Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend

Melanie Enderle

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

| Peer-Reviewed

Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend

Melanie Enderle

Published in American Journal of Art and Design (Volume 7, Issue 4)

Received: 5 September 2022 Accepted: 21 September 2022 Published: 11 October 2022

Views: Downloads:

Download PDF

Share This Article

Twitter
Linked In
Facebook

Abstract

The legend of King Arthur was embraced by two distinct groups of British and American artists during the nineteenth century. This paper explores the different approaches between the American Brandywine School painters, N. C. Wyeth and his mentor Howard Pyle, and British Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt, John Waterhouse, John Everett Millais, and William Morris. The adventurous America spirit comes through in action-filled images created by the Brandywine School painters and their focus on heroism and the brave deeds of men reflect America’s unfettered enthusiasm. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites placed attention on the Arthurian damsels in distress, and laid emphasis on mythic heroines, confined in aesthetically pleasing settings. Embodying proper Victorian social structure, the Pre-Raphaelites deliberately promoted feminine gender expectations of passivity, whereas the Brandywine illustrators, with their emphasis on exploits of the active masculine figures, emphasized America’s can-do attitude and gave little consideration to the personhood of the female characters that populated the tales of King Arthur.

Published in	American Journal of Art and Design (Volume 7, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
Page(s)	90-96
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Cultural Comparison, Nineteenth-Century Ideals, Societal Traditions, Issues of Gender

References

[1]	Couch, J. N. “Howard Pyle’s ‘The Story of King Arthur and His Knights’ and the Bourgeois Boy Reader.” Arthuriana, 13 (2), 2003, 38–53.
[2]	Loomis, Roger Sherman. Arthurian Legend in Medieval Art. London: Oxford University Press, 1938.
[3]	Matthews, John, ed. Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. London: Cassel and Co., 2000.
[4]	Whitaker, Muriel. Arthur’s Kingdom of Adventure: The World of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur. Totowa, NJ: D. S. Brewer, 1984.
[5]	Mancoff, Debra N. The Return of King Arthur: The Legend Through Victorian Eyes. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.
[6]	Nelson, Elizabeth. "Tennyson and the Ladies of Shalott." Ladies of Shalott: A Victorian Masterpiece and its Contexts. Brown University Department of Art, Providence: Brown Art Department, 1985, p. 7.
[7]	Villar, José Maria Mesa. Women in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Arthurian Renditions (1854-1867). Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2014.
[8]	Poulson, Christine. The Quest for the Grail: Arthurian Legend in British Art 1840-1920. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.
[9]	Coyle, Heather Campbell, ed. Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press for Delaware Art Museum, 2011.
[10]	Whitaker, Muriel. The Legends of King Arthur in Art (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1990), 287.
[11]	Lupack, Barbara Tepa and Alan Lupack. Illustrating Camelot. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2008, p. 201.
[12]	Lupack, Alan and Barbara Tepa Lupack. King Arthur in America. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1999, p. 82.
[13]	Meyer, Susan E. America’s Great Illustrators. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987.
[14]	Dorman, S. Innocence In Lewis’s ‘Perelandra’ and Twain’s ‘King Arthur’s Court.’ Mythlore, 38 (1 135), 2019, 3–48.
[15]	Pyle, Howard. The Story of King Arthur and His Knights. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1927.
[16]	Lanier, Sidney. Boy’s King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory’s History of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1917.
[17]	Podmaniczky, Christine. "N. C. Wyeth: New Perspectives" at Brandywine Museum for Another Look at N. C. Wyeth, American Patriarch (PBS News Hour, Aug. 12, 2019).
[18]	Apatoff, David. “The Life and Art of N. C. Wyeth” for The Saturday Evening Post (June 21, 2019).

