Tess, Grace, and Matthew's Homage to the Masters

I knew when I visited my dear friend and fellow Pre-Raphaelite afficionado, Tess, a couple of weekends ago, that it would spurn numerous blog posts here. And sure enough, here is another one!

On Saturday night, Tess and I stayed up till 5am taking photos inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite masters. The lighting wasn't the keenest, but the poses are, of course, classic. Those Victorian guys really knew what they were doing when it came to dramatic poses.

But after a while, we started to giggle to each other, because as I was giving her direction in her posing, (holding a print-out of the artwork we were trying to duplicate and staring at the hands and pose) I finally just started saying "hold yourself in the most awkward, unnatural and uncomfortable way you can imagine. Yes...just like that. Now hold that pose!" The Pre-Raphaelites knew what poses were dramatic and romantic, but I have a whole new appreciation for the models themselves. After about a minute in a given pose, we'd have to take a break to shake out cramped necks and hands.

As I always say, feel free to click on the below images to see them larger!


The first pose of Tess and me, adjusted some for our varying heights, was based on The Crystal Gazers by Mowbray


The second pose was inspired indirectly (no attempt to directly reproduce a pose) by Jane Morris portraits by Rossetti like this one:


The next pose was inspired by Dicksee's artwork, The Magic Crystal:

The portraits of Tess and Matthew together were inspired indirectly again (no attempt at exact pose) by paintings like this one by Rossetti:


And last, we recreated Burne-Jones famous artwork, Love Among the Ruins: