Sadly, I cannot be considered an ‘art expert’ in any capacity, but luckily for my ego, Taschen’s ‘Basic Art’ series allows me to pretend I am. These slim books which act as crash courses in key artistic movements have equipped me with just enough knowledge to delude myself, quite happily, into thinking I have the art knowledge of a Tate curator. I’ve just finished Taschen’s entry for the Pre-Raphaelites – a group of artists who came together in the 19th century as a ‘brotherhood’ in defiance of the English Royal Academy of Arts. The brotherhood favoured composition styles that pre-dated Raphael, whose art style was, per the academy, the established mode of the day. “The early Pre-Raphaelite artists were all about nature and depicting it as realistically as possible, while late Pre-Raphaelites leaned more toward embodying medievalism and Arthurian legends,” I rattle off to my boyfriend, who is wholly uninterested but kind enough to pretend otherwise, both of us acting as though I did not read those words almost directly from the book just 10 minutes earlier.
So, I don’t know much about art, but there is one thing I do know about – and that’s books. My foray into Victorian art particularly struck me with the way artists were inspired to depict their favourite stories, plays and poems with rich detail and symbolism. And although I don’t expect an invitation to join any brotherhoods at any time soon, I do wonder: which stories would I depict if I possessed some artistic ability? Unfortunately, I am not gifted with a brush, so the best I can do is present scenes from some of my favourite books as Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
Mary Watches the Wreckers in Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier
I don’t particularly approve of the use of old paintings as book covers (by big publishers, at least). I feel that it is a lazy alternative to commissioning an artist to design a truly meaningful book cover. In extremely low-effort cases, I think it should be treated with the same contempt as using AI to generate a book cover, or stock photos – all three are means to avoid paying a real, living artist, and both methods usually result in unmemorable book jackets.
However if a painting is going to be used, it should at least be either useful or beautiful (to paraphrase a certain notable Pre-Raphaelite). Miranda – The Tempest, when used for Jamaica Inn in this context, is arguably both, given that it is a gorgeous painting, and directly parallels the events of the novel in both plot and atmosphere. The cold tones and overall gloomy colouring to the painting mirror the harsh, grey weather of the Cornish landscape braved by Mary Yellan during her plight to uncover the sinister mystery connected to her uncle’s inn. The original subject of the painting, Miranda, comes from The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Miranda is the only female character who appears on stage – another parallel as, while there are other female characters in Jamaica Inn, Mary is the main pillar of the story, and one who is unable to find solace in the company of other women, such as her cowardly aunt. This solitude comes to define Mary’s journey, and she instead must do her best to survive in a man’s world, amid brutes of the worst, most violent kind.
The painting reflects a pivotal scene in the novel: when Mary learns of the wreckers. Like Miranda, Mary witnesses a shockingly violent shipwreck from the shore, one which drastically impacts the events of the novel. Miranda, in fact, aligns so well with the atmosphere and plot of Jamaica Inn, that now I’m almost annoyed it hasn’t been used as a cover for it yet.
Howl Produces a Flower Meadow for Sophie in Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
One of my favourite moments in both the book and Studio Ghibli adaption of Howl’s Moving Castle is the moment when Howl sets up a flower shop for Sophie, complete with access to a meadow of flowers for Sophie to build bouquets from. Although Inchbold’s painting doesn’t show a whole lot of flowers, it’s the kind of verdant, rolling landscape I pictured the castle moving through – completely removed from civilization and with the kind of mystical quality best embodied by a verdant, natural landscape. The ruins of a what looks like a small castle reminded me of the way Howl’s castle, after moving, leaves the building it formerly ‘occupied’ resembling no more than ruins after – and so I imagine that this painting perhaps captures a moment when the castle isn’t there.There aren’t any deer in Wynne’s novel, but there are plenty of animals and people enchanted to be other things – could this deer, just maybe, have been another wayward prince transformed by the witch of the wastes?
Tom Birkin’s Relationship with Alice in A Month in the Country By J.L. Carr
The protagonist of A Month in the Country reaches Yorkshire at a difficult time in his life. Tom Birkin arrives in the small village of Oxgodby psychologically and physically disturbed from his experiences in The Great War, as well as being displaced by the repeated unfaithfulness of his wife. I previously wrote about the way J.L. Carr juxtaposes the pain of processing trauma against the healing beauty of the English countryside – and not just for Tom Birkin, but for many of the other characters residing in Oxgodby. Whether it’s Alice Keach, who isn’t quite content in her idyllic life as the vicar’s wife, or the various families of the village still mourning their sons lost to the war, pain and the countryside come to co-exist.
Though set 20 years previous to A Month in the Country and concerning a different war, the central figure of Liston Shaw’s The Boer War is, like Tom and Alice, surrounded by dense, beautiful greenery, yet stands in contrast to it due to the pain she is clearly experiencing. The subject is set apart from the brightly painted, highly detailed background, typical of the Pre-Raphaelites, by the dark coloured garments she wears – black, so likely mourning clothes – and by the grieved expression on her face as she reflects, possibly on personal loss or on the far reaching damage caused by the war.
The subject of this painting specifically calls Alice Keach to mind, in particular the way that Tom views her throughout his stay. There aren’t many prolonged scenes with Mrs Keach, just snatches of conversation and little moments of yearning for something that could have been. The subject of The Boer War also feels distant to us as viewers, not quite making eye contact and projecting a sense that she is mourning privately, with an aloofness that makes it impossible to completely connect to her.
Bathsheba Falls for Troy in Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Just as Thomas Hardy’s work is often reduced to simply ‘pastoral literature’, it is easy to brush off this farm scene by noteworthy Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt as a pretty pastoral scene, at first glance. But much like Far From the Madding Crowd, the details reveal an altogether darker picture.
While the shepherdess allows herself to be taken in by the young shepherd, a lamb sits on her lap consuming green apples (which, as my Taschen edition informs me, are poisonous to lambs). The neglect shown to the flock, and the crops left to the unattended sheep, are reminiscent of the way Bathsheba’s farm falls into danger as a result of her own neglect as she becomes distracted by Troy’s seductions. It also calls to mind Troy’s lax approach to looking after the farm once Bathsheba trusts its management to him.
The symbolism of a poison apple and the body language of the painting’s subjects speak to a spiritual temptation, foreshadowing a fall not unlike the one experienced by Bathsheba, with both works highlighting the perils of carelessness and frivolity in a pastoral setting.
Concluding Thoughts
Those were just a few examples of paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood that evoked some of my favourite books, either in spirit or subject. I had a feeling that the dramatic themes and types of symbolism commonly found in Pre-Raphaelite works would make an excellent match for the more sensational novels that sit on my bookshelf, but as it turns out, a few of the quieter, more subtle novels I love worked pretty well for this exercise too!
Are there any paintings (Pre-Raphaelite or not!) that remind you of any books? Which painting from this article do you think matched the accompanying book the best?Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
