Originally published in 2004. Once the most popular Victorian artist, G. F. Watts was also a complex and elusive figure. Influenced by evolutionary theory, he reinterpreted the tradition of the classical body, while his philanthropic and educational interests informed projects for a more affective public art. This book is the first modern account of the full range of Watts's different artistic interests and practices. Offering fresh approaches to his historical, allegorical and mythological paintings, it also traces his increasingly radical approach to portraiture and sculpture and examines the institutional and biographical factors behind his immense public profile. Together the essays present a comprehensive analysis of Watts's work and his vital relationship to the intellectual, cultural and social forces of his time.

In critical yet appreciative dialogue with four different art critics who demonstrated theological sensitivities, Adam Edward Carnehl traces an ongoing religious conversation that ran through nineteenth-century aesthetics. In Carnehl's estimation, this critical conversation between the John Ruskin, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde, culminated in the brilliant approach of G. K. Chesterton, who began his journalistic career with a series of insightful works of art criticism. By conducting a close reading of these largely neglected works, Carnehl demonstrates that Chesterton developed a theological aesthetic that focuses us on the revelation of God's image in every human being. In Chesterton's eyes, only those made in God's image can produce images themselves, and only those who receive a revelation of truth are able to reveal truths for others. Art is therefore a rich and symbolic unveiling of the truth of humanity which finds its origin and purpose in God the Divine Artist.

Tennyson experienced at first hand the all-pervasive nature of celebrity culture. It caused him to retreat from the eyes of the world. This book delineates Tennyson's reluctant celebrity and its effects on his writings, on his coterie of famous and notable friends and on the ever-expanding, media-led circle of Tennyson's admirers.

Explores the interconnected creative partnerships of the Wattses and De Morgans - Victorian artists, writers and suffragists This is the first book dedicated to examining the marital relationships of Mary and George Watts and Evelyn and William De Morgan as creative partnerships. The study demonstrates how they worked, individually and together, to support greater gender equality and female liberation in the nineteenth century. The author traces their relationship to early and more recent feminism, reclaiming them as influential early feminists and reading their works from twentieth-century theoretical perspectives. By focusing on neglected female figures in creative partnerships, the book challenges longstanding perceptions of them as the subordinate wives of famous Victorian artists and of their marriages as representatives of the traditional gender binary. This is also the first academic critical study of Mary Watts's recently published diaries, Evelyn De Morgan's unpublished writings and other previously unexplored archival material by the Wattses and the De Morgans. Key Features:Reveals the ways in which the couples promoted progressive socio-political ideasDraws on extensive archival research and analyses unpublished writings, including diaries and poemsFocuses on neglected female figures in creative partnerships to challenge longstanding perceptions of them as the submissive or subordinate wives of famous Victorian artists, and of their marriages as representatives of the traditional gender binaryShows how male and female writers and artists engaged with mid-to-late Victorian feminism together and individually, reclaiming them as influential early feminists

Nominated for the William MB Berger Prize for British Art History 2017. The Victorians admired Julia Margaret Cameron for her evocative photographic portraits of eminent men like Tennyson, Carlyle and Darwin. However, Cameron also made numerous photographs that she called 'Fancy subjects', depicting scenes from literature, personifications from classical mythology, and Biblical parables from the Old and New Testament. This book is the first comprehensive study of these works, examining Cameron's use of historical allegories and popular iconography to embed moral, intellectual and political narratives in her photographs. A work of cultural history as much as art history, this book examines cartoons from Punch and line drawings from the Illustrated London News, cabinet photographs and autotype prints, textiles and wall paper, book illustrations and lithographs from period folios, all as a way to contextualise the allegorical subjects that Cameron represented, revealing connections between her 'Fancy subjects' and popular debates about such topics as Biblical interpretation, democratic government and colonial expansion.

This book examines the centrality of the countryside to women's work, creativity, and aspirations in early-twentieth-century England.

The Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Postman’s Park, London, is a Victorian monument containing fifty-four ceramic plaques commemorating sixty-two individuals, each of whom lost their own life while attempting to save another. Every plaque tells a tragic and moving story, but the short narratives do little more than whet the appetite and stimulate the imagination about the lives and deaths of these brave characters. Based upon extensive historical research, this book will, for the first time, provide a full and engaging account of the dramatic circumstances behind each of the incidents, and reveal the vibrant and colourful lives led by those who tragically died.