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(from left to right):
Sir Perceval, Sir Bors, Angels, Sir Galahad, Grail Chapel and the Holy
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Tapestry by
Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)The Attainment of the Holy Grail by Sir Gallahad and Sir Percival
1898
Based on the legend as told by Thomas Malory in
Morte d'Arthur,
printed in 1483, this tapestry shows Sir Galahad,
Bors, and Perceval,
before the
Holy
Grail.
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Holy Grail Tapestry - The Knights of the Round Table Summoned to the Quest by
the Strange Damsel
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Holy Grail Tapestry - The Arming and Departure of the Knights
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Holy Grail Tapestry - The Failure of Sir Gawaine |
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Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
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G roup
of young British painters who banded together in 1848 in reaction
against what they conceived to be the unimaginative and artificial
historical painting of the Royal Academy and who purportedly sought
to express a new moral seriousness and sincerity in their works.
They were inspired by Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries,
and their adoption of the name Pre-Raphaelite expressed their
admiration for what they saw as the direct and uncomplicated
depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High
Renaissance and, particularly, before the time of
Raphael. Although the Brotherhood's
active life lasted less than 10 years, its influence on painting in
Britain, and ultimately on the decorative arts and interior design,
was profound.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848 by three Royal
Academy students, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
who was a gifted poet as well as a painter,
William Holman Hunt, and John
Everett Millais, all under 25. The
painter James Collinson, the painter and critic F.G. Stephens, the
sculptor Thomas Woolner, and the critic William Michael Rossetti
(Dante Gabriel's brother) joined them by invitation. The painters
William Dyce and
Ford Madox Brown were also notable practitioners of the
Pre-Raphaelite style.
The Brotherhood began
immediately to produce highly convincing and significant works. Their pictures of
religious and medieval subjects emulated the deep religious feeling and naive, unadorned
directness of 15th-century Florentine and Sienese painting. The style that
Hunt and
Millais
evolved featured sharp and brilliant lighting, a clear atmosphere, and a near-photographic
reproduction of minute details. They also frequently introduced a private poetic symbolism
into their representations of Biblical subjects and medieval literary themes.
Rossetti's work differed from that of the
others in its use of blurred lines, a more sculptural and suggestive chiaroscuro, and a
hazy, dreamlike atmosphere. Vitality and freshness of vision are the most admirable
qualities of these early Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
The Brotherhood at first
exhibited together anonymously, signing all their paintings with the monogram PRB. When
their identity and youth were discovered in 1850, their work was harshly criticized by the
novelist Charles Dickens, among others, not only for its disregard of academic ideals of
beauty but also for its apparent irreverence in treating religious themes with an
uncompromising realism. Nevertheless, the leading art critic of the day, John Ruskin,
stoutly defended Pre-Raphaelite art, and the members of the group were never without
patrons.
The members of the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had ceased to exhibit together by 1854 and soon went their
individual ways, but their style had a wide influence and gained many imitators during the
1850s and early '60s. In the late 1850s
Dante Gabriel Rossetti became associated with the
younger painters Edward Burne-Jones and
William Morris and moved closer to a sensual and
almost mystical romanticism. Millais, the
most technically gifted painter of the group, went on to become an academic success.
Hunt alone pursued the same style throughout most
of his career and remained true to Pre-Raphaelite principles. Pre-Raphaelitism in its
later stage is epitomized by the paintings of
Burne-Jones, in which a lyrical if slightly
insipid medievalism is given hauntingly sensuous overtones.
Encyclopædia Britannica
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The Legend of
the
Holy
Grail
Depending on the source,
the Holy Grail was either the dish that Christ used at the Last Supper, or the vessel used
to catch his blood at the Crucifixion.
The Quest for the Holy Grail, which becomes a test of each knight's purity and worth, is
initiated when a vision of the Grail appears to King Arthur and his knights. Although
Christian, this legend is built on a sub-structure of Celtic mythology, which abounds in
horns of plenty and cauldrons and in quests in which the hero must venture into the
otherworld to win some precious prize. It is, therefore, no surprise that there are
several versions of the legend. But they all agree that Arthur never went on the Quest and
that only one knight (in later versions, Sir Galahad - shown on the left) finally proved
worthy of finding this most precious object.
