The mother of Sir Edward Burne-Jones died when he was born. The lot of
a lad without a mother is bound to be a hard one, especially if he has
no brothers or sisters. His father would permit him to read only two or
three books; but one of them was Æsop's Fables, and this was the boy's
favorite, because it had prints in it. The child used to spend much
time before the shop windows looking at the volumes he might not read.
He was never very strong physically.
This course seems to have driven the boy to living in the realms of
the imagination,--a training for the painter of nymphs and fairies he
was to become later. Not until he was twenty-three, it is said, did
Burne-Jones see a good picture.
When he went up to Oxford he formed a friendship with William Morris,
a youth almost as shy as himself. They read Ruskin's "Modern Painters"
together, and told each other their dreams. At London during one of
the vacations he came into touch with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and on
advice of this artist gave up his studies at Oxford to devote himself
exclusively to the study of art. However frail Burne-Jones may have
been physically, there could have been no lack of mental courage in the
man who could take such a bold step as this.
His struggle was a long one and a hard one; but he was never without
the help and encouragement of warm friends, Ruskin among them. He
traveled to Italy. On his second trip he went with Ruskin. But with the
possible exception of Botticelli, the Italian masters had little direct
influence upon his work. He seems to have caught their spirit of doing
things, of doing them as well as he was able, with deep sincerity of
feeling.
He was one of the leading spirits of the Preraphaelites, a band of
young men who hoped to regenerate art by putting into their work the
simplicity and sincerity that had actuated the artists before Raphael's
time.
He married in 1860, and settled on the outskirts of London. A gradually
increasing host of friends began to make their way to his modest home.
Burne-Jones felt that, wherever else he might be at fault, in spirit
he was right. So he did not reach for the fame that makes less wise
men seek short cuts, but worked steadily and carefully. His reputation
increased, honors came to him, and before he died he knew that his work
was being appreciated.
In 1894, four years before his death, a baronetcy was conferred upon
him by Queen Victoria, and to those who knew the man and his work this
was felt to be not higher than was deserved.
[Illustration: MADONNA AND CHILD WITH ANGELS, BY BELLINI.]
_Giovanni Bellini_