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Poynter’s “The Festival” “The Festival” by Sir Edward John Poynter, completed in 1875 is a very striking painting. A recent acquisition of the Art Institute of Chicago, it is housed in Gallery two twenty six, which contains works by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Part of the Aesthetic Movement, the “Classical revival…was also a reaction against the predominance of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites in the 1850s.” Often said to be one of the most obscure and underappreciated of the Victorian painters, “there are two main reasons why Poynter has been neglected. First, his reputation has always been overshadowed by that of Leighton…Secondly; it was Poynter’s misfortune to live too long into the twentieth century.” President of the Royal Academy in London, Poynter received most of his training in Rome where he closely studied the works of Michelangelo. “Poynter was an outstanding draughtsman in the academic tradition, who loved drawing for its own sake, and he made numerous fluent studies, many of them in black chalk, for each of his paintings.” Furthermore, Poynter painted mostly religious and biblical figures, although “Despite impeccable Academic credentials, Poynter’