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Holy Grail
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Also called Holy Grail, object of legendary quest for the
knights of Arthurian romance. The term evidently denoted a
wide-mouthed or shallow vessel, though its precise etymology remains
uncertain. The legend of the Grail possibly was inspired by
classical and Celtic mythologies, which abound in horns ofplenty,
magic life-restoring caldrons, and the like. The first extant text
to give such a vessel Christian significance as a mysterious, holy
object was Chrétien de Troyes's late 12th-century unfinishedromance
Perceval, or Le Conte du Graal, which introduces the guileless
rustic knight Perceval, whose dominant trait is innocence. In it,
the religious is combined with the fantastic. Early in the 13th
century, Robert de Borron's poem Joseph d'Arimathie, or the Roman de
l'estoire dou Graal, extended the Christian significance of the
legend, while Wolfram von Eschenbach gave it profound and mystical
expression in his epic Parzival. (In Wolfram's account the Grail
became a precious stone, fallen from heaven.) Prose versions of
Robert de Borron's works began to link the Grail story even more
closely with Arthurian legend. A 13th-century Germanromance, Diu
Krone, made the Grail hero Sir Gawain, while the Queste del Saint
Graal (which forms part of what is calledthe Prose Lancelot, or
Vulgate cycle) introduced a new hero, Sir Galahad. This latter work
was to have the widest significance of all, and its essence was
transmitted to English-speaking readers through Sir Thomas Malory's
late 15th-century prose Le Morte Darthur.
Robert de Borron's poem recounted the Grail's early history, linking
it with the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and afterward by
Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood flowing from Christ's wounds
as he hung upon the Cross. The Queste del Saint Graal went on to
create a new hero, the pure knight Sir Galahad, while the quest of
the Grail itself became a search for mystical union with God. Only
Galahad could look directly into the Grail and behold the divine
mysteries that cannot be described by human tongue. The work was
clearly influenced by the mystical teachings of St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, the states of grace it describes corresponding to the
stages by which St. Bernard explained man's rise toward perfection
in the mystical life. The work gained an added dimension by making
Galahad the son of Lancelot, thus contrasting the story of chivalry
inspired by human love (Lancelot and Guinevere) with that inspired
by divine love (Galahad). In the last branch of the Vulgate cycle,
the final disasters were linked with the withdrawal of the Grail,
symbol of grace, never to be seen again.
Thus, the Grail theme came to form the culminating point of
Arthurian romance, and it was to prove fruitful as a theme in
literature down to the 20th century.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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Round Table
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 The Round Table at Winchester |
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The Knights of the
Round Table
(from left to right):
Bedivere
Gareth
Gaheris
Lancelot
Galahad
Gawain
Agravain
Percival
Arthur
Bors
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This 15th-century
illumination shows the vision of the Holy Grail appearing
to Arthur and his knights the day that Sir Galahad arrives in Camelot and sits in the
Siege Perilous |
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Round Table
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in Arthurian legend, the table of Arthur, Britain's legendary king,
which was first mentioned in Wace of Jersey's Roman de Brut (1155). This
told of King Arthur's having a round table made so that none of his
barons, when seated at it, could claim precedence over the others. The
literary importance of the Round Table, especially in romances of the
13th century and afterward, lies in the fact that it served to provide
the knightsof Arthur's court with a name and a collective personality.
The fellowship of the Round Table, in fact, became comparable to, and in
many respects the prototype of, the many great orders of chivalry that
were founded in Europe during the later Middle Ages. By the late 15th
century, when Sir Thomas Malory wrote his Le Morte Darthur, the notion
of chivalry was inseparable from that of a great military brotherhood
established in the household of some great prince.
In Robert de Borron's poem Joseph d'Arimathie (c. 1200), the Grail,
which had been sought by the hero Perceval, was identified as the vessel
used by Christ at the Last Supper. Joseph was commanded to make a table
in commemoration of the Last Supper and to leave one place vacant,
symbolizing the seat of Judas, who had betrayed Christ. This empty
place, called the Siege Perilous, could not be occupied without peril
except by the destined Grail hero. During the 13th century, when the
Grail theme was fully integrated with Arthurian legend in the group of
prose romances known as the Vulgate cycle and post-Vulgate romances, it
was established that the Round Table—modelled on the Grail Table and,
likewise, with an empty place—had been made by the counsellor Merlin for
Uther Pendragon, King Arthur's father. It came into the possession of
King Leodegran of Carmelide, who gave it to Arthur as part of the dowry
of his daughter Guinevere when she married Arthur. Admission to the
fellowship of the Round Table was reserved for only the most valiant,
while the Siege Perilous was left waiting for the coming of Galahad, the
pure knight who achieved the quest of the Grail and who brought the
marvels of Arthur's kingdom to a close.
