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W. DAVID SHAW Edward Burne-Jones and Pre-Raphaelite Melancholy In Edward Burne-Jones's portrait of Caroline Fitzgerald (1884), the clue to the young model's oddly candid yet withdrawn gaze appears to lie in the undisclosed subject of her book. As a classical and Sanskrit scholar and a member of the American Oriental Society, Caroline may have been poring over a volume of linguistics. Given its embellished lettering, however, it is more likely that the future author of Venetia Victrix and Other Poems, a volume which she dedicates to Browning in 1889, has been reading a work of literature - possibly a copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer that Burne-Jones himself helped decorate and design. If we knew the book's title, we might unlock the secret of the model's mysteriously abstracted gaze. But Caroline 's melancholy countenance is both masked and unmasked. And the content of her book, like the object of her tear-filled thoughts, is undisclosed. The admiration of this young and aspiring scholar-poet for Robert Browning is sadly prophetic. Like Browning's Pompilia and his Duke of Ferrara's last Duchess, Caroline is the victim of a domestic tragedy that would make the subject of a dark but fascinating dramatic monologue. In the year she publishes her poems, she marries Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, who refuses to consummate their union. Though she receives an annulment five years later, she never appears to have recovered from the trauma of this tragedy: there is no evidence that she ever remarried or had a family of her own. According to the catalogue of Pre-Raphaelite holdings in Canadian collections, the open book in Caroline's hand refers 'to her accomplishments as a scholar and linguist and to her own very impressive library. The laurel leaves in the background are a conventional tribute to her talents as a poet' (Lochnan,Schoenherr, andSilver,lo3). Despitesuch clues, however, the Burne-Jones portrait is not a genre painting of a young intellectual. Instead, it strenuously resists such labelling by inviting us to concentrate on a beautiful aesthetic surface. As a fine example of purist art, the portrait blocks off any escape route from the picture space into a world outside the painting. Although the model appears to be looking out at an imaginary observer for whom she herself is a scene, the situation that creates this spectacle-as-observation is never explained. As the model's gaze continues to elude aUf understanding, Burne-Jones refines a purist mode of art that detaches itself from everything but its own medium. Having caught the UNIVERSITX OF TORONTO QUARTERLY, VOLUME 66, NUMBER 2, SPRING 1997 EDWARD BURNE-JONES 445 Edward Burne-Jones, English (1833-1898) Portrait ofCaroline Fitzgerald, 1884 oil on canvas, 82.9 x 52.1 em Art Gallery of Ontario, NCX 939 446 W. DAVID SHAW fugitive spirit of his subject, Bume-Jones uses the restrained colours, inscrutable gaze, and even the wraithlike hint of a halo to withdraw any explanation that a genre painting might offer. By refusing to return an observer's gaze, Burne-Jones's model signals her refusal to submit to a spectator's feelings and demands. As a scholar and aspiring poet, she is doubtless preoccupied: she is absent here in order to be present somewhere else. And yet by consenting to pose for her portrait, the model allows herself to be judged by an unkind critic. Will her judge be any more generous or loving than the contemptuous 'You' in Christina Rossetti's poem 'Twice,' who coldly studies then rejects the proffered heart as he might have studied, then discarded, a flawed work of art? You took my heart in your hand With a friendly smile, With a critical eye you scanned, Then set it down, And said: It is unripe ... (lines 9-13) As the critical friend, who cannot really have loved the woman, handles the heart as he might handle a piece of pottery, the metonymy is made to come to life with shocking literalness and force: 'You took my heart in your hand / ... Then set it down, / ... As you set it down it broke' (lines 9, 12, 17). In composing herseHinto the mirror...

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