The name The Baleful Head comes from a painting by the Victorian artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), depicting a medievalised Perseus and Andromeda gazing together at the reflection of the petrifying face of Medusa.

Burne-Jones was a fantasy artist in more than just choice of subject-matter. Many of his paintings illustrated Greek myths and passages from Malory's Morte d'Arthur, but some were more individually expressive of his thoughts and feelings, such as "The Gold Stairs", with its stream of young chattering beauties, "The Wheel of Fortune", and the dream-voyager of "Vesper, or The Evening Star". These paintings fall within the general category of Symbolist art, which rose to prominence in Europe and spread throughout the world from the end of the 19th century until the First World War, and which concentrated on inner landscapes, dream images, and personifications of psychological states — in other words, on fantasy.

Burne-Jones was also closely involved with two major fantasy writers of the period — William Morris and George MacDonald. He met Morris at Oxford, where they discovered shared interests in Malory and all things medieval, and became fast friends. Following a joint trip to see the great cathedrals of Northern France, Burne-Jones gave up his degree (he was studying theology with the intent of becoming a priest) and devoted himself to art — a risky move, considering his family were not wealthy, and would not be able to support him.

Burne-Jones attended a drawing class given by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and fell under his influence. The two became friends. Rossetti was one of the core three members of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who had caused a sensation in the art world by paying great attention to natural detail, and using bright colours in their paintings. Burne-Jones became an important second-generation member of the movement. He moved to London, and within a year had attracted a patron, though this did not mean his lean years were over. In fact, it was not until 1885 that his works began to attract high prices at auctions.

Burne-Jones kept up his close friendship with Morris, and later provided his company with designs for tapestries, stained-glass windows, and illustrations for the books produced by his Kelmscott Press. In 1860, he married Georgina MacDonald, the daughter of the author of the seminal fantasies, Phantastes and Lilith. None of the Pre-Raphaelite artists seemed to enjoy happy marriages, and Burne-Jones was no exception. In the late 1860s and early 1870s he had an affair with the beautiful Greek sculptress Maria Zambaco, at one point entering into a suicide pact with her. The tribulations of their relationship entered the world of such Burne-Jones paintings as "Love Among the Ruins".

Towards the end of his life he became widely recognised. His influence was acknowledged by the continental Symbolist movement, and by Aubrey Beardsley, who would later became infamous for illustrating Oscar Wilde's Salomé (in fact, Beardsley met Wilde at Burne-Jones' house).

Like many Symbolist painters Burne-Jones created a world of his own that remained consistent throughout his many paintings. It is most notable in his human figures. Glance at any two of his works — or at any one with many figures in it — and you will notice how much the people look like one another. Even the men and women seem to share the same ethereal, sensitive features. This is because Burne-Jones, and artists like him, were not painting portraits, but portraying inner states. His figures were "Everyman" and "Everywoman", even when they were named Psyche or Perseus or Sir Lancelot — they were not the figures from myth so much as placemarkers for the viewer of the painting to enter into that myth and be transformed by it. (It is interesting to note that some of the best of today's best fantasy artists, such as Frank Frazetta, do the same).

This quote from a letter to William Morris in 1884 shows how heavily his dream-life influenced Burne-Jones: "I get frightened now of indulging in dreams, so vivid that they seem recollections rather than imaginations, but they seldom last more than half-an-hour, and the sound of the earthly bells in the distance...[calls] me back to the years I cannot convince myself of living in."

Burne-Jones' work may be an acquired taste, and is not without flaws — some of his goddess-figures, for instance, are badly-proportioned to make up their increased height — but once you accept his foibles and oddities as conventions (in the same way that cross-sex-disguises, asides and soliloquies have to be accepted as conventions in the theatre of Shakespeare), once you enter his world, his paintings grow on you, and can start to seem beautiful. Burne-Jones found a way of expressing himself through myth and legend, and managed to produce some sublime works of fantasy art.