Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/340

 the honorary degree of D.C.L. was given to him, while in 1882 he and Lord Leighton alone among British artists were invited by the French Government to represent their country at the International Exhibition of Contemporary Art. In June 1885 much interest was aroused by the prices paid for his works at the dispersal of Mr. Ellis' collection by auction, and in the same month the Royal Academy elected him an associate, from which position, however, he retired in 1893. A second sale, in 1886, that of Mr. William Graham's pictures, more than confirmed his advance in the opinion of connoisseurs and helped greatly to secure it in that of the outside public. He ceased to exhibit at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1888, reserving his contributions for the New Gallery in the future, and in the same year he was unanimously re-elected a member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours. As a result of the Exhibition at Paris in 1889, he received a Knighthood of the Legion of Honour, and in 1890 his position among the foremost artists of the day was assured by the exhibition at Messrs. Agnew's Galleries of the great ' Briar Rose ' series. That the final judgment of the critical was fully endorsed by the less learned, was shown by the crowds that thronged to see the pictures, as they did even more markedly to the New Gallery during the winter of 1893-4, when the display was confined entirely to his works, a distinction not often granted to a living artist. In 1897 a first-class medal was awarded to him at the Antwerp Exhibition, and in the same year Her Majesty the Queen conferred upon him the honour of Baronetcy. His work had been more than once interrupted by illness during these later years, and in the early months of 1898 he suffered severely from influenza, but there was no suspicion of any imminent danger, and his sudden death in the early morning of June 17 at his house in London came as a general shock. He was buried on June 21 at Rottingdean near Brighton, where he had for some years resided for part of each year. Among his more important pictures are 'Laus Veneris' (1861-1878), 'The Merciful Knight' (1863), 'The Wine of Circe' (1863-1869), ' St. George and the Dragon,' a set of seven pictures (1865-6, but largely repainted in 1895), 'Le chant d'amour' (1868-1877), 'Spring' and 'Autumn' (1869), 'Pygmalion and the Image,' a series of four pictures (1869-1879): 'Night' (1870), 'Summer,' 'Winter,' and 'Day' (1871), 'Temperantia' (1872-3), 'The Angels of Creation' (1872-1876), 'The Beguiling of Merlin' (1872-1877), 'The Feast of Peleus ' (1872-1881), 'The Mirror of Venus' (1873-1877), 'The Annunciation' (1876-1879), 'The Golden Stairs' (1876-1880), 'The Wheel of Fortune' (1877-1883), 'Dies Domini' (1880), ' King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid' (1880-1884); 'Perseus and the Graiæ' (1883-1893), 'The Baleful Head' (1884-1887), 'The Rock of Doom' and 'The Doom's Fulfilment' (1884-1888), all four belonging to an uncompleted series illustrating the story of Perseus; 'Tlie Briar Wood' (1884-1890), 'The Rose Bower' (1885-1890), 'The Garden Court' (1887-1890) and 'The Council Room' (1888-1890), forming 'The Briar Rose' series; 'The Depths of the Sea' (1886), the only picture the artist ever exliibited at Burlington House; 'The Star of Bethlehem' (1888-1891), 'Sponsa di Libano' (1891); 'Love among the Ruins' (1893), a replica of an earlier work which was destroyed by accident; 'Aurora' (1806); 'The Prioress' Tale ' (1869-1898), his last finislied work, and 'Arthur in Avalon,' left unfinished at his death. In addition to these, and many other purely pictorial works, he produced, for the most part in co-operation with the late William Morris, a vast amount of decorative work, taking to a great extent the form of cartoons for stained glass windows, of which examples may be found in churches in Sloane Street, Vera Street and elsewhere in London, in the cathedrals of Oxford and Salisbury, in Peterhouse and other colleges at Cambridge, at Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Dundee, Dublin, and many other cities both in England and abroad. He also made numerous designs for tapestry, a specimen of which, 'The Star of Bethlehem,' forms part of the decoration of the chapel in Exeter College, Oxford. His most important decorative achievement, however, is in the American Protestant Church in the Via Nazionale at Rome, and consists of a series of mosaics, 'The New Jerusalem' adorning the apse, 'The Fall of the Rebel Angels,' 'The Tree of Life,' etc., the walls. The most conspicuous characteristic of his work is its individuality, for though in his earher years he was undoubtedly influenced by Rossetti, and in his later found not a few imitators, few artists have ever struck so strongly personal a note. The sources of his inspiration were sevenfold—mediæval ballads and legends, classical myths, 'The Earthly Paradise' by William Morris, the poems of Chaucer and Spenser, the Bible, allegory, and pure imagination ; but from whatever source his subject was derived it was invariably infused with and transfigured by a powerful and somewhat melancholy poetical charm which was all his own, expressed with a refined and delicate feeling for beauty of form and colour, and illustrated with a prodigal wealth of charming and significant detail. His method of work was as original as were the results produced. He rarely completed a picture at one stretch. Rather he loved to linger over it, to work upon it when he was in a fitting mood, to put it away and turn to something else, returning to it again and yet again, until at last it reached completion. Thus, as may be seen by the dates given above in the list of his principal works, a picture might be for years upon the easel, as, for example, 'The Prioress' Tale,' which though begun in 1869 was not completed until the end was near at hand, in 1898. He first, as a rule, carefully drew in chalk or pencil the design, altering it more or less from time to time and making, simultaneously, whenever an interval between other labours allowed, most careful and elaborate studies of the various details he proposed to introduce into it later. When at length the arrangement was to his liking he made a small colour-sketch in chalks or water-colours, from which, if the idea seemed of sufficient importance to be carried out on a large scale, he painted in water-colours a cartoon of the same size as the canvas he intended to use. Finally, when every incident was decided on and numberless studies had been made, he began upon the picture itself, and so thoroughly was he by then acquainted with every detail he proposed to embody in it, that although, as has been said, months or even years might elapse between two periods of work upon it, he was enabled to resume it, when he wished to do so, as if he had laid it aside only the night before. When the finishing touches had been bestowed