Saturn’s Loathing 1905

Edward Burne-Jones made this painting, Saturn’s Loathing, with watercolor. And it’s not about control; it’s about seeing what happens when the pigment hits the surface. The texture of the painting is built with these short, repetitive, marks, which makes the whole thing feel alive, like it’s breathing. Look at the ground, the way the strokes come together, it's as if the artist is trying to find a language. It's so raw, so physical! The colors are kind of muted, almost as if he built the painting entirely from earth. The way the scene is framed in a circle makes me think of illuminated manuscripts, maybe like something by William Blake, whose work has a similar, mystical quality, a kind of naive, childlike energy and vision. For both, it’s about the poetry of painting, not fixed narratives.