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International Art Treasures Web Magazine March 2006 |
Love Revealed
Love Revealed. Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites is the first major international exhibition dedicated to the British artist Simeon Solomon in a hundred years. Simeon Solomon and the
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Tortured artist with little success in his life dies alone and unlamented and only later his work is appreciated. |
The story is so common a macro could be used to describe the lives of so many geniuses of the creative process such as Van Gogh, Modigliani and Simeon Solomon. Another one could be created to describe that any different approach to the accepted norms of the day are heavily criticized true of Impressionism, Surrealism, and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Simeon Solomon was the youngest of eight children born in Bishopgate, London into an observant Jewish family many of whom were artists. His mother created miniatures and three of her children including Simeon became artists. The older ones being the first influence on their young brother.
Title: Love in Autumn, 1866
Artist: Simeon Solomon, (English 1840-1905)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Private collection
Courtesy Museum Villa Stuck
A heavy influence upon him was the writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the classical style of Frederic Lord Leighton and Edward Poynter.
Habet!, 1865
Artist: Simeon Solomon, (English 1840-1905)
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Private collection (on loan to Bradford Museums, Galleries & Heritage)
Image Courtesy: Museum Villa Stuck
Solomon was the only one of the Pre-Raphaelites to depict effeminate boys in his works such as Bacchus. It is widely believed this was a way to express his preferences. It lead to his destruction. Arrested, imprisoned sentenced to a heavy term that was later set to time served of approximately two weeks, the damage was done. At first he spurned his friends but later they ostracized him. Solomon died penniless of complications from bronchitis fueled by his alcoholism.
The Pre-Raphaelites
Title: Bacchus, 1867
Artist: Simeon Solomon, (English 1840-1905)
Medium: Oil on Wood
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Image Courtesy: Museum Villa Stuck
There are two separate pre-Raphaelite movements literature and art, which the former springing from the latter. The artists heavily influenced some of the writers of this field including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina, Rossetti, William Morris and George Meredith.
Title: Dawn, 1871
Artist: Simeon Solomon, (English 1840-1905)
Medium: Watercolor and Bodycolor on Paper
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Image Courtesy: Museum Villa Stuck
William Holman Hunt formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to revitalize the arts creating appropriate works for the modern ages moving away from what was traditionally taught in the art schools. It was blistered by the critics and fell afoul of popular writer of Victorian England, Charles Dickens.
Title "Let not thine Eyes see aught Evil itself, but be its Shadow upon Life enough for Thee,"1890
Artist: Simeon Solomon (English 1840-1905)
Medium: Colored Chalks on Paper
Private collection
Courtesy Museum Villa Stuck
Friend and fellow artist, Edward Burne-Jones, likewise a member of the Pre-Raphaelites, called Solomon “the greatest artist of us all.”
Love Revealed : Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites
Museum Villa Stuck: Munich, Germany:
March 9 - June 18, 2006
Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art:
September 11 - November 26, 2006