Voluit: Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti -

* 12-5-1828, Londen - † 10-4-1882, Birchington-on-Sea

    

Zoon van een Italiaanse politieke vluchteling, broer van Christina en W.M.  Rossetti, was mede-oprichter en stimulerende kracht van de Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Zijn eerste grote werk was The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849, Tate Gallery, Londen).

Zijn poëtische, decoratieve aquarellen waren geïnspireerd door werk van Dante en Malory. Er bestaat een nauw verband tussen Rossetti’s schilderkunst en zijn melodieuze, maar vaak overladen poëzie. De meest ambitieuze uitdrukking van zijn cultus van liefde en  schoonheid is de sonnettenreeks The house of life (1870). Rossetti vertaalde ook uit het Italiaans, Frans (Villon) en Duits. Zijn kunst bereidde de weg voor het symbolisme en estheticisme van de jaren negentig.

 

Artikel n.a.v. tentoonstelling in het Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam in 2004:

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, zijn naam klinkt als een gedicht.

De overzichtstentoonstelling die het Van  Gogh Museum nu over deze Engelse voorloper van het Symbolisme heeft ingericht is een verademing. Zelden vind je vandaag de dag in Nederland zo’n mooi onderbouwde presentatie over een belangrijk onderwerp uit de tweede helft van  de negentiende eeuw. Deze keer eens geen min of meer toevallige verzameling kunstwerken over een of ander los thema, drijvend op een paar grote internationaal bekende namen, zoals de laatste jaren in veel musea schering en  inslag lijkt te zijn. Geen oneliners op de muur, geen onderschatting van  het publiek, maar reeksen  zorgvuldig opgebouwde teksten die inzicht geven in de drijfveren van deze Victoriaanse kunstenaar. Het is een tentoonstelling waar bovendien alle grote werken van de kunstenaar present zijn. Je zou ervoor naar Parijs of Londen reizen.  Rossetti was al vroeg gegrepen door de Middeleeuwen. In 1848 richtte hij samen met Holman Hunt en John Everett Millais, een ‘geheim’ genootschap op.  De naam vatte hun idealen samen: the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. De schilders wilden terug naar de tijd van vóór het Maniërisme, terug naar wat zij als zuivere, eerlijke kunst beschouwden: de late  Middeleeuwen en de vroege Renaissance. De tijd vóór Raphael dus. Op de  tentoonstelling hangen ook mooie voorbeelden van de sobere beeldtaal waarin Rossetti in die vroege tijd werkte. Zijn lijnvoering is strak, de vrouwenfiguren zijn  ingetogen, ze staan recht en hun kleding valt zonder al te  ingewikkelde plooien naar beneden.

Rossetti heeft zich zijn hele  leven op het verleden gericht, met name op literaire thema’s – uit Dante, Decamerone, de  Arthurlegende, Faust – maar toch heeft zijn  werk ook grote invloed gehad op de kunstenaars van de volgende  generatie, de decadente schrijvers en schilders van het Symbolisme. De tentoonstelling presenteert hem vooral als een schepper van decadente dromen, van hypergevoelige, in zichzelf gekeerde  vrouwenfiguren, van verholen erotiek. Dat wordt bij het begin al  duidelijk. Grote bossen weelderige, wijd opengesperde lilarozen staren je aan, de zintuigen van de bezoeker wordt geprikkeld door een flauwe (rozen)geur en zachte Spaanse kerkmuziek uit de  Renaisance (Da Vittoria). Op een meer dan  levensgrote foto hangt de hoofdpersoon schuin in een stoel, corpulent en kalend, dromerig in de  richting van zijn eigen tentoonstelling te kijken. Of eigenlijk naar een scherm bij de ingang, waarop verschillende door hem  vereeuwigde vrouwengezichten  langzaam in elkaar overgaan.

Hier houdt, precies op tijd, het associatieve deel van de  tentoonstelling op. Maar de beelden vatten de hoofdthema’s van Rossetti’s  werk mooi samen. Ongeoorloofde liefde is zo’n thema en de ijle grens tussen leven en dood. Dante en zijn  onbereikbare Beatrice komen telkens terug. Rossetti werkte met teksten op de lijsten en met zeer duidelijke attributen en details zodat er geen twijfel kon bestaan  over de betekenis van zijn werk. Zo is de  jonge Maria op een van zijn  aquarellen, die een lelie in de tuin verzorgt, voorzien van een weinig maagdelijk attribuut als een grote schop; uit haar tas steekt een stevig en scherp mes.

