Sir Edward Burne-Jones
British, 1833 - 1898
The Golden Stairs
Date: 1872-80
Photo Credit: Tate Gallery, London/Art Resource, NY
Alternative titles for this painting were 'The King's Wedding' and 'Music on the Stairs'.
This painting can be termed symbolist in the sense that it has no specific subject, but creates a mood purely by its colour and composition. Many of the girls are holding musical instruments, emphasizing the aesthetic credo of combining art and music.
F.G. Stephens said that the girls 'troop past like spirits in an enchanted dream, each moving gracefully, freely, and in unison with her neighbours... What is the place they have left, why they pass before us thus, whither they go, who they are, there is nothing to tell'.
(Athenaeum, 1880)
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