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 |
Cultural Comparison, Nineteenth-Century Ideals, Societal Traditions, Issues of Gender
| [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). |
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
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
Share This Article
Twitter
Linked In
Facebook
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}
}
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 -
Information
Email: