Landscape - Study

Landscape Study, painted in 1863 and now at Birmingham Museums Trust, is a highly unusual work in Burne-Jones's oeuvre. He was not primarily a landscape painter and almost never produced pure landscapes without figures, mythological subjects, or narrative content. This oil landscape study from 1863 belongs to his early years, when he was still working out the implications of his training under Rossetti and determining the direction his work would take. The English landscape tradition — constable, Turner, the Pre-Raphaelite landscape painters like John Brett and William Dyce — formed a background to his training that he would largely put aside in favour of figure subjects. The Birmingham Museums Trust's extensive Burne-Jones collection preserves this anomalous work as evidence of the range of possibilities he briefly explored.

Without figures or narrative subject, the landscape study works through the observation of light, colour, and atmospheric condition in the English countryside. Pre-Raphaelite landscape technique emphasised close observation of natural detail and a bright, clear palette. The handling is likely tighter and more descriptive than his mature figure painting style, following the early Pre-Raphaelite practice of meticulous outdoor observation.