As new books are published and as I continue to discover literary gems, I will update this list of Pre-Raphaelite related texts that are available to purchase on Amazon and AbeBooks. Through the Amazon and AbeBooks Affiliate Programs, I will receive a commission on qualifying Read more

Join me in this quest to uncover the beauty of gardening in the Middle Ages and Renaissance by exploring this growing list of resources on garden design, medicinal plants and floral ornamentation. Through the Amazon and AbeBooks Affiliate Programs, I will receive a commission on Read more

As new research is published about the work and life of Julia Margaret Cameron, I will update this list of books that are available to purchase on Amazon and AbeBooks. Through the Amazon and AbeBooks Affiliate Programs, I will receive a commission on qualifying purchases Read more

“Shakespeare looked at wild flowers not as a botanist, but as a countryman looks at them. Every word he wrote about the familiar denizens of the meadows, fields and hedgerows of Warwickshire, the glades of the Forest of Arden, and the banks of the Avon, Read more

A Look into May Margaret by Frederick Sandys Though I have not found any analysis of Frederick Sandys’ May Margaret, I can confidently identify the model as Mary Emma Jones, the romantic partner and Pre-Raphaelite muse of painter Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (known more commonly Read more

Relevant Reading Unto This Last and Other Writings by John Ruskin and Clive Wilmer Stones of Venice by John Ruskin The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters by Suzanne Fagence Cooper  The Ruskin Revival: 1969-2019 by Suzanne Fagence Cooper Praeterita Read more

Examining John Clare’s Odes to Autumn and George Boyce’s Autumnal Pre-Raphaelite Landscapes

Listening to Evelyn De Morgan’s final song of Autumn accompanied by Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Autumn Song | The Cadence of Autumn

Lyre in hand, Apollo’s grasp nearly reaches Daphne as her leg begins to encase within the rooted form of her new body, a laurel tree. The last glimpse of her frightened face is framed with bundles of laurel leaves and flecks of white buds glowing Read more

While writing on the botanical features of Julia Margaret Cameron portraits (blog post on this coming soon!), I came across Oscar Gustave Rejlander’s photograph of her at the piano (shown above) for the first time. During an image search to find out more background information Read more

In 1903, the French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated how layers of potato starch dyed orange-red, green and violet over a glass plate and coated with silver bromide can produce a full-color photograph, a process that became known as autochrome. Though the invention of color Read more

My deep-rooted passion for gardening took hold of me approximately three years ago. I had just completed Monty Don’s series, Big Dreams Small Spaces, and purchased my first houseplant for my 592 square foot apartment. At an early age, I understood the aesthetic quality of Read more

“The modern artist feels even the direct charm of the beautiful old stories with wistful desire for a like effortless simplicity of expression, flowing so clearly and steadily from sensation. And how delightful the contents of those tales considered as imagery of what is inmost Read more

And thus the snowdrop, like the bowThat spans the cloudy sky, Became a symbol, whence, we knowThat brighter days are nigh. – Anonymous While landscapes shed off winter’s heavy cloak of gloom and grey, the winter-blooming bells of snowdrops begin to ring in spring. These Read more

An analysis of the Language of Flowers used in John Everett Millais’ Ophelia and John Milton’s Paradise Lost by Jesse Campbell He led her nothing loath; flowers were the couch,Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,And hyacinth, earth’s freshest, softest lap.There they their fill of love and Read more

The Language of Ophelia’s Flowers There is a willow grows askant the brook,That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.Therewith fantastic garlands did she makeOf crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purplesThat liberal shepherds give a grosser name,But our cold maids do dead-men’s-fingers call them. Read more