Casting A New Light

Premier Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones has inspired contemporary artists in an unusual summer exhibition.

- Louise Dumas

The celebrated Victorian painter Edward Burne-Jones lived in Rottingdean for nearly 20 years from 1880 to 1898, finding both inspiration and solace in the seascapes of the Sussex coast and the wildflowers of the Downs.

In 1861, he joined The Firm a loose-knit band of artists and craftsmen founded by his friend William Morris to create and promote the decorative arts of metalwork, woodcarving, embroidery, murals and stained glass. These medieval crafts upheld the dignity of individual workmanship in contrast to the standardization of mass production, largely overlooked and undervalued in the hectic mechanization of the mid-19th century.

Burne-Jones became The Firm’s figurehead for stained glass work, personally responsible for windows which still exist today: St Michael and All Angels in Brighton, St Andrews in Portslade and Brighton College in particular. He learned and adapted the lost skills of medieval glaziers and inspired generations of artists in glass to produce images of a strikingly dramatic effect and an enduring narrative impact. We can still feel the emotion in the windows for his own church of St Margarets, Rottingdean where Archangel Raphael leads a small girl, almost certainly Edward’s daughter Margaret, by the hand.