Study for 'Green Summer'

Edward Burne-Jones

Date: c. 1864

Materials: Chalk

Praised by Stephens

Writing in the 'Athenaeum' in 1864, F. G. Stephens praised Burne-Jones's work for its "romantic feeling, luxury of colour and poetic realisation of a youthful dream".

This perfectly describes not only his earlier watercolours, such as 'An Idyll', but also the artist's next major work, 'Green Summer'. An even more elaborate harmony in green and red, this was exhibited at the Old Water Colour Society in 1865.

Memory & Imagination

Burne-Jones had made some studies from nature in the summer of 1863, but had given this up by the following year. Georgiana Burne-Jones recalled that Green Summer was painted in the studio at Red House, the Morrises' home, since "there seemed little reason for him to torment himself by a struggle with the outer world, and as a rule he painted his backgrounds from notes of nature made here, there, and everywhere, and then dealt with by memory and imagination".

Instead, the artist concentrated on figure studies. Although it is exceptionally beautiful, the present sheet is typical of the large number of preparatory studies that became a regular part of Burne-Jones's practice from this date onwards.