Frederic William Burton (1816-1900) was an Irish artist who became famous for his Pre-Raphaelite-style paintings depicting scenes from a romanticized Middle Ages. But unlike many other works of this kind, Burton's paintings were as historical and authentic as possible: he carefully studied the materials, sat in the archives, and was meticulous even in the smallest details. The costumes of his characters are historically accurate and fully correspond to the era. Burton approached the historical setting and the depiction of weapons and armor no less carefully.
Burton's works are an artist-historian's view of the past, but at the same time, like all the works of the Pre-Raphaelites, they are very decorative and beautiful.
Knight's Squire
Burton comes from a respected family in Ireland, the Burtons. His grandfather was once the High Sheriff of County Clare, and earned enough for his valiant service to build a family estate. The future artist lived there from the age of six. True, it cannot be said that everything in his childhood was smooth: his parents hardly communicated with each other and even lived separately. At first, little Frederick was raised by his mother, but at the age of two he received a serious injury to his right hand, as a result of which it never developed. So Frederick had to learn to do everything with his left hand, and later he painted his pictures with it, since his right hand was completely non-functional.
Roman girl
After this incident, Frederick's father took him to his estate and raised him on his own, which brought them both closer together. He was a self-taught artist and sincerely encouraged his son's interest in painting.
Portrait of Mary Palliser
Burton studied at the Dublin Society School of Drawing, created all kinds of miniatures, was in good standing at the Royal Hibernian Academy and even became its academician. A landmark trip for Burton was a trip with the antiquarian John Petrie to excavate a medieval settlement located in the west of Ireland.
This awakened an interest in history in the young artist, he realized that it was possible to combine the incompatible: serious science and frivolous painting.
Widow Völma
Previously, artists usually painted only conventional plots, guided primarily not by historical authenticity, but by the effectiveness of the composition and the beauty of the image. But studying history from such paintings is a lost cause, and young Burton was interested in history no less than in painting, which determined the originality of his work.
Burton traveled extensively throughout Europe, visited Germany, studied the works of old masters and castle ruins, and in the 1840s moved to England, where he settled in London.
Sunday morning
There, of course, he was part of the local bohemian circle, was personally acquainted with John Millais and Edward Burne-Jones and sincerely admired their work. That is why his most famous painting, Hellelila and Hildebrand: Meeting on the Tower Stairs, is so strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites.
Hellelila and Hildebrand: Meeting on the Tower Stairs
The plot is taken from a famous Danish ballad. And it is truly tragic: the princess and the knight fell in love with each other, but of course there was no talk of their marriage, since all marriages of persons of royal blood were mainly dynastic, and love is nothing compared to the interests of the kingdom or principality. They decided to escape, but they were overtaken by pursuit. Hildebrand decided to defend his beloved, and in a brutal fight killed the girl's father and her six brothers. The princess begged the last, youngest brother to spare him, Hildebrand listened, and he killed him with a treacherous blow. The girl, mad with grief, was sold into slavery by her relatives, where she soon died.
Sleeping Princess. The Legend of the Rosehip.
Burton depicted the knight and the princess on a spiral staircase in a castle, where their meeting is very brief: the girl casually touches his shoulder, and the knight reverently clings to her hand. And the harbingers of tragedy are the rose petals on the steps of the tower. This is the only artistic digression that Burton allowed himself; otherwise, everything concerning the knight's armor, the princess's clothes and the most typical medieval spiral staircase do not raise the slightest doubt about their authenticity.
Dreams
By the way, Burton could not stand the smell of oil paints, so he always painted only with watercolors or gouache, but never with oils. However, this created significant difficulties in preserving his creative heritage: for example, the painting "Meeting on the Stairs" is stored in a special box under glass.
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