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About the exhibition

Just as the novel reached the height of its popularity and influence towards the end of the nineteenth century, British art of the Victorian era reflects the immense and widespread appeal of stories, frequently exotic or mysterious or sentimental or familiar, invariably potent. Those stories were drawn from classical mythology and literature, ancient and modern history, contemporary life and morals. Victorian art seized upon these powerful modes of expression and exploited them to the utmost, combining with technical brilliance the seductiveness of the stage, the urgency of political and social activism, the solemnity of liturgy and state - qualities which continue to make it both alluring and provocative to today's public, and tremendously popular.

Again and again the finest art of Victorian Britain reflects the fundamental themes of love and death. These two enormous, pungent concepts were kept powerfully alive in the Victorian imagination, and indeed tightly interwoven by current events. In particular a succession of reforming enquires into the great public health questions of the day - prostitution, sanitation, the funeral trade, infant mortality, divorce, burial and cremation - continually fed connotations of love, and the erotic implications of death. The title of Love and Death, which is borrowed from one of George Watt's most famous compositions, suggests a perfect framework for exploring the extraordinary art world of Victorian Britain.

Drawn from public and private collections throughout Australia and New Zealand, this major touring exhibition, which has been developed and organised by the Art Gallery of South Australia, will present to the public as wide as possible a representation of mid to late nineteenth-century British art in all its phases. It will concentrate in particular detail upon the Victorian celebration of love, both earthly and divine, together with the Victorian reverence for death - particularly the 'good death', and the promise of loving reunions in the afterlife.