Pre-Raphaelitism -- Great Britain; Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 1828-1882
During the years 1869 to 1871, and the two following which Rossetti
spent at Kelmscott, he was at work on a number of fairly important
new canvases in addition to the retouching of old ones. A sprinkling
of crayons and small pictures also has to be mentioned. These
include the _Rosa Triplex_, a study of three heads from one sitter,
now in the Tate Gallery, and _Penelope_, a crayon drawing of a seated
figure, which is unique in the respect that it was done from a
favourite model of Sir Edward Burne-Jones.
Throughout the year 1870, with one or two exceptions, Mrs. Morris's
is the face which figures in Rossetti's work. It is to be seen, for
instance, in the fine picture called _Mariana_, really a first
attempt at the portrait in the Tate Gallery lent by Mrs. Morris, to
which a second figure was subsequently added.
In 1871 he painted the picture of _Pandora_, of which Mr. Swinburne
says, in his "Essays and Studies," that "it is amongst the mightiest
of all Rossetti's works in its God-like terror and imperial trouble
of beauty." The figure is clad in a long robe of Venetian red, and
is holding the fateful casket, from which issues a red smoke, curling
all round into clustering shapes, like flame-winged seraph curses.
_Water-willow_, a little quarter-length figure with a river landscape
behind, done in the same year, is interesting from the fact that it
is a portrait of Mrs. Morris, and that the view represents Kelmscott.
We now come to the picture of _Dante's Dream_, begun in 1870 and
finished towards the close of 1871, Rossetti's most important work in
the opinion of many people, and considerably his largest. The
subject is that of the little early water-colour painted in 1856,
namely the vision related by Dante as having come to him of Beatrice
lying in death, and the angels bearing upward her soul in the form of
"an exceedingly white cloud." The picture is more fully described
elsewhere.
[Illustration: MARIANA.]
Impressive as _Dante's Dream_ may be, it is not to be classed on all
grounds with Rossetti's finest work. Yet it has been the object of
boundless admiration. It has even been said that if no other of
Rossetti's works survived but this and the _Beata Beatrix_, they
alone would be enough to ensure him a place among the few great
artists of the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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