John Dickson Batten The garden of Adonis - Amoretta and time 1887, John & Julie Schaeffer Collection, Sydney | This major touring exhibition presents a sumptuous panorama of mid to late 19th-century British Painting, comprising the greatest examples from Australian and New Zealand collections.
The outstanding achievements of Victorian art reflect the fundamental themes of Love and Death. The paintings depict the popular stories that fascinated Victorian audiences, such as Shakespeare's Juliet, Helen of Troy or the sorceress Circe. They are extravagantly emotional, endowing subjects drawn from the remote past with the passions and emotions of real people in the present: love and death, fear and longing, beauty and desire.
The art museums of Australia and New Zealand eagerly collected the works of Victorian painters and Love and Death draws on the astonishing strength of their combined holdings. The exhibition includes masterpieces by Holman Hunt, Millais, Alma-Tadema, Rossetti, Waterhouse and Leighton, among others.
An Art Gallery of South Australia Travelling Exhibition
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