & Novellone, A. (2009). Arte e Zodiaco: Storia, misteri e intepretazioni dei segni zodiacale nei secoli (Art and Zodiac: history, mysteries and interpretations of the signs of the zodiac through the centuries). Rome: Sassi.
Bell, M. (1899). Sir Edward Burne-Jones: A record and review. London: George Bell and Sons.
Benedetti, M. T., & Piantoni, G. (1986). Burne-Jones: dal pretafaellismo al symbolism. Milan: Mazzotta.
Blunt, B. (1968). Artistic theory in Italy, 1450-1600. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boos, F. S. (2001). Ten journeys to the Venusberg: Morris’ drafts for “The Hill of Venus”. Victoria Poetry, 39(4), 597-616.
Boos, F. S. (Ed.). (2002). William Morris’ earthly paradise. New York: Routledge.
Bull, M. (1969). Mirror of the Gods. New York: Oxford University Press.
Burne-Jones, G. (1904). Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (2 vols.). London: MacMillan & Co.
Caldwell, R. S. (Ed.). (1987). Hesiod’s theogony. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins, Company.
Cartari, V. (1556). Le Imagine de i Dei degl’Antichi. Venice: Francesco Marcolini.
Sullivan, G. A. et al. (2012). The encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (3 vols.). London: Blackwell Publishing.
Cecil, D. (1969). Visionary and dreamer: Two poetic painters, Samuel Palmer and Edward Burne-Jones. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cheney, L. D. G. (1993). Botticelli’s Neoplatonic images. Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica.
Cheney, L. D. G. (1995). Burne-Jones: Mannerist in an age of modernism. In S. Casteras and A. Faxon (Eds.), Pre-Raphaelite art in Its European context (pp. 103-116). Cranbury, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, Associated University Press.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Giorgio Vasari’s Fine Arts from the Vite of 1550. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 7(February), 140-178.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2013). Edward Burne-Jones’s mythical paintings. New York: Peter Lang.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Edward Burne-Jones’s The Planet Mars. Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 24(3), 15-27.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Edward Burne-Jones’s The Planets: Musical spheres and visions of a Benevolent Cosmos. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, 7(7), 1–57.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2017). Edward Burne-Jones’s Luna: A Celestial Sphere. 283-300. In The Marriage of Astronomy and Culture: Theory and Method in the Study of Cultural Astronomy, a special issue of Culture and Cosmos 21(1).
Chevalier, J., & Gheerbrant, A. (1994). A dictionary of symbols. London: Blackwell.
Cirlot, J. E. (1962). A dictionary of symbols. New York: Public Library.
Classen, A. (2018). Water in medieval literature: An ecocritical reading. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Coats, A. M. (1992). Garden Shrubs and their histories. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Cole, B. (2015). Jean Delville: Art between nature and the absolute. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Press.
Cooper, J. C. (1978). An illustrated encyclopaedia of traditional symbols. London: Thames and Hudson.
Cropper, E. (1976). On beautiful women, Parmigianino, Petrarchismo, and the Vernacular style. Art Bulletin, 58(3), 374-394.
Danahay, M. (1994). Mirrors of Masculine Desire: Narcissus and pygmalion in victorian representations. Victorian Poetry, 32, 35-53.
De Lisle, F. (1904). Burne-Jones. London: Methuen and Co.
De Mailley Nesle, A. (1985). Astrology: History, symbols, and signs. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions International.
Fahr-Becker, G. (2015). Art Nouveau. Cologne: H.F. Ulmann.
Ficino, M. (1561). Opera Omnia (All Works) (2 vols.). Basel: Petri.
Fierz-David, L. (1987). The dream of Poliphilo: The soul in love. Dallas, TX: Spring Publishers.
Fitzgerald, P. (1975). Edward Burne-Jones. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Flint, K. (1999). Edward Burne-Jones’s Mirror of Venus: Surface and subjectivity in the art criticism of the 1870s. In E. Prettejohn (Ed.), After the Pre-Raphaelites (pp. 152-64). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Fröhlich, F. (2010). The Mirror of Venus. In Exhibition catalogue at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Museum, Edward Burne-Jones: Earthly Paradise (pp. 97-99). Stuttgart: Hatje/Cantz.
Fleming, J. V. (1969). The Roman de la Rose: A study in allegory and iconography. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gaunt, W. (1942). The Pre-Raphaelite tragedy. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Godwin, J. (1999). The strife of love in a dream. London: Thames and Hudson.
Godwin, J. (2002). The pagan dream of the renaissance. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes.
Grafton, A. ( 2000). Leon Battista Alberti: Master builder of the Italian Renaissance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Hall, J. (1974). Dictionary of symbols in art. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers.
Hanser, D. (Ed.). (1984). Fimitas, Utilitas, Venustas: Architecture and society. Dubuque, IA: Kendal Hunt.
Healey, R. P. (2011). Italian literature before 1900 in English translation: An annotated bibliography 1929-2008. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Howe, J. (1982). The symbolist art of Fernand Khnopff. Ann Arbor, UMI Research Press.
Jayne, S. R. (1985). Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s symposium. Washington, DC: Spring Publications.
Jung, C. J. (2001). On the nature of the psyche. Trans, R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge Classics.
Kincaid, A. (2018). Self, psyche and symbolism of the Roman de la Rose. http://psyartjournal.com/article/show/todeyself_psyche_and_symbolism_in_the_r oman_d
Kristeller, P. O. (1985). The letters of Marsilio Ficino (3 vols.). New York: Ginko.
Lippert, S. (2017). Space and time in artistic practice and aesthetics: The legacy of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. London: IB Tauris.
Mancoff, D. (2004). Unpainted masterpieces: The drawings of Edward Burne-Jones. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 32, 44-55.
Most, G. W. (Ed.). (2007). Hesiod’s theogony. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Loeb Classical Library.
Mulryan, J. (2012). Vincenzo Cartari, images of the gods of the ancients: The first Italian mythographer. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS.
Mussell, J. (2013). Specular reflections: John Brett and the Mirror of Venus. Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, np. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16995/ntn.670
Orr, L. F., & Calloway, S. (Eds.). (2012). The cult of beauty: The Victorian avant-garde 1860-1900. London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
Pater, W. (1893). Plato and Platonism. London: MacMillan.
Sale, W. (1961). Aphrodite in the theogony. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 92, 508-521.
Samuel-Lasner, M. (1978). Note on Burne-Jones’s Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Pre-Raphaelite Review, 1, 110.
Schurr, G., & Pierre Cabanne, P. (Eds.). (1996-2003). Dictionnaire des Petits Maîtres de la peinture, 1820-1920 (2 vols.). Paris: Editions de l’Amateur.
Sewter, A. C. (1977). The stained glass of William Morris and his circle. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Seznec, J. (1953). Le manuels mythologiques et leur diffusion en Angleterre à la fin de la Renaissance. Mélanges d’histoire d’archéologie, 50, 276-292.
Seznec, J. (1953). The survival of the pagan gods. (B. F. Sessions, Trans.). New York: Harper and Row.
Spencer, R. (1972). The aesthetic movement: Theory and practice. London: Studio Vista Ltd.
Sticher, C. (2014). Wasser: Symbol des Lebens un des Glaubens. (Water: Symbol of Life and Believe). Stuttgart: Katholische Biblework.
Stimili, D. (2005). The face of immortality: Physiognomy and criticism. New York: State University of New York Press.
Straffon, C. (1997). The earth goddess: Celtic and pagan legacy of the landscape. London: Blanford.
Sweeney, J. L. (Ed.). (1956). The painter’s eye. Notes and essays on the pictorial arts by Henry James. London: Rupert Hart-Davis.
The Forbes Collection of Victorian Pictures and Works of Art. (2003). Auction cat. (3 vols.). London: Christie’s.
Thiébaut, P. (2018). Mucha et l’Art Nouveau. Paris: Éditions du Chêne.
Under Cover: Artists’ Sketchbooks. (2006). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universities Art Museums.
Vaenius, O. (1608). Amorum Emblemata (Emblems of love). Antwerp: Henrik Swingen, English trans. Richard Verstegan, 1615-1620.
Varner, G. R. (2009). Sacred well: A study in the history, meaning, and mythology of holy wells and water. New York: Algora Publishing.
Vitruvius. (1960). The ten books on architecture, M. H. Morgan, (Ed.). New York: Dover.
Waters, B., & Harrison, M. (1973). Burne-Jones. London: Barrie and Jenkins.
Wood, C. (1999). Victorian painting. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.
Wood, C. (1998). Burne-Jones: The life and works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones 1833-1898. New York: Steward, Tabori & Chang.
Zatlin, L. A. (2007). Aubrey Beardsley and the Shaping of Art Nouveau. In J. Allison (Ed.), Bound for the 1890s: Essays on writing and publishing in honor of James G. Nelson (np). Buckinghamshire: Rivendale Press.
Zuffi, S., & Novellone, A. (2009). Arte e Zodiaco: Storia, misteri e intepretazioni dei segni zodiacale nei secoli (Art and Zodiac: history, mysteries and interpretations of the signs of the zodiac through the centuries). Rome: Sassi.