Rond 1860 begon Rossetti grote vrouwenportretten in  Venetiaanse stijl te maken. Hij schilderde deze herkenbare vrouwen, al naar gelang hun rol voorzien van bloemen en sieraden, voor een kleine kring van liefhebbers en geestverwanten, want al op jonge leeftijd was hij opgehouden met exposeren. Al zijn topstukken zijn in  Amsterdam: de schone Rosamund, Bocca Baciata, Het Blauwe Boudoir en de enge Helena van Troje met haar waanzinnige ogen. Rossetti had drie lievelingsmodellen. Elisabeth Siddal was de mooiste, de jongste en de onschuldigste, Fanny Cornforth de sappigste en Jane Morris de broeierigste en meest languissante. In de portretten van haar benadert de schilder het meest het symbolistische ideaal van de  melancholieke droomvrouw die zonder dat zij het wil een onbereikbare femme fatale is. Zelfs wanneer de kunstenaar een meester in realistische stofuitdrukking was. Want dat was Rossetti.

 

Biography:

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti is an English poet, painter and translator. He was born to a family of an Italian political immigrant Gabriel Rossetti, poet, scholar and revolutionary. There were three more children in the family: Maria (1827-76) who became an Anglican nun and author of a literary commentary A Shadow of Dante; William Michael (1829-1919), critic, civil servant and Pre-Raphaelite historian, and Christina Georgina (1830-94), English poet. The household was artistic and more Italian than English.
            Rossetti began his training in 1841 in Sass’s Drawing School; in 1846 he was accepted by the Royal Academy Antique School in London. Then he persuaded Ford Madox Brown to tutor him, but this was short-lived. In 1848, he became a co-founder (with William Holman Hunt and John Millais) of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the painters of the trend turned away from neo-classicism and its models of Greco-Roman antiquity and the High Renaissance, and revived interest in the Middle Ages, especially in Gothic art.
            Most of Rossetti’s work was produced in the spirit of this movement, despite his leaving it at an early date. Many of his themes were taken from the Old and New Testament, Dante, or the medieval legends about the King Arthur and his knights, Malory's Morte d’Arthur in particular, and treated with strong overtones of symbolism.
            In 1850, he met Elisabeth Siddal, who sat for many of his pictures: The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice: Dante Drawing the Angel (1853), Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah (1855), Beata Beatrix (1864-1870) and for some by Hunt and Millais’s Ophelia, and whom he married in 1860 after a fraught and prolonged courtship. Already an invalid, she died in 1862 from an overdose of laudanum. Although it was an accident, the thought that his wife had committed suicide haunted Rossetti for the rest of his life.
            He met Ruskin in 1854. Largely because of Ruskin, Rossetti was gaining a reputation as the ‘leader’ of the Pre-Raphaelites. He turned more and more in the direction of poetic painting, which he emphasized by attaching sonnets to the frames of his pictures. In 1861, The Early Italian Poets was published, translations from 60 poets such as Dante and Cavalcanti. Rossetti's Poems appeared in 1870. His wife’s death, however affected him deeply and his work took a taint of pessimism and morbidity. Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice (1871), Proserpine (1874). He fell into depression and attempted suicide in 1872. Nevertheless, Balladsand Sonnets with the sonnet sequence The House of Life and The King’s Tragedy appeared in 1881. In his later years Rossetti concentrated on studies of single, allegorical female figures: Monna Vanna (1866), Mariana (1870), La Ghirlandata (18730, The Day Dream (1880).
 “At odds with Victorian morality, his work is lush, erotic and medieval, romantic in spirit, and of abiding interest and fascination.”
Rossetti died on 9 April, Easter Sunday, 1882, of Bright’s disease.

