Description

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This handsome volume is the first authoritative survey of one of the most intriguing periods of British art—the radically innovative decade of the 1860s. The book explores new developments in English painting of this period, focusing on the early work of Edward Burne-Jones, Frederic Leighton, Albert Moore, Edward Poynter, Simeon Solomon, and James McNeill Whistler, as well as on paintings by Frederick Sandys and the older G. F. Watts, and by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his Pre-Raphaelite colleagues Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. 

Allen Staley argues that engagement in the decorative arts, particularly by Burne-Jones, Moore, and Poynter at the outset of their careers, led to a transcending of traditional expectations of painting, making abstract formal qualities, or beauty for beauty's sake, the main goal. Rather than being about what it depicts, the painting itself becomes its own subject. The New Painting of the 1860s examines the interplay among the artists and the shared ambitions underlying their works, giving impetus to what would soon come to be known as the Aesthetic Movement.

Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art

About the Author

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Allen Staley is professor emeritus of art history, Columbia University.

Praise For…

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“[A] superb study of painting in England during the 1860s . . . Giving a chapter to each artist, Staley considers their personal background, private life, and personality—but only insofar as it helps to elucidate, picture by picture, the complex creative process whereby stylistic change takes place. It is a tour de force.”—Richard Dorment, New York Review of Books
— Richard Dorment

 Shortlisted for the 2013 Historians of British Art Book Prize in the Post-1800 category, given by the Historians of British Art.
— 2013 Historians of British Art Short List in the Post-1800 category

Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2012 for Fine Arts within the Humanities category.
— Outstanding Academic Title

“Staley’s book is perfect for scholars who care about artists’ careers . . . surely the many delicious images and stunning details of brushwork and colour would delight anyone.”—Julie F. Codell, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies
— Julie F. Codell