Illustration: Valentine Cameron Prinsep. The Departure of Tristram and Isoude from Ireland, 1862.
The artist Valentine Cameron Prinsep, although having strong links with the Pre-Raphaelites through his friendship with John Millais, as well as with the second generation of romantics through his friendship with Edward Burne-Jones, was relatively independent from both and carved a creatively artistic career for himself supplying work in a range of eclectic though popular styles. However, he is often associated with the broader Victorian romantic movement and can therefore to an extent be classed within the same framework as Burne-Jones for example.
In 1862 he was one of the artists that produced a series of stained glass windows with the theme of the story of Tristram and Isoude. Prinsep was in the company of a range of artists that included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones. Although Prinsep only contributed one of the set of thirteen windows or panels as they were also known, his contribution was valuable as the piece he produced fitted effortlessly into the overall romantic style that the thirteen pieces of work represented.
Prinsep's window shows the departure of Tristram and Isoude from Ireland. The King of Ireland, Anguisshe is pictured to the left, while the couple, Tristram and Isoude, are to the right. Although some have argued that Prinsep's window is a little busy for the format of a stained glass window, particularly as far as the background is concerned, it seems no more so than those produced by Rossetti or Burne-Jones for example.
Although stained glass was the discipline used, fine art was very much to the forefront. All of the windows were produced by professional fine artists, apart from those added by William Morris. Morris also oversaw the thirteen panels making sure that they all carried correspondingly similar motifs or other forms which would give the story some form of continuity. However, it is still a matter of each panel or small series having the creative signature of the individual artist, which must have concerned Morris whose task it was to reign in any obvious tangential movement away from the story line and to maintain overall harmony within the thirteen pieces.
It would be interesting to know whether any of the artists involved had any appreciation or experience in stained or painted glass production. It seems unlikely although Burne-Jones was to produce significant amounts of stained glass work over his career, very often for Morris and Co.
Interestingly, it not always a good idea for an artist or designer to have pre-knowledge of another discipline as sometimes not knowing the rules of the specific and unfamiliar discipline can allow any number of freeing ideas and scenarios. It is also a case that those who profess to think outside of the framework of a discipline that they are trained in only find themselves working within a slightly larger framework. It often takes someone from a completely different discipline to point out an even larger framework in which to work.
This is not to say that Prinsep's work was particularly revolutionary as far as stained glass design was concerned. However, Victorian stained glass work although the culmination, to a large extent, of the rediscovering of the practicalities and technical knowledge of the discipline, much of which had been largely disbanded and forgotten in the eighteenth century, did take on a different feel from that of the sixteenth century back to the medieval. The Victorian era did not produce as much pseudo-medievalism as is sometimes thought. In fact, much of the Victorian take on medievalism is now seen as a particular and distinct style of its own with little to actually connect it with the original medieval. This may well not have been the intention of at least some of the purveyors of nineteenth century medievalism, but is often inevitable.
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