Pygmalion and the Image

In regard to the poem itself, the inspiration of these pictures, even the most casual study will bring in its train a conviction that the story as told by William Morris is far superior to any other version of classic or of modern times. The poem (one of the best of those comprised in The Earthly Paradise) is homogeneous and admirably balanced in all its parts; its superiority, however, over all other versions, is not due primarily to the manner of its narration, but arises from its greater spirituality--a finer feeling rather than a finer form. Prior to the appearance of "Pygmalion and the Image" each narrator of the legend had dwelt mainly on the physical side, sensuous or sensual according to his temperament, of the tale. In Morris's version the dominant note is the passionate delight--enthusiasm verging upon madness--of the artist and craftsman in his own handiwork, reflecting, to a marked degree, Morris's own temperament, one of the leading characteristics of which was his habit of hurling himself headlong into each new project as it claimed his attention from time to time. That he was prevented thereby from arriving at perfection in any one art need not lessen the admiration due to him for his whole-souled (though usually short-lived) absorption in many and diverse arts. A great poet, in the sense that Chaucer, his master and model, was great, Morris was not; but no one can deny to him the title of an enthusiastic and skilled craftsman of verse. It is this love of craftsmanship for its own sake, joined to a remarkable feeling for decorative beauty which both possessed, that binds the pictures of Burne-Jones and this poem by Morris so closely together that they form one perfect whole. Even the ideal and wholly imaginary world in which their figures move is the same--a land where emotion rather than passion bears sway, where the fates of man and of woman are determined by a whim of the gods rather than dominated by the chivalrous or devout hardihood of the individual.

In his "Apology" prefixed to The Earthly Paradise, Morris clearly and definitely disclaims any moral purpose in the poems comprised in it.

"Why should I strive to set the crooked straight?" he writes. How far this feeling was shared by Burne-Jones we can never know, but nearly all of his biographers are agreed that a love of beauty, as he understood it, was his main preoccupation, or, to use his own words, that a picture should be a "beautiful, romantic dream." Julia Cartwright, in her Life and Work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, says: "He never tried to point a moral or to teach a lesson; but he rescued beauty from the forgetfulness to which it seemed doomed in a restless and material age, and in so doing has given us an example of the highest value." Malcolm Bell, also, writing of the art of Burne-Jones and of its critics, expresses a like opinion, and his analysis of the paintings composing the Pygmalion Series is not only interesting in itself, but is especially so as showing the extent to which the man of letters can read his own interpretation into the work of a painter.

"The four pictures from 'The Story of Pygmalion,'" he writes, "also included in The Earthly Paradise, again show this preference of the poet and the artist for the spirit before the form, provided only the last be beautiful. The first, 'The Heart Desires,' is the idealization of unsatisfied longing for the unknown. Pygmalion, a tall, dark-haired young man, in a long garment falling in straight folds to his feet, stands brooding on life's emptiness in the vestibule of his house. A sculptured group of the Three Graces denotes his profession and at the same time typifies the cold beauty of artifice, the beauty of the mind, while two girls, seen through the open door, speeding along the street in the artless embrace of innocent maidenhood, represent the beauty of the body and the love that waits his winning; but in neither finds he consolation. In the second, 'The Hand Refrains,' the days of long labor are ended, and the artist's ideal, the cold, pure figure of the yet soulless image stands finished on the still rough pedestal, surrounded by flakes and chips of marble and implements of the sculptor's craft, while Pygmalion, chisel and mallet in hand, stays gazing in awe at the marvel his hand has achieved, his eyes content, but his soul still hungering. Outside the window behind him women go about their daily business in the city street, and through another casement, in a recess between him and the image, is a glimpse of a garden and a spurt of water falling into a marble basin--the constant dropping that wears away the stone, as his constant prayers shall move the goddess Venus to a miracle on his behalf. The third bears the motto, 'The Godhead Fires.' Into the sculptor's chamber, silent and solitary, while Pygmalion is away in the temple, floats lightly the Queen of Love, clad in a soft, transparent robe, flower-crowned and bearing a branch of myrtle, emblem of marriage rites, her feet brushed and environed by the white wings of her favorite doves. Towards her, leaning both arms on one uplifted from the goddess's side, an exquisite piece of composition, the awakening image stoops from the carved capital, blossom-strewn by the adoring Pygmalion, her eyes raised in awe up to the goddess, who with fixed gaze and pointed finger inspires her with the Promethean fire of life. Lastly, 'The Soul Attains.' Heart and soul are alike satisfied. Pygmalion kneels, looking up in trembling worship at the beautiful creature who lingeringly yields him her hands, though she still gazes out beyond him in dumb amazement at the mystery of consciousness that has suddenly been born in her. Marble no longer, but not yet altogether woman."

"Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time," is even more appropriate to Burne-Jones than to its author, William Morris, and it is an ever-to-be-regretted misfortune that two poems only of those comprised in The Earthly Paradise should have received at his hands that illuminative pictorial treatment which he, "the arch-dreamer of the nineteenth century," as Cosmo Monkhouse styles him, alone could give. Thanks to Mr. Frederick Hollyer, we have in the reproductions which follow faithful transcripts, in all but color, of the original paintings, and can carry out, after the lapse of a quarter of a century and in another hemisphere, a project which both Burne-Jones and William Morris held dear, but which neither of them lived to see realized. To their memory this book, together with the recently re-issued Doom of King Acrisius, is dedicated.

FITZROY CARRINGTON.

ORIENTA COTTAGE, MAMARONECK, NEW YORK, DECEMBER ELEVENTH, 1902