The Victorian Era in England has become synonymous with a stereotypically repressive British sensibility, combined with the sort of ash-veiled, industrial London landscape conveyed by the works of Charles Dickens. But a new exhibit at the Springville Museum of Art paints a considerably more colorful portrait of the time and place.

A Struggle for Beauty & Meaning: Selections from the John H. Schaeffer Collection of Victorian Art curates 40 Victorian-era masterpieces from a private collection, with new acquisitions— including John William Waterhouse’s “An Eastern Interior with a Seated Girl”—since a similar exhibit last year at the BYU Museum of Art. Both iconic works and rarities are included, and, far from furthering the image of a gray, bleak world, they find both vibrant hues and an intense spirituality.

Works by Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee, Ana Lea Merritt, Anthony Frederick August Sandys and Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones are also represented.

A Struggle for Beauty & Meaning: Selections from the John H. Schaeffer Collection of Victorian @ Springville Museum of Art, 126 E. 400 South, Springville, 801-489-2727, Aug. 26–July 2010. SMA.Nebo.edu