Cite This Article

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Melanie Enderle. (2022). Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. American Journal of Art and Design, 7(4), 90-96. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Melanie Enderle. Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. Am. J. Art Des. 2022, 7(4), 90-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Melanie Enderle. Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. Am J Art Des. 2022;7(4):90-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11,
  author = {Melanie Enderle},
  title = {Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend},
  journal = {American Journal of Art and Design},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {90-96},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajad.20220704.11},
  abstract = {The legend of King Arthur was embraced by two distinct groups of British and American artists during the nineteenth century. This paper explores the different approaches between the American Brandywine School painters, N. C. Wyeth and his mentor Howard Pyle, and British Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt, John Waterhouse, John Everett Millais, and William Morris. The adventurous America spirit comes through in action-filled images created by the Brandywine School painters and their focus on heroism and the brave deeds of men reflect America’s unfettered enthusiasm. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites placed attention on the Arthurian damsels in distress, and laid emphasis on mythic heroines, confined in aesthetically pleasing settings. Embodying proper Victorian social structure, the Pre-Raphaelites deliberately promoted feminine gender expectations of passivity, whereas the Brandywine illustrators, with their emphasis on exploits of the active masculine figures, emphasized America’s can-do attitude and gave little consideration to the personhood of the female characters that populated the tales of King Arthur.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend
AU  - Melanie Enderle
Y1  - 2022/10/11
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
T2  - American Journal of Art and Design
JF  - American Journal of Art and Design
JO  - American Journal of Art and Design
SP  - 90
EP  - 96
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2578-7802
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
AB  - The legend of King Arthur was embraced by two distinct groups of British and American artists during the nineteenth century. This paper explores the different approaches between the American Brandywine School painters, N. C. Wyeth and his mentor Howard Pyle, and British Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt, John Waterhouse, John Everett Millais, and William Morris. The adventurous America spirit comes through in action-filled images created by the Brandywine School painters and their focus on heroism and the brave deeds of men reflect America’s unfettered enthusiasm. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites placed attention on the Arthurian damsels in distress, and laid emphasis on mythic heroines, confined in aesthetically pleasing settings. Embodying proper Victorian social structure, the Pre-Raphaelites deliberately promoted feminine gender expectations of passivity, whereas the Brandywine illustrators, with their emphasis on exploits of the active masculine figures, emphasized America’s can-do attitude and gave little consideration to the personhood of the female characters that populated the tales of King Arthur.
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download

Author Information

Melanie Enderle

Department of Art History, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Download PDF

Sections

Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Melanie Enderle. (2022). Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. American Journal of Art and Design, 7(4), 90-96. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

ACS Style

Melanie Enderle. Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. Am. J. Art Des. 2022, 7(4), 90-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

AMA Style

Melanie Enderle. Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend. Am J Art Des. 2022;7(4):90-96. doi: 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11

Copy | Download

@article{10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11,
  author = {Melanie Enderle},
  title = {Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend},
  journal = {American Journal of Art and Design},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {90-96},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajad.20220704.11},
  abstract = {The legend of King Arthur was embraced by two distinct groups of British and American artists during the nineteenth century. This paper explores the different approaches between the American Brandywine School painters, N. C. Wyeth and his mentor Howard Pyle, and British Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt, John Waterhouse, John Everett Millais, and William Morris. The adventurous America spirit comes through in action-filled images created by the Brandywine School painters and their focus on heroism and the brave deeds of men reflect America’s unfettered enthusiasm. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites placed attention on the Arthurian damsels in distress, and laid emphasis on mythic heroines, confined in aesthetically pleasing settings. Embodying proper Victorian social structure, the Pre-Raphaelites deliberately promoted feminine gender expectations of passivity, whereas the Brandywine illustrators, with their emphasis on exploits of the active masculine figures, emphasized America’s can-do attitude and gave little consideration to the personhood of the female characters that populated the tales of King Arthur.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Brawn vs. Beauty in American Brandywine and British Pre-Raphaelite Images of Arthurian Legend
AU  - Melanie Enderle
Y1  - 2022/10/11
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
T2  - American Journal of Art and Design
JF  - American Journal of Art and Design
JO  - American Journal of Art and Design
SP  - 90
EP  - 96
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2578-7802
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajad.20220704.11
AB  - The legend of King Arthur was embraced by two distinct groups of British and American artists during the nineteenth century. This paper explores the different approaches between the American Brandywine School painters, N. C. Wyeth and his mentor Howard Pyle, and British Pre-Raphaelites Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman-Hunt, John Waterhouse, John Everett Millais, and William Morris. The adventurous America spirit comes through in action-filled images created by the Brandywine School painters and their focus on heroism and the brave deeds of men reflect America’s unfettered enthusiasm. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites placed attention on the Arthurian damsels in distress, and laid emphasis on mythic heroines, confined in aesthetically pleasing settings. Embodying proper Victorian social structure, the Pre-Raphaelites deliberately promoted feminine gender expectations of passivity, whereas the Brandywine illustrators, with their emphasis on exploits of the active masculine figures, emphasized America’s can-do attitude and gave little consideration to the personhood of the female characters that populated the tales of King Arthur.
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
ER  -

Copy | Download