 

Bibliography:
Victorian Painting. by Christopher Wood. Bulfinch Press. 1999.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti by Russell Ash. Harry N Abrams, 1995.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poet and Painter by Eben E. Bass. Peter Lang Publishing, 1990.

 

Werken:

 

Poëzie:

Hand and Soul (1850)

Ballads and sonnets (1881)

Vert.:

The early Italian poets (1861, uitgebreid o.d.t.: Dante and his circle, 1873)

 

 

 

001

Self-Portrait

1847

Pencil heightened with white on paper

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

 

 

002

The Girlhood of Mary Virgin

1849

Oil on canvas

Tate Gallery, London, UK

The picture overflows with symbolism: the lily, an emblem of purity and also an attribute of the Angel Gabriel. The entwined palm and thorn in the foreground foretell the Passion. Behind the balcony is St. Joachim, Mary’s father, tending the wine, a traditional symbol of Christ.

 

 

 

003

Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunciation)

1850

Oil on canvas

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

 

004.

Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal.

1850-1865

Watercolour on paper.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.

 

 

005.

The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice:

Dante Drawing the Angel.

1853

Watercolour on paper

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

 

 

 

006.

Found.

1854

Oil on canvas

Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, USA.

The subject, inspired by William Bell Scott’s poem ‘Rosabell’, later re-titled ‘Maryanne’, is that of a prostitute recognized by her former fiancé, a young farmer. She cowers beside the wall of a graveyard, symbolizing death and damnation.

 

006a.

Miss Siddal in a chair reading.

1854, Hastings June 2

Pencil drawing

Lent to the British Art Exhibition at Burlington House by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Miss Siddal, who became Rossetti’s wife, first sat to him in 1849 and was the model for most of his early water-colours, as well as other paintings.

 

 

 

007.

Arthur’s Tomb: The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere. 

1854.

Watercolour on paper.

Brithish Museum, London, UK

 

Arthur’s Tomb: The Last Meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere: 

Sir Lancelot, a knight of King Arthur, and Guinevere, the wife of the king, are two of the main characters of the medieval legends about King Arthur and his knights. The subject was inspired by Malory’s ‘Morte d’Arthur’: after the death of Arthur the Queen retired to a nunnery and rejected Lancelot. Rossetti invented another episode: the repentant Queen repulses Launcelot’s attempt to kiss her over late husband's tomb. The apple tree and the snake, creeping out of the grass are clear references to the biblical Fall of Man. This picture inspired the poem of the same title by William Morris:

Across my husband's head, fair Launcelot!
   Fair serpent mark’d with V upon the head!
This thing we did while yet he was alive,
   Why not, O twisting Knight, Now he is dead?

 

 

008.

Beatrice Meeting Dante at a Marriage Feast,

Denies Him Her Salutation.

1855.

Watercolour on paper

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

 

 

009.

Dante’s Vision of Rachel and Leah.

1855.

Watercolour on paper.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

 

010.

The Blue Closet.

1857.

Watercolour on paper.

Tate Gallery, London, UK.

 

The Blue Closet: The subject has no apparent literary source; two women play upon a strange medieval instrument, which combines clavichord, carillon and harp. Behind the musicians stand two singers. The painting inspired Morris’s poem of the same name, but, as Rossetti remarked, ‘The poems were the result of the pictures, but don’t at all tally to any purpose with them though beautiful in themselves.’

Lady Alice, Lady Louise,
Between the wash of the tumbling seas
We are ready to sing, if so ye please;
So lay your long hands on the keys;
Sing, Laudate pueri.
(From ‘The Blue Closet’, William Morris)

 

 

011.

The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra.

1857.

Watercolour on paper.

Tate Gallery, London, UK.

 

Zoals op de meeste werken van Rossetti stond ook op de aquarel ‘Huwelijk van St. Jorus met prinses Sabra’  de kunstenares Elisabeth Siddal, met wie

hij in 1860 huwde, model voor de vrouwelijke figuur

 

 

012.

The Tune of Seven Towers.

1857.

Watercolour on paper.

Tate Gallery, London, UK.

The Tune of Seven Towers:  The subject was invented by Rossetti himself;

 a king listens to the music, played by his queen.

The medievalism of the picture is characteristic of Pre-Raphaelists.

