Saturn’s Loathing 1905

Edward Burne-Jones made *Saturn’s Loathing* as an illustration, and the first thing I notice is the ochre palette, like faded tapestries. Imagine Burne-Jones rendering these tiny figures in watercolor, building layer upon layer. What was he thinking? It's like a dreamscape, with two knights and their steeds, facing off amidst wheat fields. This encounter, heavy with fatalism, unfolds against an expressionist backdrop of mountains and a sky striped with fear. Burne-Jones was part of a movement which valued art for art's sake, and he was in dialogue with painters like Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Like them, he knew the expressive power of color. The brown ring surrounding the image becomes a kind of border or frame, and gives the whole a precious, romantic feeling, like an illuminated manuscript. The image stays with you. It's a conversation, one artist speaking to another across time.