Pre-Raphaelite Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
This paper offers a close comparative analysis of two nineteenth-century British paintings held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lachrymae (1895) by Lord Frederic Leighton and The Love Song (1868) by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Both works are situated within the Pre-Raphaelite movement, yet they differ markedly in tone, historical reference, and personal intent. The paper examines how each painting appropriates imagery from the past — ancient Greece in Leighton's case and the medieval era in Burne-Jones's — and how each artist reshapes those borrowed styles to reflect his own moment and mood. The analysis considers symbolism, color, composition, and the tension between idealization and modernist tendencies.
- Introduction: Two Pre-Raphaelite Works: Overview of Lachrymae and its mourning subject
- Leighton's Lachrymae: Grief and Modernist Undertones: Symbolism, Pre-Raphaelitism, and modernist blurring in Leighton
- Burne-Jones's The Love Song: Medieval Idealism: Medieval setting, Renaissance style, and Pre-Raphaelite ideals
- Artistic Appropriation and the Re-Use of the Past: How both paintings reshape historical styles anew
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its analysis in precise visual description, noting specific details such as the dry leaves at the figure's feet in Lachrymae and the contrasting realism of the knight in The Love Song, before drawing interpretive conclusions.
- It moves naturally from individual analysis to comparative synthesis, allowing the final paragraph to feel earned rather than imposed.
- The use of biographical context — Leighton composing the work while dying — adds interpretive depth without overreaching the visual evidence.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative visual analysis: two works are examined in sequence, each on its own terms, and then placed side by side to reveal what the contrast illuminates. The writer consistently ties formal observations (color, line, shading) to thematic claims (mourning, idealization, narrative), showing how close looking supports argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing both paintings and the broader Pre-Raphaelite context. It then devotes a paragraph to each work individually, moving from Leighton's late, personal symbolism to Burne-Jones's earlier, more faithful historical reconstruction. A concluding paragraph synthesizes the comparison around the concept of artistic appropriation, drawing a distinction between the two phases of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
Introduction: Two Pre-Raphaelite Works
The painting Lachrymae by the British artist Lord Frederic Leighton depicts what appears to be a woman in a dark, Grecian tunic standing beside a column in mourning. The woman wears a dark cloak over her shoulder and has dark leaves in her hair. Although her full figure is visible to the viewer, she turns away, as if inhabiting her own private world of grief. Dry leaves and a withered laurel crown lie at her feet, suggesting she mourns for a dead lover. Other than the golden sun setting in the background, the overall atmosphere is one of profound sadness, despite the idealized and proportionate figure of the woman.
Leighton's Lachrymae: Grief and Modernist Undertones
Although it attempts to recreate the imagery of ancient Greece in its style and symbolism, Lachrymae is identified as reflective of a late form of the nineteenth-century movement known as Pre-Raphaelitism, with certain precursors of modernism. Leighton looked back in time and used images from the past to convey a particular mood — in this case, intense sadness. Although the painting is not specifically about a myth, it recalls ancient mythology to suggest the timeless nature of death and grief. Because of the beauty of the symbolic image and its perfectly blended colors and lines, however, the painting offers the viewer a sense of comfort alongside its sorrow. Modernism is reflected in the blurriness of the woman's face, which contrasts with the more realistic style of early Pre-Raphaelitism and is meant to indicate her inner state.
Burne-Jones's The Love Song: Medieval Idealism
The Love Song by Sir Edward Burne-Jones is another work of art from earlier in the nineteenth century. It is also a symbolic work — in this case a painting that attempts to present an idealized portrait of love. Rather than drawing on figures from the medieval era as a distant reference, Burne-Jones sets his painting directly within the medieval world. In the foreground, a young knight kneels with his back turned to the viewer, his attention fixed upon a woman playing a harp. The woman's face recalls Renaissance portraiture: it lacks a three-dimensional quality. The red and blue hues of the work also evoke Renaissance painting, and an angel appears beside the harp, underscoring the beauty and sanctity of her music. The subtle shading of the work is more modern than most Renaissance or medieval styles.
In contrast to the Leighton, however, this work is far more an exact replica of the historical style it appropriates. Leighton's work is darker and more personal; according to information provided about Lachrymae on the Metropolitan Museum website, at the time Leighton composed the work he was dying, and he used the image of the woman to convey his own sorrow. The Burne-Jones painting, by contrast, was composed during the early days of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and was designed to reflect its core ideas — among them the need to combine story, song, and history in a single painted composition.
Works Cited
Burne-Jones, Edward. The Love Song. 1868. Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110000259
Leighton, Frederic. Lachrymae. 1895. Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/110001313. [25 Feb 2013]
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