# The Love Song

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-love-song-r52ac1ad7ff7f22>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [BURNE-JONES, Edward](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216>)
- Date: 1851-1900
- Technique: Oil on canvas, 114 x 156 cm

## Commentary

The Victorian painter Edward Burne-Jones was a friend of William Morris from their time at Oxford, and later of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Ruskin. He designed stained glass and tapestries for Morris&#39; firm and was also a gifted book illustrator. Between 1864 and 1870, Burne-Jones worked principally in watercolour, afterwards concentrating on oil painting. The theme of The Love Song \(Le Chant d&#39;Amour\) was a refrain in Burne-Jones&#39;s work over more than fifteen years. From 1860, he made pencil and red chalk studies, a sepia wash and gouache study, and completed a watercolour. In 1868 Burne-Jones signalled his intention to begin the present large canvas, which he continued to work on in 1871 and 1873, completed after a month&#39;s work in 1877, and showed for the first time at the Grosvenor Gallery exhibition of 1878. Its critical reception was mixed. For Henry James, Le Chant d&#39;Amour resembled &#34;some mellow Giorgione or some richly-glowing Titian&#34; and was &#34;a brilliant success in the way of colour.&#34; By contrast, critic W. H. Mallock reacted against the picture&#39;s latent sexuality, finding in the figure of the woman the &#34;languor of exhausted animalism.&#34; For Burne-Jones and for his time, Le Chant d&#39;Amour is a key picture in which Romantic medievalism is suffused with a dewy, pastoral warmth emanating from Renaissance Venice. The traditions of manuscript illumination merge with the influences of Botticelli and Titian.

## Related artworks

- [East window: Adoration of the Lamb](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/east-window-adoration-of-the-lamb-r9b5b4728fbd444>)
- [Flora](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/flora-r0341ad6f21e1e2>)
- [Garden of the Hesperides](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/garden-of-the-hesperides-r5ff7b413813db7>)
- [Princess Sabra \(The King&#39;s Daughter\)](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/princess-sabra-the-kings-daughter-r2aae083d2f5143>)
- [The Annunciation](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-annunciation-r80d7977fc7cfff>)
- [The Arming and Departure of the Knights](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-arming-and-departure-of-the-knights-r2bc3137ae2e0d1>)
- [The Baleful Head](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-baleful-head-rd934009b9818c5>)
- [The Beguiling of Merlin](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-beguiling-of-merlin-r3ad58c2bccf81c>)
- [The Days of Creation](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-days-of-creation-r4e01f751f7dedb>)
- [The Days of Creation: The Fifth Day](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-days-of-creation-the-fifth-day-r037d996b3120db>)
- [The Days of Creation: The First Day](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-days-of-creation-the-first-day-r42b793e4e6b6e0>)
- [The Days of Creation: The Second Day](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/burne-jones-edward-r60fcc9bbdf4216/the-days-of-creation-the-second-day-rede3d5944f3143>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)