In the city of Winchester there is a great hall—all that remains of a
castle begun by William the Conqueror and finished in 1235—where the
so-called King Arthur's Round Table can be seen fixed to the wall.
Measuring 18 feet (5.5 metres) in diameter, it dates from the 13th
century, having been repainted in green and white, the Tudor colours,
during the reign of Henry VII.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1828-1882)
How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Perceval
were Fed with the Sanc Grail;
But Sir Perceval's Sister Died by the Way
1864
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Sir Perceval
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hero of Arthurian romance, distinguished by his quality of
childlike (often uncouth) innocence, which protected him
from worldly temptation and set him apart from other knights
in Arthur's fellowship. This quality also links hisstory
with the primitive folktale theme of a great fool or simple
hero. In Chrétien de Troyes's poem Le Conte du Graal (12th
century), Perceval's great adventure was a visit to the
castle of the wounded Fisher King, where he saw a mysterious
dish (or grail) but, having previously been scolded for
asking too many questions, failed to ask the question that
would have healed the Fisher King. Afterward, he set off in
search of the Grail and gradually learned the true meaning
of chivalry and its close connection with the teachings of
the church. In later elaborations of the Grail theme, the
pure knight Sir Galahad displaced him as Grail hero, though
Perceval continued to play an important part in the quest.
The story of Perceval's spiritual development from simpleton
to Grail keeper received its finest treatment in Wolfram von
Eschenbach's great 13th-century epic, Parzival. This poem
was the basis of Richard Wagner's last opera, Parsifal
(1882).
Encyclopedia Britannica
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George
Frederick Watts
(1817-1904)
Sir Galahad |
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The pure and saintly Galahad is the knight
who finds the Grail, asks the relevant questions and frees the land from misery.
He was the son of Sir Lancelot by Elaine, the daughter of King Pelles, the Fisher King.
Lancelot had been made drunk, and led to believe that Elaine was his true love, Queen
Guinevere.
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Sir Galahad
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the pure knight in Arthurian romance, son of
Lancelot du Lac and Elaine (daughter of Pelles), who achieved the
vision of God through theHoly Grail. In the first romance treatments
of the Grail story (e.g., Chrétien de Troyes's 12th-century Conte du
Graal), Perceval was the Grail hero. But during the 13th century a
new, austerely spiritual significance was given to the Grail theme,
and a new Grail winner was required whose genealogy could be traced
back to the House of David in the Old Testament. Galahad was,
moreover, made the son of Lancelot so that an achievement inspired
by earthly love (Lancelot inspired by Guinevere) could be set in
contrast to that inspired by heavenly love (Galahad inspired by
spiritual fervour). This theological version of the Grail story
appeared in the Questedel Saint Graal (“Quest for the Holy Grail”),
which forms part of the Prose Lancelot, or Vulgate cycle. The Queste
shows signs of strong Cistercian influence, and similarities can be
seen between it and the mystical doctrines of St. Bernard of
Clairvaux.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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Merlin. Dragon
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Edward Burne-Jones
(1833-1898)
The Beguiling of Merlin
1874 |
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Merlin was Arthur's mentor, and a caster of spells and reader of dreams.
It was hw who enabled Arthur's father, King Uther Pendragon, to take on the appearance of
the Duke of Cornwall and lie with Cornwall's wife Igraine.
But he required the resulting child as payment for his help.
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Merlin
enchanter and wise man in Arthurian
legend and romance of the Middle Ages, linked with
personages in ancient Celtic mythology (especially with
Myrddin in Welsh tradition). He appeared in Arthurian legend
as an enigmatic figure, fluctuations and inconsistencies in
his character being often dictated by the requirements of a
particular narrative or by varying attitudesof suspicious
regard toward magic and witchcraft. Thus, treatments of
Merlin reflect different stages in the development of
Arthurian romance itself.
