King Arthur and his associated band of knights and ladies is a subject that continues to fascinate.  There seem to be never ending compendia of Arthuriana hitting the market, attempting to meet an obvious cultural desire to know more about this ever elusive figure.  Christine Poulson's study of Arthur in the visual arts from the period 1840-1920 is a welcome edition, particularly from a materialist perspective, with its emphasis on the social, political and cultural context of artistic production. 
The book covers the major Arthurian themes presented in the visual arts of this period in Britain.  Poulson takes as her starting point the Arthurian frescos of the Queen's Robing room painted by William Dyce in the 1840s, just prior to Tennyson's retelling of the legend in his Idylls.  In this discussion Poulson introduces some of the wider themes and concerns of the period and gives an impression of how Arthur was interpreted just prior to the great wave of popular interest brought on by Tennyson. Already in Britain there was an interest in researching 'native' legends (inspired by trends in German scholarship) which would reveal essential characteristics of the British psyche, and in the wake of this interest Arthur was rediscovered as an essentially 'British' (read in some cases 'English') heroic figure, and therefore appropriate for gracing the walls of royal chambers. Nevertheless, from Poulson's account it is clear that Dyce had to carefully negotiate the images he selected from the legends to portray in such a sensitive room, so as not to be offensive.

Poulson continues with an introduction to Tennyson's Idylls of the King and associated material.  She rightly identifies Tennyson's role in the spread of  Victorian and Edwardian Arthurmania, and much of the rest of the book is concerned with individual artists' responses to and interpretation of Tennyson.  As Poulson reveals, like Dyce, Tennyson had his concerns in wishing to promote an Arthurian cycle which would communicate appropriate values to his audience - conservatism and nostalgia in a time of rapid change. His vision of the 'native' hero was clearly prescriptive and influential.

Having provided this crucial background, Poulson then traces several recurring themes in the Arthurian art of this period including the Grail, dying women, the beguiling of Merlin and the death of Arthur. Poulson's primary emphasis is on Rossetti and his followers, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, who were some of the most prominent Arthurian artists of Victorian and Edwardian periods.  Poulson traces these (and other) artists' work thematically, examining their influences from Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Malory's Morte d'Arthur and other medieval Arthurian romances, and situating these themes in their historical and social contexts.

One illuminating example is the way in which Poulson traces the association of both Arthur and more specifically the iconography of the Grail quest with the Anglo-Catholic movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  This was an association that some artists were in sympathy with, while others did their best to downplay its significance, or to bypass it altogether.  While the Catholicism of the Grail quest was a difficult topic for Tennyson to approach it was very appealing to the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.  In the late twentieth century the Grail quest has acquired renewed spiritual connotations, and possibly a more complex spiritual context, yet Poulson goes a long way toward unpacking the symbolism of an historical debate with which many today may be somewhat unfamiliar  Likewise her treatment of difficult topics such as the eroticism in portrayals of the Lady of Shallot and the death of Elaine helps us to understand the ways in which a contemporary audience would have consumed these beautiful, yet often disturbing works.

One refreshing aspect of Poulson's work is that she has the ability to analyze art and explain what are highly symbolic pieces in a clear and grounded manner. Unlike some art historians, her discussions of images do not read as speculative.  She draws predominantly on artists' sources and on how the viewing audience would have perceived the paintings. However, if there are any critiques to be made of this volume it is perhaps that Poulson pays a bit too much attention to the personal lives of artists like Rosetti, Morris and Burne-Jones. While a bit of elucidation here is important, too much personal data becomes intrusive and reads more like psychology.  Also, there may be too much of an emphasis on this group of artists while others, such as Waterhouse, get too little coverage.  One wonders, for instance, why there is no colour plate of  Waterhouse's well-known 'Lady of Shallot', which in this work, is reduced to a footnote.

A second slight disappointment is the section on the relationship between Arthuriana and the occult.  Because Arthur conceived as solar hero or Celtic pagan priest has had such a prominent place in the development of nativist British mysticism in the twentieth century, particularly after the 1930s, it would have been nice to have seen some of that prefigured here to a greater degree. A discussion of Grail imagery in the Tarot cards of the period, or the association between the Grail quest and alchemical processes may have been helpful.  Still, having said that, her section on solar mythology and how Arthur accrued these 'sun king' connotations is in itself quite revealing and provides a key to an association which has persisted with some to the present day.

The Quest for the Grail is not only a very interesting and helpful book, the liberal plates and photos provide excellent visual references to accompany the text.  I recommend this book as a lively addition to the myriad textual sources we now have available to us.  It confirms the multi-faceted nature of Arthurian legend and why it continues to be such a central feature of Western narrative.
 

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Copyright © Amy Hale, 1999
This edition copyright © Celtic Cultural Studies, 1999
ISSN 1468-6074