19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 9 - The Wise and Foolish Virgins

Title: The Wise and Foolish Virgins
Artist: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Medium: Pen and ink and grey wash, with scratching out.
Size: 45.8 x 60.5 cm
Date: 1859
Location: Private collection.

19 IMAGES FROM THE 19th CENTURY: PART 9

Matthew 25:1-13 “... the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ They replied, ‘No, there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’ Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

Burne-Jones's early pen-and-ink drawings are among his rarest and most fascinating productions. Only some ten finished examples were executed. The Wise and Foolish Virgins, both large in scale and on paper, are qualities consistent with a more expansive, confident approach and a new interest in dramatic intensity and atmospheric effect. The influence of his mentor Rossetti is still quite evident, but by this time Burne-Jones has begun to find his own artistic voice. In fact the drawing has a good claim to be the masterpiece among his early works in this medium.

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet (August 1833 – June 1898) was an English artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company. Burne-Jones had intended to become a church minister, but under the influence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, co-founder the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he decided to leave college to pursue a career in art. In February 1857, Rossetti wrote “Jones's designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequaled by anything unless perhaps Albert Dürer's finest works.” Burne-Jones was closely involved in the rejuvenation of the tradition of stained glass art in England.

The Good Samaritan

Title: The Good Samaritan (after Delacroix)

Artist: Vincent Van Gogh

Medium: oil on canvas

Size: 60 x 73 cm

Date: 1890

Location: Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands.

As recorded in Luke 10:30-36, on one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus, and questioned "Who is my neighbor?" In reply Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan: A man traveling to Jericho fell into the hands of robbers who stripped him of his clothes, beat him, and left him half dead. A priest going down the same road saw the man, but passed by on the other side. So too did a Levite. But when a Samaritan saw him, he took pity on him and bandaged his wounds. He took him to an inn to care for him. The next day he paid the innkeeper, and promised to reimburse him for any further expenses. “Which of these three,” Jesus queried, “do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

Van Gogh was staying in an institution for the mentally ill when he painted this work. It is a mirrored copy of Eugène Delacroix' Good Samaritan. Delacroix himself may have been inspired by the version by the 17th century Italian baroque artist Domenico Fetti. Van Gogh also made a copy of Delacroix' Pietà. In the background of the painting to the left two men can be seen who let the wounded man lay on the road when they passed him by. The priest and a man from the house of Levi were obviously they were not as righteous as their reputations would suggest.

Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist, a predecessor of Expressionism, whose revolutionary paintings had an enormous influence on 20th century art. Van Gogh was anxious and unsettled for most of his life. In 1880, he undertook formal art classes, and studied anatomy, still-life and landscape. He began to paint in 1882. During his last ten years he produced around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawings and sketches. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, amid recurrent bouts of mental illness. On the evening of the 27th July 1890 van Gogh went at dusk into the fields and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. With all his strength he managed to drag himself back to the inn; here he died two days later in the arms of his brother, who had hurried to his side.