Edward Burne-Jones, English artist 1833 - 1898 (i think) mostly incorrectly refered to as a Pre-Raphaelite.
Did he have a Birmingham accent? I know he was from Birmingham but I have a vision of hime standing in front of the RA and saying “Alriot layds, I calls it the whale of fotuane…”
Not to be a dick or anything, but since he died in 1898, how on earth would anybody know what kind of accent he had? 
Unless somebody has an early wax cylinder recording of him talking, which I don’t see mentioned anywhere on the Internet…
I think that the biographical information from This page would suggest that he was a cut above the average pupil, and thus didn’t automatically speak like someone born in Rugeley.
The fact that he was “head boy” in his class and went on to Exeter might indicate that he was just slightly better than the riff-raff that lived out a miserable existance in industrial Birmingham of the mid-1800’s. While we can’t know that his accent was any better than his less-fortunate citizens, we can only assume from his progression in life(education, etc.) that it(his accent) was probably a bit above the lower half of the population of Birmingham.
I don’t feel like Googling much further.
Why did you say
What was he then, in your opinion?
samclem
What was he then, in your opinion?
Just so. Given that Burne-Jones is generally considered one of the defining members of the Pre-Raphs, I wonder what the agenda here is.
I consider EBJ a British symbolist although he would not have considered himself one. I only use the term Pre-Raphaelite for the members of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood founded in 1848. EBJ didn’t adhere to the major principles of the movement i.e. truth to nature, the whole problem with the term pre-raphaelite in that in 1882 a paper was written by Walter Hamilton in which the terms Aesthetic and Pre-raphaelite were used interchangeably which I think we can all agree would not have been intended when the brotherhood was founded.
Even though I think of EBJ as a symbolist I must also mention this was never really a coherent movement in Britain as it was in France.
BTW He grew up in poverty, he was sent to Exeter college in Oxford because he wanted to be a priest, at the time most sons of gentleman were sent to university unless it could not be afforded. His entry to university or his ability as a pupil is by no means an indication of his social standing or accent.
Theom
I only use the term Pre-Raphaelite for the members of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood founded in 1848.
I think that’s a fairly non-standard usage. To be sure, later artists such as Burne-Jones and Waterhouse are commonly described as “second generation” or “second wave” Pre-Raphaelites, but generally they’re still considered part of the movement despite stylistic differences from the founding PRB.
In the generalisation of the term Pre-Raphaelitism There are two kinds as you say, first wave, 2nd wave. The second wave was also refered to as aethetic Pre-Raphaelitism and William Holman Hunt tried really hard to dissasociate the orignial brotherhood from the second lot because it was decadent and not in keeping with what his founding ideals were.
Pre-Raphaelite is more of a buzz phrase than an acurate description.
theom Thanks for the additional info. I have no expertise in art in this(or any other) area, so you have the best of me there.
Just because you don’t show up on “sign-up day” in 1848, does that mean you are forever banned from being a painter in the style?
As for his accent, no one will ever know what it was. But I wonder if your suggestion that it was “lower class” was just in keeping with your dissatisfaction with his classification as a Pre-Raphaelite?
I woundn’t quite call it a “buzz phrase”, more a term with both a narrow and a broad definition. The narrow version would be that the original seven - Millais, Hunt, Rossetti, Collinson, Woolner, Stephens and Michael - have as much right to the term Pre-Raphaelite as any other group has to any other name in art history. The question would then be whether their style, whatever that might be, can be identified in other hands. That question seems to me rather more subjective and contigent. Just yesterday, I walked into relevant rooms of the Manchester City Art Gallery and introduced them as “the Pre-Raphaelite stuff” to my (in one case rather more knowledgeable) companions. And that seems to me entirely justified as a broad brush, here-it-all-is generalisation. But I wouldn’t claim that Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs, one of the best paintings in those gallaries, is necessarily Pre-Raphaelite. Closely related, sure, but, equally, clearly not falling into the narrow definition. In the end, exact boundaries are fluid, once one starts appending labels beyond precise historical self-identifications. I thus suspect that theom and raygirvan could be arguing at cross-purposes by starting from different definitions.
Burne-Jones’ accent is another matter entirely and just the sort of issue I’d hope a Doper might just nail.
*bonzer *
I thus suspect that theom and raygirvan could be arguing at cross-purposes by starting from different definitions.
Maybe, but I think very few people use theom’s definition that categorically excludes non-Brotherhood painters.