William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones, the last Pre-Raphaelite

William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones had been friends since their time at Oxford, and shared a love of the medieval period – both its artistic style and literature. Together they read Ruskin’s Stones of Venice and, caught up in the romantic notion of the spiritual craftsman, abandoned their plans to enter the Church in favour of Art. Burne-Jones, mentored by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), pursued a career as a painter as Morris began his design work. For a while, the two shared lodgings and Burne-Jones painted languid scenes from medieval romances on Morris’s flat, simple furniture designs.

The friendship between the two intensely driven and imaginative artists was not always so idyllic, however. The strong political leanings that Morris developed later in life cast a shadow over his friendship with Burne-Jones, who had become increasingly conservative. They continued to collaborate artistically despite this intellectual difference, and their work on the Chaucer brought the old closeness back to their friendship. Upon the Chaucer’s completion, Burne-Jones mused that “when Morris and I were little chaps at Oxford we should have gone off our heads if such a book came out then, but we have made at the end of our days the very thing we would have made then if we could.”