   The quintessential 'aesthetic' painter, Moore's works sublimate
everything to composition and a wonderfully subtle palette. Nevertheless, he
was faithful to nature in his own way; for instance he made his models act out
movements -- time and time again -- so that he could render them correctly.
There is a decent contemporary biography by his pupil Baldry, as well as a new
modern biography. Personal details about Moore are often mined from Robertson's
memoirs: for instance, the chaotic state of Moore's house and studio. But
Robertson's book was written years afterwards, and seems a bit unreliable: for
instance he gives the wrong year for Moore's death. Nevertheless, accounts from
the '50s of Rossetti's studio and the Red Lion Square
premises occupied by Burne-Jones and Morris
report similar conditions. If Moore's studio really was disordered, it can only
be because all the artist's organizational powers went into his pictures.
There is something of his fellow Yorshireman Etty in Moore's concentration on the human
figure, although Moore goes out of the way to avoid the carnal atmosphere that
Etty cultivated. But flesh tones are not called 'carnations' for nothing, and
the modern viewer may be unable to avoid a frisson on seeing some of the
nudes and thinly draped figures -- but, don't worry, it's an aesthetic
frisson.
What is certain is that Moore lived very close to Leighton, and that he was a long-time friend of
Whistler, who signed his pictures with a similar stylized ('anthemion') device
to Moore. Famously, these two painters asked Ruskin to judge whether their
styles were becoming mutually derivative. This is difficult to understand
today: while there is similarity in colour-schemes and in the Japanese influence
that both painters acknowledged, their brushwork seems as different as might be;
which only shows how difficult it is to recapture a 'Victorian' way of looking
at pictures.
The illustrations on this page show Moore's initial sketch for one of his
trademark single figures 'Blossoms'
and a contemporary photogravure of the final picture.
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Works by
Moore
at
Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum
Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery
The Guildhall Art Gallery
Hugh Lane Art Gallery
Leighton House
The Russell-Cotes Art Gallery
The Tate Gallery
The Walker Art Gallery
Complete list of pictures
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