Corbett, D.P. (2001) Visuality and unmediation in Burne-Jones's Laus Veneris. Art History, 24 (1). pp. 83-102. ISSN 0141-6790
Abstract
This article argues that a contest between the image and verbal knowledge is central to the work of Burne-Jones and that this contest thematizes cultural tensions around the capacity of the visual arts to deal adequately with the new conditions of contemporary experience. Contrary to most established readings, I argue that Burne-Jones's painting possessed for contemporaries the possibility of critical potential in its resistance to the instrumental values of late nineteenth-century modernity and that this potential was expressed most powerfully through their visual character. But if Burne-Jones's dream was critical in this way, it was also insecure. Opposing the visual to the word as forms of effective knowledge about reality, Burne-Jones's paintings of the 1870s nonetheless turn out to be dependent on the word and to enact a dialectic between word and image as a central part of their constitution.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > History of Art (York) |
Depositing User: | York RAE Import |
Date Deposited: | 23 Jul 2009 14:49 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jul 2009 14:49 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8365.00250 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/1467-8365.00250 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:5659 |