(The book allows the reader to enter the world of pre-Raph...)
The book allows the reader to enter the world of pre-Raphaelite poetry, to study the interaction between verbal and visual art, and to assess Rossetti's place in the canon of Victorian literature.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a British painter who worked mostly in style close to symbolism. Although Rossetti gained his living as a painter, it is as a poet that he is chiefly famous. The poems he created often accompanied his paintings. He is also known as a co-founder of the pre-Raphaelite movement.
Background
Baptized as Gabriel Charles Dante, he begun signing his works as Dante Gabriel Rossetti by the age of 21. He was the elder son of Gabriele Pasquale Giuseppe Rossetti, an Italian scholar, who emigrated to England escaping from the consequences of his participation in the Naples reform movement against Ferdinand I, and Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori, a sister of Byron's physician, Dr John Polidori.
Dr Polidori's father, Gaetano Polidori, had in early youth been Alfieri's secretary. The couple had four children, so, Dante had two sisters, Christina Rossetti, a poet, and author Maria Francesca Rossetti. Dante’s brother, William Michael Rossetti, was a critic.
Education
Dante Gabriel Rossetti spent his childhood in the atmosphere of medieval Italy, which inspired and gave subjects to his future artworks.
Rossetti received his first education at home, often reading the Bible. Then, the boy had attended for night months, from the autumn of 1835 to the summer of 1836, a private school in Foley Street, Portland Place in London. Next, Dante pursued his studies at King's College School, where he received a proficient knowledge of Latin. The boy also knew French well. Dante Gabriel leaved King's College School after reaching the fourth class in the summer of 1843.
The same year, Rossetti entered Sass's Art Academy (called Cary's by the time) and received there the admission to the Antique School of the Royal Academy about 1846. While there, the artist met William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. At this period, Rossetti had some German lessons.
Two years later, Dante Gabriel became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, a British painter. They remained close friends throughout Rossetti's life.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's career began in 1848 from the formation of the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood along with his friends from the Royal Academy, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. The first artist's paintings, made in symbolism, Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849) and Ecce Ancilla Domini (1850), were marked by such qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite period as a medieval cast, love to symbolism, and great attention to details. The same atmosphere is shown in his emotional poem "The Blessed Damozel," published in 1850 in the first issue of The Germ, the Pre-Raphaelite magazine. Both pictures were exhibited the years they appeared, the first one in March 1849 at Hyde Park Corner and the latter at the Portland Gallery in 1850. The second work received many bad critical reviews, and Rossetti switched to the watercolours, the most notable of which are "Borgia," "The Laboratory," and a sardonic tragedy "Hesterna Rosa."
Along with watercolours, Dante Gabriel Rossetti started to use the religious topics in his painting scenes from famous authors such as Shakespeare, Robert Browning, and Dante. A classical exemplar of this style was How They Met Themselves (1851–60).
The same period was marked by the appearance of Elizabeth Siddal who had a great influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood serving as model for all his members. Soon, she became a muse only for Rossetti who created several portraits depicting his affection for her. In 1853, Dante Rossetti begun his unique modern-life picture, Found, which was not finished at his death.
The following years, Rossetti's artworks were inspired by the Italian poetry, in particular, Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova (published as The Early Italian Poets in 1861) which he translated into English. Another happy sources for subject matter of this period were Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Lord Tennyson's Idylls of the King due to which the artist created the finest drawings and sketches of the Arthurian epoch in 1856-1857. "Lancelot and Guinevere at the Tomb of Arthur," "Lancelot looking at the Dead Lady of Shalott," "Mariana of the South," "Sir Galahad" and "The Blue Closet" are among them.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti also designed and illustrated the books of his sister, poet Christina Rossetti, the first edition of Goblin Market (1862) and The Prince's Progress (1866). One more illustration of this time was "The Maids of Elfen-Mere" (1855), for a poem by William Allingham. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones were so fascinated by his visions of Arthurian romance that they made Rossetti a contributor to their Oxford and Cambridge Magazine.
The defining and most powerful moment of Rossetti's career was a commission of triptych (The Seed of David) for Llandaff Cathedral in 1856. A year later, along with William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, the painter took part in other great commission, the decoration of the Oxford Union debating chamber with mural paintings of Arthurian themes. Unfortunately, the created paintings became almost indistinguishable because of the bad preparation of the walls.
In 1861, Rossetti took part in the foundation of the decorative arts firm, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. with Morris, Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb, Charles Faulkner, and Peter Paul Marshall. Dante Rossetti elaborated designs for stained glass and other decorative objects.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's artworks changed after the death of his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, in 1862. The artist buried some of his complete poems with her. The most iconic picture of this period was the symbolic Beata Beatrix of 1863. Rossetti's paintings became more aesthetic and sensuous reflecting mundane beauties. Fanny Cornforth, his new life partner, was the model of his voluptuous paintings, including The Blessed Damozel (1871–79), The Bower Meadow (1872), Proserpine (1874), and La Pia de' Tolomei (1881). The works had a great success and allowed Rossetti to hire studio assistants.
This time, Dante Rossetti returned again to poetry. New poems and those recovered from his wife's grave were published in 1870 as Poems by D. G. Rossetti and were well received except the bad review of Thomas Maitland on "The Fleshly School of Poetry." The attack had bad influence on Rossetti's emotional state and he started to suffer from insomnia and fail eyesight. The painter turned for relief to whiskey and chloral, and the effects of the hypochondria thus induced can be traced in the painting and poetry of his last years.
At the end of his life, Rossetti did some copies of his early watercolour paintings, such as Dante's Dream (1880) and reworked some of his poems, like "The House of Life," published in Poems (1881) and Ballads and Sonnets (1881).
(The book allows the reader to enter the world of pre-Raph...)
1999
painting
Lady Lilith
The Girlhood of Mary Virgin
Ecce Ancilla Domini!
Proserpine
Bocca Baciata
Beata Beatrix
Found
The Beloved
Dante's Dreams
The Day Dream
A Sea Spell
Sybilla Palmifera
Borgia
The Laboratory
Hesterna Rosa
How They Met Themselves
Lancelot and Guinevere at the Tomb of Arthur
Mariana of the South
The Seed of David
The Blessed Damozel
The Bower Meadow
La Pia de' Tolomei
print
The Maids of Elfen-Mere
Religion
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's father was a Roman Catholic, and his mother was an Anglican. Dante Gabriel was baptized as an Anglican, and practiced this Christian tradition.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"He was painting in oils with water-colour brushes, as thinly as in water-colour, on canvas which he had primed with white till the surface was a smooth as cardboard, and every tint remained transparent. I saw at once that he was not an orthodox boy, but acting purely from the aesthetic motive. The mixture of genius and dilettantism of both men shut me up for the moment, and whetted my curiosity." William Bell Scott, Scottish artist
"I don't like his women at all, but they fascinate me, like a snake. That's why I always buy Rossetti whenever I can. His women are really rather horrible. It's like a friend of mine who says he hates my work, although it fascinates him." Laurence Stephen Lowry, English artist
Interests
exotic animals (wombats, llamas, toucans)
Writers
Edgar Allan Poe
Connections
Dante Gabriel Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal in 1860. Two years later, Elizabeth committed a self-destruction.
Later, the artist had the romantic relationships with Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris who were his models in different times.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool) and Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), this volume explores the life and work of nineteenth-century English painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Rossetti: Painter and Poet
The richly illustrated book traces the development of Rossetti's painting and poetry in the context of the drama of his life.