Geoffrey of Monmouth, in
Historia regum Britanniae (c. 1136), adapted a story, told
by the Welsh antiquary Nennius (flourished c. 800), of a
boy, Ambrosius, who had given advice to the legendary
British king Vortigern. In Geoffrey's account Merlin-Ambrosius
figured as adviser to Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father)
and afterward to Arthur himself. In a later work, Vita
Merlini, Geoffrey further developed the story of Merlin by
adapting a northern legend about a wild man of the woods,
gifted with powers of divination. Early in the 13th century,
Robert de Borron's verse romance Merlin added a Christian
dimension to the character, making him the prophet of the
Holy Grail (whose legend had by then been linked with
Arthurian legend). The author of the first part of the
Vulgate cycle made the demonic side of Merlin's
character predominate, but in later branches of the Vulgate
cycle, Merlin again became the prophet of the Holy Grail,
while hisrole as Arthur's counsellor was filled out; it was
Merlin, for example, who advised Uther to establish the
knightly fellowship of the Round Table and who suggested
that Uther's true heir would be revealed by a test that
involved drawing a sword from a stone in which it was set.
It also included a story of the wizard's infatuation with
the Lady of the Lake, which eventually brought about his
death.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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Dragon
legendary monster usually conceived as a huge, bat-winged,
fire-breathing, scaly lizard or snake with a barbed tail. The
belief in these creatures apparently arose without the
slightest knowledge on the part of the ancients of the
gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles. In Greece the
word drakon, from which the English word was derived, was
used originally for any large serpent (see sea serpent), and
the dragon of mythology, whatever shape it later assumed,
remained essentially a snake.
In general, in the Middle Eastern world, where snakes are
large and deadly, the serpent or dragon was symbolic of the
principle of evil. Thus, the Egyptian god Apepi, for
example, was the great serpent of the world of darkness. But
the Greeks and Romans, though accepting the Middle Eastern
idea of the serpent as an evil power, also at times
conceived the drakontes as beneficent powers—sharp-eyed
dwellers in the inner parts of the Earth. On the whole,
however, the evil reputation of dragons was the stronger,
and in Europe it outlived the other. Christianity confused
the ancient benevolent and malevolent serpent deities in a
common condemnation. In Christian art the dragon came to be
symbolic of sin and paganism and, as such, was depicted
prostrate beneath the heels of saints and martyrs.
The dragon's form varied from the earliest times. The
Chaldean dragon Tiamat had four legs, a scaly body, and
wings, whereas the biblical dragon of Revelation, “the old
serpent,” was many-headed like the Greek Hydra. Because they
not only possessed both protective and terror-inspiring
qualities but also had decorative effigies, dragons were
early used as warlike emblems. Thus, in the Iliad, King
Agamemnon had on his shield a blue three-headed snake, just
as the Norse warriors in later times painted dragons on
their shields and carved dragons' heads on the prows of
theirships. In England before the Norman Conquest, the
dragon was chief among the royal ensigns in war, having been
instituted as such by Uther Pendragon, father of King
Arthur. In the 20th century the dragon was officially
incorporated in the armorial bearings of the prince of
Wales.
In the Far East, the dragon managed to retain its prestige
andis known as a beneficent creature. The Chinese dragon,
lung (q.v.), represented yang, the principle of heaven,
activity, and maleness in the yin-yang (q.v.) of Chinese
cosmology. From ancient times, it was the emblem of the
Imperial family,and until the founding of the republic
(1911) the dragon adorned the Chinese flag. The dragon came
to Japan with much of the rest of Chinese culture, and there
(as ryu or tatsu) it became capable of changing its size at
will, even to the point of becoming invisible. Both Chinese
and Japanese dragons, though regarded as powers of the air,
are usually wingless. They are among the deified forces of
nature in Taoism.
The term dragon has no zoological meaning, but it has been
applied in the Latin generic name Draco to a number of
species of small lizards found in the Indo-Malayan region.
The name is also popularly applied to the giant monitor,
Varanus komodoensis, discovered on Komodo, in Indonesia.
Encyclopedia Britannica
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