Grosvenor Gallery exhibition

The Grosvenor Gallery.

Rossetti, William M. "The Grosvenor Gallery." Academy (May 5, 1877): 342. Web. 21 Sept. 2011.

Rossetti opens the review with an uncharacteristically long and detailed description of the physical layout, décor and arrangement of the gallery, including a complaint about the hanging policy. He praises the director of the gallery, and notes the talk of the gallery among "fashionable circles."

Rossetti states that the "most marked feature" of the 200 paintings on display would be the work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones, John R. S. Stanhope, and "our very best painters," Sir John Everett Millais, George Frederick Watts, Holman Hunt, Sir Edward John Poynter, Sir Frederick Leighton, " and some foreigners" including Alma-Tadema, Alphonse Legros, and James McNeil Whistler. These later names plus George Frederick Watts and Holman Hunt were all artists from Rossetti's inner circle of Cheyne Walk associates.

He spends the largest portion of the review discussing the work of Sir Edward Burne-Jones in both qualitative and quantitative terms, including scheme, devices, intent and effect. Then there are large groupings of artists, their works and artists, mentioned with brief comment about some aspect of the artwork.

He concludes his listing and analysis of the East Room, promising a future notice focuses on the West Room paintings.

critical

Grosvenor, gallery, exhibition

Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic standards

evaluative, definitive

Sir Edward Burne-Jones, Sir Frederick Leighton, John R. S. Stanhope, Sir John Everett Millais, George Frederick Watts, Alma-Tadema, Alphonse Legros, James McNeil Whistler