 

 

013.

St. Catherine.

1857.

Oil on canvas.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

 

014.

A Christmas Carol.

1857-1858.

Watercolour and gouache on paper.

Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

 

 

015.

The Seed of David.

Central panel of triptych.

1858-1864.

Oil on canvas.

Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, UK.

 

The Seed of David: The subject of the picture is adoration of baby Christ by both shepherds and kings. The symbolism is based on David’s dual identities of shepherd and king. The infant Jesus is worshiped by both kings and shepherds.

 

016.

Writing on the Sand.

1859.

Watercolour on paper.

British Museum, London, UK

 

 

017.

Sir Galahad at the Ruined Chapel.

1859.

Watercolour and bodycolour on paper.

Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK.

 

Sir Galahad at the Ruined Chapel: Sir Galahad is one of the knights of medieval legends about King Arthur and his Knights.

Between dark stems the forest glows,
I hear a noise of Hymns:
Then by some secret shrine I ride;
I hear a voice but none are there;
The stalls are void, the doors are wide,
The tapers burning fair.
Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,
The silver vessels sparkle clean,
The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,
And solemn chaunts resound between.
        (From ‘Sir Galahad’, Alfred Tennyson).

 

018.

Bocca Baciata.

1859

Oil on panel.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA.

 

‘Bocca Baciata’ is a quotation from the 14-th century Italian poet and writer Giovanni Boccacio, which Rossetti inscribed on the back of the painting; in full it reads: “The mouth that has been kissed loses not its freshness; still it renews itself even as does  the moon.’ The model was Fanny Cornforth, born Sarah Cox in 1824.

 

 

019.

Dantis Amor.

1860

Oil on panel.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

020.

Fair Rosamund.

1861

Oil on canvas.

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, UK

 

 

 

021.

The Sermon on the Mount.

1862.

Stained glass.

South nave window.

All Saints, Selley, Gloucestershire, UK.

 

 

022.

Portrait of Maria Leathart

1862

Oil on panel.

Private Collection 

 

Maria Leathart - (1840 - ? ), the wife of James Leathart, a lead manufacturer, the Secretary of the Government School of Design; he built up a fine collection of pre-Raphaelite paintings.

 

 

023.

Girl at a Latrice.

1862.

Oil on canvas.

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

 

 

024.

Helen of Troy

1863

Oil on panel

Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany

 

 

025.

How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sanc Grael; but Sir Percival’s Sister Died by the Way.

1864

Watercolour on paper.

Tate Gallery, London, UK 

 

How Sir Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival were Fed with the Sanc Grael… 

All are the knights from the medieval legends about King Arthur and his knights. The scene  shows the pilgrims receiving the Eucharist in the Holy vessel from an angel who stands behind the miraculous lily. Behind them stand red-winged angels and to the left is the Holy Spirit, which associated with the appearance of the Sanc Grael, in the form of a dove carrying a golden censer in its beak.

 

 

026

Beata Beatrix.

1864-1870

Oil on canvas.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

 

027.

Venus Verticordia.

1864-1868.

Oil on canvas.

Rossetti Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK

 

Venus Verticordia. The model for the goddess was Alexa Wilding. The goddess is depicted with a Cupid’s arrow, and the apple, which had been awarded to her by Paris for her beauty. About the goddess see also here.

 

 

028.

The Blue Bower.

1865.

Oil on canvas.

Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, Birminham, UK

 

The Blue Bower is Rossetti’s last major portrait of Fanny Cornforth.

 

 

028a

Jane Morris

Foto

Ca. 1865

Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

 

 

029.

The Beloved

1865-1866

Oil on canvas.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

The Beloved, also called The Bride, the subject is taken from the Old Testament ‘The Song of Solomon’ and illustrates the lines ‘She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework; the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company’. The model was Marie Ford.

 

 

030.

Monna Vanna

1866

Oil on canvas.

Tate Gallery, London, UK

 

Monna Vanna is clearly based on 16th-century Venetian prototypes of Mary Magdalenes and Venuses, and Rossetti himself described it as Venetian, the original title being ‘Venus Veneta’. It was painted from Alexa Wilding.

 

 

031

Regina Cordium

1866

Oil on canvas

Art Gallery and Museum, Kelvingrove, Glasgow, UK

 

Regina Cordium, which means Queen of Hearts, a portrait of Alexa Wilding.

 

 

032.

Sibylla Palmifera

1866-1870

Oil on canvas.

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, UK

 

Sibylla Palmifera was painted with the idea of contrasting with the picture of Lady Lilith, the legendary first wife of Adam and a personification of lust in Jewish folklore. Sibylla Palmifera represented ‘Soul’s Beauty’, the title of a sonnet he wrote to accompany the painting. The modestly dressed Sibylla sits in a temple surrounded by the emblems of Love, Death and Mystery, the Cupid, the skull and the sphinx. In contrast, Lilith admires herself in a mirror, the attribute of vanity. The initial contrast between the pictures, posed by the sensuous Fanny Cornforth and demure Alexa Wilding respectively, was very marked, but in 1872-3 Rossetti replaced Fanny’s head with the head of Alexa at the request of a buyer, and destroyed the original concept.

 

 

033

Reverie

1868

Chalk on paper

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK

 

Reverie is one of the first of many subsequent portraits of Jane Morris, neé Burden, the wife of another pre-Raphaelite painter, William Morris (1834-96), and Rossetti’s final muse.

 

 

033a

Lady Lilith

1868

delaware Art Museum

Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935

 

 

034

La Pia de’ Tolomei

1868-1880

Oil on canvas.

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

 

 

035.

Study for Pandora.

1869

Chalk on paper

Faringdon Collection Trust, Buscot Park, Oxfordshire, UK

 

 

036.

Mariana

1870

Oil on canvas.

Aberdeen Art Museum, UK

 

 

037.

La Donna della Fiamma

1870

Chalk on paper

City Art Galleries, Manchester, UK

 

 

038.

Water Willow.

1871

Oil on canvas

Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, USA 

 

Water Willow. This small and personal picture of Jane Morris was painted in 1871 during Morris’s absence in Iceland, at the height of her love affair with Rossetti.

 

 

039.

Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice.

1871.

Oil on canvas.

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

 

 

040.

The Bower Meadow.

1872

Oil on canvas

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

 

 

041.

La Ghirlandata

1873

Oil on canvas

The Guildhall Art Gallery, London, UK

 

 

042.

Proserpine.

1874.

Oil on canvas

Tate Gallery, London, UK   

 

Proserpine, see her legend here. The model for Proserpine was Jane Morris. By depicting her as this character, Rossetti hinted at her situation of a woman trapped in marriage, which she disliked.

 

 

043.

The Boat of Love

1874-1881

Oil on canvas.

Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, UK

 

 

044.

La Bella Mano.

1875

Oil on canvas

Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, USA

 

La Bella Mano, The Beautiful Hand,

In royal wise ring-girt and bracelet-spann’d
A flower of Venus’ own virginity,
Go shine among thy sisterly sweet band;
In maiden-minded converse delicately
Evermore white and soft; until thou be,
O hand! heart-handsel’d in a lover’s hand.
        (From ‘La Bella Mano’, Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

 

 

045.

The Blessed Damozel.

1875-1878.

Oil on canvas.

Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

 

The Blessed Damozel. Rossetti used his most famous poem as the inspiration for this painting 25 years later after publishing it. The subject of the poem is platonic love:

The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
        (From ‘The Blessed Damozel’, Dante Gabriel Rossetti’)

 

 

045a

The Blessed Damozel

Overview of the masterpiece

 

 

046.

Astarte Syriaca.

1877

Oil on canvas.

City Art Galleries, Manchester, UK

 

Astarte Syriaca. Astarte was the goddess of fertility and love in ancient Eastern religions and was particularly important to the Phoenicians. Jane Morris sat for Astarte.

Mystery; lo! betwixt the sun and moon
Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen
Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen
Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon
Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune:
And from her neck’s inclining flower-stem lean
Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean
The pulse of hearts to the spheres’ dominant tune.
        (From ‘Astarte Syriaca”, Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

 

 

047.

La Donna della Finestra.

1879.

Oil on canvas.

Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

 

048.

The Day Dream

1880

Oil on canvas.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK