MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY – –
T. LEMAN HARE

ROSSETTI
1828—1882

“Masterpieces in Colour” Series

Others in Preparation.

ROSSETTI

BY LUCIEN PISSARRO

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.

[vii]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

[9]

I

About the middle of the nineteenth
century Europe woke to the fact that
Art, despite its pretention, had lost all
touch with tradition and, like a blind man
deprived of his staff, stood fumbling for
direction. The necessary “point d’appui”[10]
took shape in a return to nature. This return
was effected by very different means according
to the country and artistic milieu
in which it occurred. In England it was
really a revival of the schools of painting
that preceded Raphael and resulted in
grafting the complicated passions of our
century upon the naïve outlook of the early
Italians. The more logical mind of the
Frenchman saw that it was not enough
to look at nature through the eyes of the
Primitives. The point of view had perforce
changed and all that it was necessary to
borrow from the early schools was the sincerity
they brought to the interpretation of
phenomena.

We have been told that, in contrast to
the continental movement, the realism of
the Pre-Raphaelites was applied only to
noble subjects. But what is a noble subject?
The distinction is a purely literary
one. There are no noble subjects in art;
there are only harmonies of line and colour.[11]
For example this school would prefer the
rose to the cabbage as a subject, on account
of the symbols attached to it. It is the
Queen of Flowers, the Mystic Rose, &c., &c.
But is the rose greater than the cabbage
from a purely pictorial point of view? It
depends entirely upon how far the painter
is able to reveal the beauty, the harmony of
form and colour of either. The symbolistic
appanage of the rose will not suffice of itself
to make a picture, nor for the lack of these
symbols may we condemn the cabbage.

The realism of the Pre-Raphaelites developed
an absorption in detail, a “bit by
bit” painting that was too often detrimental
to the whole. In the best works of the early
Italians the unity is, in spite of that attention
to detail, admirably maintained—in
other words the values are preserved. It was
not long, however, before Rossetti quitted
the path of the Pre-Raphaelites for a broader
one. His paintings are entirely symbolistic,
therefore literary. Given the personality of[12]
an artist equally gifted as painter and poet,
this need not surprise us. Indeed, seeing
that Rossetti’s pictorial conceptions are exclusively
literary, he might be considered as
more dominantly a writer than a painter;
and this is the light in which he saw himself.
We might say he painted “sentiments”
and add that sentiment is the
property of literature, but in Rossetti’s case
they have at least the advantage of intensity.
They come straight from life, for
all his art is more or less connected with
the tragedy of his own existence. Herein
lies the value of Rossetti’s works as artistic
creations.

II

Rossetti’s family, as his name indicates,
was of Italian origin. His ancestors on his
father’s side belong to Vasto d’Ammone, a
small city of the Abruzzi. The original[13]
name of the family was Della Guardia.
Probably the diminutive Rossetti was given
to some red-haired ancestor and retained
in spite of the disappearance of that
peculiarity. The grandfather of the poet,
Dominico Rossetti, was in the iron trade,
his son Gabriel Rossetti, born at Vasto, became
a custodian of the Bourbon Museum
at Naples. He was an ardent patriot and
one of the group of reformers who obtained
a constitution from Ferdinand, King of the
Two Sicilies, in 1820. The return of the
King with the Austrian army obliged Gabriel
Rossetti, who was compromised by his
actions as well as by his patriotic songs,
to make his escape from Italy. He did
this by the help of the English admiral,
commanding the fleet in the bay. Indeed
he left Italy disguised in an English uniform.

[14]

[15]

After passing three years in Malta (1822-1825),
he came to England bearing introductions
from John Hookham Frere, then
Governor of Malta. A year after his arrival[16]
he married Frances Mary Livinia Polidori,
whose mother was an English lady of the
name of Pierce, while her father was Gaetano
Polidori, the translator of Milton. Gabriel
Rossetti was appointed Professor of Italian
literature at King’s College in 1831; but owing
to the failure of his eyesight he had to resign
that position in 1845. He died nine years
after, on April 26th, 1854. He is the author of
several works, the best known in England are:
Comento analitico sulla Divina Commedia
(1826-1827); Sullo Spirito Anti-Papale (1832);
and Il Mistero dell’ Amor Platonic (1840).
In Italy, particularly in his own province,
his name is held in veneration for services in
the cause of liberty. He had four children,
the eldest, Maria Francesca, the author of
“A Shadow of Dante,” died in 1876. Dante
Gabriel was the second and was born the
12th of May 1828 at 38 Charlotte Street, Great
Portland Place, London. William Michael
was the third, and Christina was the
youngest.

[17]

Very little is known of the early life of
Rossetti. He received some instruction at
a private school in Foley Street, Portland
Place, studying there from the autumn of
1836 to the summer of 1837. He was afterwards
sent to King’s College School. There
he learned Latin, French, and a little Greek.
Naturally enough he knew Italian very well
from home and also a little German. In his
home surroundings the young child’s taste for
literature was developed very early; at five
years old he wrote a drama called “The
Slave.” Towards his thirteenth year he
began a romantic tale in prose, “Roderick
and Rosalba.” Somewhere about 1843 he
wrote a legendary tale entitled “Sir Hugh
Le Heron,” founded on a tale by Allan Cunningham.
His grandfather Gaetano Polidori
printed it himself for private circulation,
but the work contains no sign of his ultimate
development and has been justly
omitted from his collected works. Soon
the wish to be a painter took possession of[18]
Dante Gabriel and, on leaving school, he
began his technical education in art at
Cary’s Academy in Bloomsbury. In 1846
he joined the classes of the Antique School
of the Royal Academy. It is worth pointing
out that he never followed the Life School of
that institution. Conventional methods of
study were distasteful to him. He decided
to throw up the Academy training and wrote
to a painter, not very well known at that
date but whose work he admired, asking to
be admitted to his studio as a pupil. The
painter was Madox Brown, and young
Rossetti, given his needs and mode of
thought, could not have chosen a more suitable
master. Madox Brown was only seven
years older than Rossetti, but he had studied
at Ghent, Antwerp, Paris, and Rome. He
had exhibited some fine cartoons during the
early forties for the decoration of the House
of Lords. Among these was one that
Rossetti had greatly admired at the exhibition
of the competitive cartoons in Westminster[19]
Hall. It was “Harold’s body
brought before William the Conqueror.” In
March 1848 Rossetti entered upon his new
experience and Madox Brown agreed to
teach him painting, not for a fee but for the
mere pleasure of meeting and training a
sympathetic spirit. Rossetti did not long
remain a regular attendant in the studio.
He left after a few months.

On the opening day of the exhibition
(May 1848), “Rossetti,” says Mr. Hunt,
“came up boisterously and in loud tongue
made me feel very confused by declaring
that mine was the best picture of the year.
The fact that it was from Keats (‘The Eve
of St. Agnes’) made him extra enthusiastic,
for, I think, no painter had ever before
painted from that wonderful poet, who then,
it may scarcely be credited, was little known.”
Rossetti wished so earnestly to become more
intimate with Hunt that he agreed to work
with him, sharing a studio that the latter
had just taken in Cleveland Street, Fitzroy[20]
Square. Here he began to paint his first
composition, having hitherto done no more
than studies, sketches, a number of portraits,
some of which reveal excellent work. At
this time his literary development was somewhat
ahead of his artistic growth. He had
already translated the Vita Nuova which is
alone a monumental achievement, introducing
wonderfully into the English the warmth
of the southern language; and he had
written some of his best known poems,
including “The Blessed Damozel,” “My
Sister’s Sleep,” “The Portrait,” a considerable
portion of “Ave,” “A last Confession,”
and the “Bride’s Prelude.”

Millais and Holman Hunt, whose friendship
dated from the Academy Schools, found
ground for sympathetic union with Rossetti
in their common distaste for contemporary
art. They were convinced it was necessary
to abandon the conventional style of the day
and return to a severe and conscientious
study of nature. They were for a while uncertain[21]
as to the path to pursue. Where
should they turn for precept and guidance
on the line of their new-found principles?
Looking through a book of engravings from
the Campo Santo of Pisa one day at Millais’
house, they thought they had found there
the direction they sought. Mr. Holman Hunt
tells us that the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood was the immediate
result of coming across the book at that
particular time.

While Holman Hunt was painting “Rienzi
swearing revenge over his brother’s corpse,”
and Millais, “Lorenzo and Isabella,” Rossetti
began his “Girlhood of Mary Virgin.” As
can well be imagined that first composition
gave him endless trouble and was the cause
of the most violent fits of alternate depression
and energy. But the following spring (1849),
the three pictures were ready for exhibition.
Millais and Hunt were hung in the Royal
Academy Exhibition and Rossetti’s in the so-called
Free Exhibition, which was held in[22]
a gallery at Hyde Park Corner. In the “Girlhood
of Mary Virgin,” he represents a room
in the Virgin’s home with a balcony on which
her father, St. Joachim, is seen tending a
vine which grows up towards the top of the
picture. On the right, against a dark green
curtain, are the figures of St. Anna and the
Virgin sitting at an embroidery frame. The
mother, in dark green and brown garments
with a dull red head-dress, is watching with
clasped hands the work in front of her. The
young girl, a quite unconventional Madonna
dressed in grey, pauses with a needle in her
hand gazing in front of her at a child angel
holding a white lily. Underneath the pot
in which the white lily grows are six big
books bearing the names of the six cardinal
virtues. The figures, as well as the dove
which is perched on the trellis, bear halos,
their names being inscribed within. Rossetti
painted his mother for St. Anna and his sister
Christina for the Virgin. Changing her dark
brown hair to golden, he broke a rule of the[23]
[24]
[25]
Brotherhood, which decrees that the artist
shall copy his model most scrupulously. The
picture was signed with his name, followed
by the three letters P.R.B. Rossetti having
revealed the meaning of these three letters
to a friend it was soon generally known and
no peace was given to those who dared
to stand up against traditional authority.
It is necessary to explain that, at that time,
Raphael was considered the greatest of all
painters. All who came before him were
ignored and a set of fixed rules supposed
to have been deduced from his work was
taught in all the schools. The revolt of the
“Brethren” was directed much more against
those rules than against Raphael’s work
which, in all probability, they hardly knew.

At about the same time that he painted
“Mary’s Girlhood,” Rossetti did a portrait
in oils of his father, his first work of this
kind. He also drew an outline design of
a lute player and his lady, a subject taken
from Coleridge’s “Genevieve”; a pen-and-ink[26]
drawing of “Gretchen in the Chapel,” with
Mephistopheles whispering in her ear, and
“The Sun may shine and we be cold,” a
sketch of a girl near a window, apparently
a prisoner. To this period also belongs the
important pen-and-ink drawing, “Il Saluto
di Beatrice,” representing in two parts the
meeting of Dante and Beatrice, first in a
street of Florence and secondly in Paradise.

The most important of Rossetti’s Pre-Raphaelite
work during the two years following
1848 is the “Ecce Ancilla Domini,”
quite in keeping in sentiment with the
picture of the previous year. Both these
pictures are a little timid in treatment. In
the “Ecce Ancilla Domini,” the Virgin clad
in white is sitting on her bed, as if just
awakened, and sees with awe the full length
of an angel, also clad in white, floating in
front of her and holding a white lily in his
hand. The walls are white but there is a
blue curtain behind the Virgin’s head and a
red embroidery on its frame is standing in[27]
the foreground at the foot of the bed. The
drapery of the angel is a little stiff and the
whole effect rather hard, but notwithstanding
this youthful fault the whole work is
restrained and full of charm both in drawing
and colour.

This picture was exhibited in 1850 at the
same Free Exhibition, which was moved this
year from Hyde Park Corner to Portland
Place.

The Pre-Raphaelites were now attacked
by the press still more fiercely than before,
but they found a champion in Ruskin who
took up their defence in a series of letters
to the Times, and in so doing laid down
an elaborate statement of principles. Thus
it came about that the broad and possibly
nebulous ideas of the Brethren became transmuted
into hard and fast rules, which the
young painters had to accept, partly out of
gratitude to their benefactor, partly because
they agreed with them. Rossetti painted
only three pictures strictly according to[28]
the Pre-Raphaelite rules. Curiously enough
the best genuine Pre-Raphaelite picture is
“Work” by Ford Madox Brown, who not
believing in cliques refused to join the
group.

Round Rossetti were grouped his brother,
William Michael, his sister Christina, with
Woolner, Collinson, Deverell, Millais, Hunt,
Madox Brown, William Bell Scott, and
Coventry Patmore. Of all these Hunt and
Millais alone showed no inclination for
writing. The group naturally formed a
school of literary thought of which “The
Germ,” originated by Rossetti to propagate
the ideas of the P.R.B., was the outcome.

The cumbrous title “Monthly Thoughts
in Literature, Poetry, and Art,” was first
intended to be the title of this special publication
of the brotherhood, but at a meeting
held in Rossetti’s studio, 72 Newman
Street, in December 1849, when the first
number was just ready for publication it
was decided to change the name for the[29]
simple title “The Germ.” This was proposed
by Mr. Cave Thomas, an intimate
friend of the group.

To the first number Rossetti contributed
“My Sister’s Sleep,” and a prose romance
“Hand and Soul.” Following numbers contained
“The Blessed Damozel,” “The Carillon,”
“Sea limits” (under the title “From
the Cliffs”), and several sonnets. Only the
first two numbers of the publication were
called “The Germ.” The publication was
known as “Art and Poetry” in the third
and fourth issues.

“The Germ,” as its short career showed,
did not meet with success, but it served to
establish Rossetti’s reputation among a small
group of artists and admirers. Rossetti’s
literary contributions were far more matured
than his paintings and it is surprising that
they did not attract more attention. “Hand
and Soul” is specially valuable as bearing
a record of psychological experiences which
gives a clear glimpse of Rossetti’s mind.

[30]

III

The storm of abuse caused by his two
first pictures assisted a natural inclination
to give up his first source of religio-mystical
inspiration. Gradually the young painter
groped his way towards romantic subjects
and discovered a rich mine of them in the
works of Browning, Dante, Keats, and the
“Morte d’Arthur” of Malory. He may be
said to have found there the subjects of most
of his compositions, and his works inspired
by these poets are delightfully full of originality
and ingenuity.

He tried first a large canvas from the
page’s song in “Pippa Passes” but had to
abandon it. The composition of it remains
in a little painting called “Hist, said Kate
the Queen,” dated 1851. He executed two
other pen-and-ink designs from Browning
entitled “Taurellos’ first sight of Fortune”[31]
and the “Laboratory,” at about the same
time. Probably the latter was his first essay
in water-colour, it is very different from those
for which he is popularly known.

In “Beatrice at the Wedding Feast,
denying her salutation to Dante,” a small
water-colour of 1849 from the “Vita Nuova,”
the central figure is a portrait of Miss
Elizabeth Siddal who became acquainted
with Rossetti at about this date. She was
the daughter of a Sheffield cutler and was
working in a milliner’s shop. Walter Deverell
discovered her one day, when he was shopping
with his mother. He persuaded her to sit
for him for his “Viola” and later to Rossetti.
Her portrait can be seen in a picture by
Holman Hunt and in Millais’ Ophelia. Miss
Siddal sat for most of the women in Rossetti’s
earliest and finest water-colours.

To 1851 belongs the beautiful little composition
called “Borgia,” in which Lucrezia
can be seen dressed in an ample white gown
brightened all over with coloured ribbons[32]
and bows, sitting with a lute in her hands.
In the foreground two children are dancing.
Leaning over her left shoulder is the Pope
Alexander VI., while her brother Cæsar
stands on the other side beating time with
a knife against a wine-glass on the table.

Rossetti was not long in discovering
that Miss Siddal had a strong aptitude for
art. With his special gift of influencing
others the position of model was soon
merged into that of a pupil. Under his
guidance Miss Siddal made rapid progress
and her water-colours show a fine sense of
colour.

The sympathy between artist and pupil
ripened into affection. The exact date of
their engagement is not known, but it was
probably in 1853, certainly not later than
1854, and was at first kept secret at Miss
Siddal’s request.

To the year 1854 belongs the water-colour,
“King Arthur’s Tomb,” in which Lancelot
and Guenevere are seen bidding farewell over[33]
[34]
[35]
the tomb of King Arthur; and to the following
year belong the three water-colours,
“The Nativity,” “La Belle Dame Sans
Merci,” and the “Annunciation,” as well as
the drawing for a wood-cut, illustrating a
poem called “The Maids of Elfen-Mere”
by William Allingham.

The artistic and romantic force which
had produced the Pre-Raphaelite movement
had another important work to do five or
six years later, when a fusion of two movements
took place: the early Pre-Raphaelites
represented by Rossetti, Holman Hunt, and
Millais, joined the later movement inaugurated
by Morris and Burne-Jones. The
second of these groups originated at Exeter
College, Oxford. It took shape like the first
one in a revolt against the Art formulæ of
the age. The Oxford group, like the P.R.B.,
had a magazine to express their views.

At Christmas 1855 Burne-Jones came up
to London and was introduced to Rossetti,
whom he and Morris admired greatly. Rossetti[36]
contributed “The Burden of Nineveh,”
and a little altered version of “The Blessed
Damozel” to the “Oxford and Cambridge
Magazine,” the organ of William
Morris.

One year later Burne-Jones and Morris
settled in London in rooms at 17 Red Lion
Square. Both young men were soon completely
under Rossetti’s influence, and their
studio became a sort of centre for all
members of his circle. There, in order to
furnish and decorate these rooms, the first
essays in designing furniture were made.
Rossetti painted a pair of panels for a
cabinet. He made use of the subject of his
early pen-and-ink drawing, “The Salutation
of Beatrice,” representing, in two divisions,
Dante meeting Beatrice in Florence and
again in Paradise, with a figure of Love
standing between them in the midst of
symbols. Besides those panels Rossetti
painted on the backs of two arm-chairs,
“Gwendolen in the Witch-tower” and the[37]
“Arming of a Knight,” both subjects from
poems by William Morris.

To 1857 belongs the charming series of
water-colours acquired by William Morris:
“The Damsel of the St. Grael,” “The Death
of Breuse sans pitié,” “The Chapel before
the Lists,” “The Tune of Seven Towers,”
and “The Blue Closet.” The two last were
special favourites with Morris who used their
romantic titles for two of his poems. This
year also, he painted the “Wedding of St.
George,” “The Gate of Memory,” “The
Garden Bower,” and a “Christmas Carol.”

During the vacation of 1857 Rossetti
went to Oxford with Morris to visit the
architect, Benjamin Woodward, who was
constructing a debating-hall for the Union
Society. Rossetti saw an opportunity for
mural decoration, and arrangements were
made with the building committee in charge
that seven artists including Rossetti, Burne-Jones,
and Morris, should undertake the
decoration gratuitously, the Union only[38]
defraying their expenses at Oxford and providing
all necessary material. Rossetti took
for subjects, “Launcelot asleep before the
Chapel of the Sanc Grael” and “Sir Galahad,
Sir Bors, and Sir Percival, receiving the Sanc
Grael.” Before the pictures were finished
they began to fade, the walls having been
badly prepared and Rossetti’s designs were
never completed.

While at Oxford, in the summer of 1857,
at the theatre, Rossetti was very much
impressed one night by the striking beauty
of Miss Burden, the daughter of an Oxford
resident. He obtained an introduction in
order to ask for sittings. A pen-and-ink
head called “Queen Guinevere,” probably
meant to replace the earlier studies done
for “Launcelot at the Shrine,” was the first
result of the new acquaintance. Several
years later, after the death of his wife, Miss
Burden, then Mrs. William Morris, again
sat to Rossetti for several of his important
pictures.

[39]

[40]
[41]

IV

On the 23rd of May 1860, the long delayed
marriage of Rossetti to Miss Siddal took
place in St. Clement’s Church, Hastings,
and the married couple went to Paris for
their honeymoon. While staying there Rossetti
did two pen-and-ink drawings one of
which called “How they meet themselves,”
was done to replace the one made in 1851
and lost; the other representing a scene
from the “Life of Johnson” by Boswell, quite
an unusual subject for the artist. To the
same year belongs the picture representing
Lucrezia Borgia washing her hands after
preparing poison for her husband the Duke
Alphonso of Bisceglia.

In 1861 Rossetti’s translation from the
Italian poets was at last published with
the “Vita Nuova” in a volume entitled
“The Italian Poets from Cuillo d’Alcamo[42]
to Dante Alighieri (1100, 1200, 1300).” The
painter poet was enabled to publish this
book through Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co.
by the generous assistance of Ruskin who
advanced £100 to the publisher, but the
sale of the first edition was only just sufficient
to pay that sum back, leaving a
balance of about £10 to the author. He
proposed to etch for the frontispiece a
charming design of which various pen-and-ink
versions exist, but being displeased with
the plate he destroyed it. In the same year
he painted a small portrait of his wife called
“Regina Cordium.” The head with ruddy
hair hanging loose on the shoulders against
a gold background, fills nearly all the canvas
and a hand is seen on the left side of
the picture holding a pansy. More than
one replica of that portrait exists, and
several heads from different sitters are
called “Regina Cordium.” Another important
production of the year is “Cassandra.”
The subject is a scene on the walls of Troy[43]
before Hector’s last battle. He has been
warned in vain by the prophetess, who is
seen leaning against a pillar, tearing her
clothes in despair. Hector is rushing down
the steps, and the whole composition is full
of soldiers, every space being filled with
some incident related to the central subject,
giving that aspect of concentrated composition
so special to Rossetti.

The two years following his marriage
(1860-1862) were amongst the most prolific
of Rossetti’s life both in ideas and invention.
Besides “Cassandra” he planned the
composition for a large picture which was
commissioned but never finished, representing
Perseus with the Medusa’s head;
and he made the first pencil studies for his
famous “Beata Beatrix.”

With 1862 is associated the water-colour,
“Bethlehem Gate.” It is also about this
time (1861-1862) that the now famous firm
of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. was
established with the co-operation of William[44]
Morris, Faulkner, Burne-Jones, Madox
Brown, Webb, and others as active
members.

The idea of the commercial attempt on
the artistic lines to reform the art of decoration
and furniture-making was, says
Mr. Mackail, largely due to Madox Brown,
but perhaps more to Rossetti, who, in spite
of his artistic qualities, was a very good
business man and had the scent of a trained
financier for anything likely to pay. The
little band of original artists and designers
took in hand tapestry, furniture, wall papers,
stained-glass, and later on, carpet weaving
and dyeing. The terms under which they
worked were very simple. Each member
was to be paid for the work commissioned
by the firm, and the profits were to be
divided in a proper ratio at the end.

The new firm had plenty to do owing
to the demand for ritual decorations caused
by the Anglo-Catholic movement. Amongst
the first commissions were those for adorning[45]
two new churches then being built—St.
Martin-on-the-Hill, Scarborough, and
St. Michael at Brighton. For the first one
Rossetti made a design for two pulpit
panels and several windows.

In dealing with stained-glass Rossetti who
was specially gifted as a decorator, understood
his medium, and in making his design
took into account all the limitations of the
material. He did not seek to paint a picture
on glass, but maintained that idea of a mosaic
of coloured-glass that is seen to so much advantage
in the early vitraux.

Amongst works designed by him for the
firm Morris & Co. the following may be
mentioned: “Adam and Eve,” two designs
for stained-glass, and “St. George and the
Dragon,” six designs for stained-glass. One
of them representing the princess drawing
the fatal lot he painted as a water-colour.
“King Rene’s Honeymoon,” a design for one
of four panels representing the Arts, was done
for a gothic cabinet that Mr. J. P. Seddon[46]
ordered from Morris & Co. Rossetti’s design
for “Music” shows the king bent over
a chamber-organ kissing his bride while
she is playing. He designed also one of
the minor panels “Gardening.” There is a
water-colour of the same subject under the
title of “Spring.” “Amor, Amans, Amata,”
were three small figures in ovals, done for
the back of a sofa, which Rossetti had made
for himself. He kept it for many years in
his house at Chelsea. “Sir Tristran and la
Belle Iseult drinking the Love potion” was
a fine design intended to be one of a series
of stained-glass windows. “King Rene’s
Honeymoon” was done for a series of stained-glass
windows. “The Annunciation” is a
design for a window, quite different from the
early version of the same subject. “Threshing”
is a design for a glazed tile. “The
Sermon on the Mount” was done for a
memorial window in Christ Church, Albany
Street, erected in 1869 to the memory of his
aunt, Miss Polidori.

[47]

In either 1861 or 1862 Rossetti designed
two illustrations for his sister Christina’s
book of poems “Goblin Market.” They were
engraved on wood and appear in Messrs.
Macmillan’s edition.

In May 1861 Mrs. Rossetti gave birth to
a still-born child. Her recovery was slow,
and this trouble did not improve her consumptive
tendencies. She suffered, too,
from a very severe form of neuralgia, for
which laudanum was prescribed.

On the night of the 11th of February 1862
she took an overdose and Rossetti, returning
home from lecturing at the Working Men’s
College, found her dying. In a terrible state
of anxiety, after seeking one doctor after
another, he called in Madox Brown for help,
but all in vain. The following morning his
wife died, after only two years of married
life. The grief of Rossetti was overwhelming
and the touching scene in which he
buried the manuscript of his poems with his
beloved wife has been told many a time.

[48]

V

After this tragic event Rossetti could no
longer live in the rooms he had occupied at
Chatham Place. He looked for some others,
living meanwhile for a few months in a house
in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Then he took a
lease of the house at No. 16 Cheyne Walk,
sharing it at first with Swinburne and Meredith.
Mr. Meredith did not stay long and
after awhile Mr. Swinburne also gave up his
tenancy, leaving Rossetti sole occupant of
the premises.

One of the last works he did before his
misfortune, and the last picture for which his
wife sat to him, was the water-colour of
“St. George and the Princess Sabra.” For
sometime after the blow of his wife’s death
he was idle. The first things he did after his
recovery was a crayon portrait of his mother
(1862) followed by “The Girl at a Lattice,”[49]
[50]
[51]
“Joan of Arc,” and a replica of his early
“Paolo and Francesca.”

The celebrated picture of “Beata Beatrix,”
now in the Tate Gallery is dated 1863,
but was finished later, being only partly
painted in that year. In Rossetti’s own
words the following is a description of the
picture: “The picture illustrates the Vita
Nuova, embodying symbolically the death
of Beatrice as treated in that work. The
picture is not intended at all to represent
death, but to render it under the semblance
of a trance in which Beatrice, seated at a
balcony overlooking the city, is suddenly
rapt from earth to heaven….”

The whole strikes a sombre note apart
from its symbolic representation through its
delicious purple harmony. The city in the
sunset light in the distance, supposed to be
Florence, is very like London in atmospheric
effect. Beatrice is seen sitting at the balcony
against the sunset background, with
the light playing round her golden auburn[52]
hair, in fashion suggesting an aureole. She
is dressed in green with dull purple sleeves.
A bright red bird holding in its beak a dim
purple poppy, emblem of death, is flying
towards her. In the misty distance the
figures of Dante and Love are watching
her. Rossetti painted in 1872 a replica of
that picture, adding to the main subject the
meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise,
with maidens bearing instruments of music.
He was rather reluctant to send out that
replica, but the unwillingness was overcome.
He painted several others, none of them
being equal in quality to the original.

In 1863 Rossetti painted an oil picture
called “Helen of Troy,” and the last of the
St. George subjects, representing St. George
killing the dragon, which is a water-colour
version of the stained-glass series. Then
come three small subjects, “Belcolore,” a
girl in a circular frame biting a rosebud. Of
this there is a red chalk study and a water-colour
version, “Brimfull,” a water-colour[53]
showing a lady stooping to sip from a full
glass, and a picture called “A Lady in
Yellow.”

Rossetti now gave up painting those
quaint little romantic subjects so intense in
literary feeling and dramatic expression, and
devoted himself to large single figures upon
a background of rich accessories.

When a painter makes a single figure
the central interest of his picture, he must,
to a certain extent, avail himself of psychological
facts in the model before him, for
if he recognises no limits to the foreign
sentiment and character he may impose, he
will, little by little, fall to the creation of a
type which is not far short of a monstrosity.
Although the first of his pictures in this new
style are among his finest works we see this
inevitable degeneration in Rossetti’s latest
paintings.

The first pictures of this kind and some
of the best are, “Fazio’s Mistress,” and
“Lady Lilith.” The former is dated 1863,[54]
but was altered and repainted ten years
later, and Rossetti changed its title to
“Aurelia.” In 1864 he painted the latter
which is a modern conception of that first
wife of Adam mentioned in the old Talmudic
Legend. The Lady Lilith is seated against
a background covered with roses. Dressed
in white, she holds a mirror in her hand,
and combs her long fair hair. Although
dated 1864 it was really not finished until
1867. The face as it is now was repainted
in 1873 from a different model, and is said
to be quite inferior to the former one.
Rossetti at that time seemed to be a
victim of a mania for repainting his earlier
work.

The next great picture, begun in 1864, is
“Venus Verticordia,” the oil version of which
was not finished before 1868. It represents
the nude bust of a massively built woman
surrounded by roses and honeysuckle. She
holds an arrow in her right hand and in
the left an apple on which a yellow butterfly[55]
has alighted. The face is conventionally
pretty and lacks character.

“Morning Music,” an elaborate little
water-colour; “Monna Pomona,” a girl holding
an apple with roses on her lap and in
a basket at her side; “How Sir Galahad,
Sir Bors, and Sir Percival received the
Holy Grael” (done in his earlier manner);
“Roman de la Rose,” a water-colour version
of the earlier panel, and “The Madness of
Ophelia,” represent the remaining production
of 1864.

There is little to mention in 1865. The
most important productions of that year
were “The Blue Bower,” and “The Merciless
Lady.” In the “Merciless Lady,” a
water-colour in the style of his earlier
romantic manner, a man sits on a bank of
turf between two maidens, with a sunlit
meadow behind. He seems attracted by the
one on his left who is fair and plays a lute,
the other, his lady love, holds his hand and
with a sad expression tries to win him back[56]
to her. “A Fight for a Woman,” the composition
of which is of a very early date, and
the oil-painting, “Bella e Buona,” but renamed
“Il Ramoscello,” were also painted
in 1865.

After these came “The Beloved,” finished
in 1866, but worked again in 1873, this time
without being spoiled. In writing to the
owner of this picture Rossetti said: “I mean
it to be like jewels,” and he carried out his
intention. In the middle of the picture is
the fair-haired bride radiant in rich stuffs,
her gown is green, with large sleeves embroidered
in gold and red. She is surrounded
by four dark-haired maidens, on
the foreground a little negro, adorned with
a head-band and a necklace showing the
beautiful invention of Rossetti’s taste in
decorative art, is holding a golden vase
of roses.

Next comes the “Monna Vanna,” which
represents a lady dressed in a magnificent
embroidered robe with large sleeves, holding[57]
a fan of black and yellow plumes.
Her luxuriant hair is falling from each side
of her face on to her shoulders, a bunch of
roses is seen in a vase on the left top
corner of the picture.

“The Sibylla Palmifera,” and “Monna
Vanna,” were not completed before 1870.
The latter represents a Sibyl sitting underneath
a stone canopy, which is carved on
one side with a cupid’s head wreathed with
roses, and on the other with a skull crowned
with red poppies. The Sibyl is clad in
crimson, her brown hair is parted and
falling each side of her face, a green coif
spreads from her head over her shoulder and
she holds a palm-leaf in her hand. There is
a replica of the head of “Sibylla Palmifera.”
In the same year (1866) he painted in oils a
portrait of his mother, and made a large
crayon drawing of his sister Christina. He
also made two illustrations for her volume
of poems, “The Prince’s Progress.”

In 1867 Rossetti painted in oils “The[58]
Christmas Carol,” of which a crayon study
exists; “Monna Rosa,” and the “Loving
Cup.” For the water-colour, “The Return
of Tibullus to Delia,” there are numerous
sketches made from Miss Siddal sitting on a
couch biting a tress of her hair, which show
that the design must have been of a much
earlier date. The water-colours, “Aurora,”
“Tessa la Bionda;” the crayons, “Magdalene,”
“Peace,” “Contemplation,” and the
crayon replica, “Venus Verticordia,” bear
the same date.

Unfortunately about this time Rossetti
began to have serious trouble with his eyesight,
and had probably to reduce his hours
of work. All the same in 1868 he painted a
portrait of Mrs. Morris, who has kindly lent
it to the Tate Gallery, where it can now be
seen. Several chalk crayon studies have
been done for this portrait. Then he began
the picture of “The Daydream,” representing
Mrs. Morris sitting on the lower branches
of a sycamore tree, a replica in water-colour of[59]
[60]
[61]
“Bocca Baciate,” called “Bionda del Balcone”;
“The Rose,” a water-colour; a crayon drawing,
“Aurea Catena,” some studies for “La
Pia,” which was begun about this time, and a
water-colour replica of “Venus Verticordia.”

Rossetti had now reached his fortieth
year and for about a twelvemonth had
been suffering from insomnia. This was
the cause of the break-up of his health, for
to gain relief he acquired the habit of
taking chloral, a drug of which the properties
were then little known.

VI

During a visit to Penkill the thought of
publishing his early poems occurred to him.
Towards the end of 1869 he was busy with
their preparation. Some of them were in
circulation in manuscript in a more or less
finished condition and some others were
buried with his wife. As a relief from the[62]
strain of painting he began to write again.
“The Ballad of Troy Town,” part of “Eden
Bower,” and the “Stream’s Secret,” were
among the new poems. He thought at first
to collect as many of the earlier works as
he could remember, together with those of
which friends had manuscript copies, and to
have them set up in type as the foundation
of a possible volume. But he was persuaded
with difficulty to apply for permission to
open the grave of his wife in order to recover
the buried manuscript. In 1870 the
book, under the title, “Poems by Dante
Gabriel Rossetti,” was published by Mr. F. S.
Ellis, then in King Street, Covent Garden.
Round Rossetti and his buried poems a
sort of legend had been growing up which,
aided by his fame as a painter, guarded his
work against the indifference with which a
volume of verses by an unknown poet is
bound to be received. The book proved a
great success and within a week or two
Rossetti found himself in possession of £300.

[63]

This success was not achieved without
raising some jealousy. Mr. Buchanan,
under the pseudonym of “Thomas Maitland”
rushed into print with the damning essay
that appeared in the Contemporary Review
for October 1871, under the title “The Fleshly
School of Poetry.” This attack was repeated
by the same writer in a pamphlet.
Rossetti in ill health and suffering from
nervous fancies, considered that there was a
conspiracy against him, a view that, had his
health been stronger, he would not perhaps
have adopted. The publication of the article
aggravated his insomnia. Dr. Gordon Hake
offered him his house at Roehampton in
order to procure a change for the sufferer,
who either by accident or of set purpose
had taken the contents of a phial of laudanum,
and lay for two days between life and death.
Prompt treatment, and his strong constitution
helped recovery. He was taken to Scotland
where he resumed work on a replica of
“Beata Beatrix.” Out-of-door exercise, early[64]
hours, and absence of worries, helped a great
deal to bring about his partial recovery.
In September 1872 he left Scotland and went
to Kelmscott where he shared a fine Elizabethan
manor house with William Morris.

His work during 1872-1874 consisted
mostly in repainting many of his earlier pictures.
He worked again on “Lilith,” “Beloved,”
“Monna Vanna,” and others. In July
1874 he left Kelmscott and came back to
London, never to return to the quiet manor
house, which from this time was in possession
of Morris alone.

Besides retouching his earlier work
during the time of his stay at Kelmscott,
Rossetti started a number of new canvases,
and made a certain number of studies for
use in future work. Among them are:
“Rosa Triplex,” three heads from the same
sitter, Miss May Morris. This drawing is
one of four or five versions. A portrait in
red chalk on grey-green paper of Mrs. W.
J. Stillman, “La Donna de la Fiamma,”[65]
and “Silence,” probably studies for pictures
never painted, the little head of a lady holding
a small branch of rose-leaves called
“Rose-leaf.” “Mariana,” an oil painting, its
title taken from a scene of “Measure for
Measure,” and “A Lady with a Fan,” being
a portrait of Mrs. Schott, were all prepared
about this time. He also started the first
studies for his big picture, “Dante’s Dream,”
among them a study from Mrs. Morris for
the head of the dead Beatrice, a head of
Dante, and studies for the two maidens
holding the pall. “Troy Town,” after his
own ballad, and “The Death of Lady
Macbeth,” are two designs for pictures
never painted. “Pandora” was completed
in 1871. “Water Willow,” a portrait of
Mrs. Morris is specially interesting because
the river landscape behind represents
Kelmscott. A coloured chalk study for that
picture exists, the only difference between
the portrait and the study being that the
background of the latter represents a river[66]
without the view of Kelmscott. The
“Dante’s Dream” begun in 1870 was finished
towards the end of 1871. It is the largest
picture Rossetti ever painted, the subject is
that of the early water-colour of 1856, and
the picture illustrates the following:

In the composition Dante is led by Love
to where Beatrice lies dead, and Love bends
down to kiss her. On either side of the
bier where she lies, two maidens dressed
in green are holding a pall covered with
May flowers and the floor is strewed with
poppies, emblem of death. On each side of
the picture there are winding staircases
through which one sees the sunny streets of
Florence. Love is dressed in flame colour[67]
and birds of the same hue are flying about
to suggest that the place is filled with the
Spirit of Love.

Proserpine was the next picture Rossetti
undertook. It was begun on four canvases.
The fourth when finished was sold. Rossetti,
who at that time had assistants to help him
in making the replicas of his earlier work,
painted to satisfy the demand of his patrons,
and much controversy raged round this
picture. It is impossible to say if it was
entirely painted by him, but he owned to
it although it was not a good one. The
purchaser was dissatisfied so he agreed
to take it back. The three unfinished
versions were cut down and transformed
into heads, one of which, with the adding of
some floral accessories, and a slight change
in the hands, was called “Blanziflore” or
“Snowdrops.” One cannot help being a little
puzzled by the notion of beginning four canvases
of the same picture at the same time, it
suggests too much of the commercial spirit.

[68]

In 1872 “Veronica Veronese,” and the
“Bower Meadow,” were painted, the
former illustrating the following lines, supposed
to be a quotation taken from Girolamo
Ridolfi’s letters which are inscribed
on the frame:

“Se penchant vivement la Véronica jeta
les premières notes sur la feuille vierge.
Ensuite elle prit l’archet du violon pour
réaliser son rêve; mais avant de décrocher
l’instrument suspendu, elle resta quelques
instants immobile en écoutant l’oiseau inspirateur,
pendant que sa main gauche
errait sur les cordes cherchant le motif
suprême encore éloigné. C’était le mariage
des voix de la nature et de l’âme—l’aube
d’une création mystique.”

The Lady Veronica, dressed in green, is
sitting in front of a little table on which is
her music manuscript. Behind her on the
left-hand top corner is a canary perched on
a cage and at her side stands a glass of
daffodils. She is leaning forward as if listening[69]
[70]
[71]
to the bird, plucking with her left hand
the strings of a violin hanging on the
wall in front of her while she holds the
bow in her right hand.

The “Bower Meadow” represents two
women playing instruments and two dancing
figures, for which he made charming crayon
studies. All these figures were painted on an
old background study of trees and foliage he
had painted in 1850, in his Pre-Raphaelite
days when he was working with Holman
Hunt.

The next great oil canvas is dated 1873,
and is called “The Ghirlandata.” To this
year belongs “Ligeia Siren,” a drawing of
a sea-maiden playing on a musical instrument,
a preliminary study for “Sea Spell.”

“The Damsel of the Sanc Grael” was
painted in 1874; it is a second version of
that subject strangely showing the psychological
change in Rossetti. The primitive
simplicity so characteristic of the mediæval
legend and also of his early work has disappeared.[72]
The austere damsel has become
a “pretty” girl, with fair flowing hair, who
holds a goblet. The unfinished “Boat of
Love” was also begun in 1874. Rossetti
came back to London in that year as has
already been stated.

The dissolution of the firm Morris, Marshall,
Faulkner & Co. took place at that
time and was reconstituted under the sole
management of Morris. The dissolution did
not take place without a certain amount
of friction, caused by the disagreement
between Morris and Brown. Rossetti seems
to have taken Brown’s part, and although
Rossetti and Morris did not quarrel, they
saw very little of one another from that date.
But it is well to remember that Rossetti
lived a very secluded life, seeing very few
people and labouring under the delusion that
a widespread conspiracy existed against
him. This was apparently one of the hallucinations
resulting from the habitual use of
chloral.

[73]

The end of 1875 and beginning of 1876
were passed first in a house at Bognor and
after at a friend’s in Hampshire. The artist
was then working on his pictures, “The
Blessed Damozel,” “The Spirit of the
Rainbow,” and “Forced Music.”

In 1877 serious illness kept him two
months in bed, and when better he was
taken to a little cottage near Herne Bay.
There he was able to resume his work and
drew a crayon group of his mother and
sister as well as two separate drawings of
his sister and one of his mother. To that
year belongs the “Astarte Syriaca” (now in
the Corporation Art Gallery of Manchester).
The Syrian Venus stands against a red sunset
sky in which the moon is rising, gazing
full face, with large dreamy eyes. On the
right and left two angel figures, holding
torches, look upwards.

In that year the Grosvenor Gallery was
founded and Madox Brown, Rossetti, and
Burne-Jones were asked to exhibit. Madox[74]
Brown and Rossetti refused, but Burne-Jones
accepted. The exhibition of his work
there brought him the enormous popularity
he enjoyed. Down to that time the public
curiosity which had been roused by the
controversies following the forming of the
P.R.B. had not been satisfied.

VII

After 1877 Rossetti kept strictly to his
house at 16 Cheyne Walk visited only by a
few faithful friends.

He began to write again in 1878. By
March 1881 he had enough material for a
new volume, “Ballads and Sonnets,” the
MS. of which was offered to and accepted
by Messrs. Ellis & White on the same terms
as his first book, now out of print after running
into a sixth edition. The “Ballads and
Sonnets” met with quite as great success
as the earlier volume, this time without any[75]
discordant note of criticism. In this year
Rossetti sold his great picture of “Dante’s
Dream” to the Corporation of Liverpool.

The two finished works of 1878 are: “A
Vision of Fiametta,” and a water-colour
called “Bruna Brunelleschi.” To that year
must be added the unfinished design called
“Desdemona’s Death Song,” various studies
for the figure of Desdemona, a design of the
entire composition done on a scale about
half-life size, as well as a beginning of the
picture on canvas, which was not continued.
The Faust subject that he intended to paint,
“Gretchen, or Risen at Dawn,” was not more
advanced. As time went on and his health
failed his output diminished.

In 1879 Rossetti painted a replica of
the “Blessed Damozel” with its predella,
changing the background of lovers and
substituting two angels’ heads. “La Donna
de la Fenestra” was also completed in
that year.

In 1880 and 1881 Rossetti was working on[76]
three large pictures, “The Day Dream,”
“The Salutation of Beatrice,” and “La Pia,”
as well as on “Found,” the early attempt at
a modern subject that he was never able to
finish. He painted several replicas, the most
important being a smaller version of “Dante’s
Dream.” The “Daydream” begun in 1868
was also completed at this time and the
picture has since been given to the South
Kensington Museum by its owner Mr.
Ionidès. “The Salutation of Beatrice” is
quite different from the earlier design of the
same name and shows those defects of his
later work that we have pointed out; it
was not quite finished at the time of his
death. “La Pia” is the last picture painted
and shows the same faults as the last
mentioned.

In September 1881 Rossetti went for a
trip in the lake district of Cumberland accompanied
by Mr. Hall Caine, but after a
month his health grew worse and he returned
in haste to London. A few days[77]
later he became so ill that he required very
careful nursing. After a partial recovery
from this illness he was once more interrupted
in his work by an attack of nervous
paralysis, which seized him suddenly. This
last attack was due to the chloral he had
been in the habit of taking for so long and
it was then strictly forbidden. The habit of
so many years was not to be broken without
much discomfort and suffering, but he gradually
got better. As soon as he was well
enough he was taken to Birchington-on-Sea
in February 1882, there he managed to work
a little, but was soon attacked by an old
disorder, and in his weakened state of health
he could not throw it off. He grew weaker
and worse. Death came with the 10th of
April 1882, and the painter poet is buried in
the little churchyard of Birchington.

In the last days of his life, when he could
paint no more, he made an attempt to finish
the story of “St. Agnes of Intercession”
which was begun for the “Germ,” he also[78]
completed the ballad of “Jan Van Hunks,”
and wrote a couple of sonnets for his drawing
called the “Question.”

Most of the critics who have written on
Rossetti deplore the fact that he did not
learn to paint, but to artists one of the
greatest charms of his pictures (especially
the early ones) is the unexpectedness of their
composition. We owe that charm in a great
measure to the fact that happily he had not
been spoiled by the sophisticated teaching of
Academic Schools, but had kept the bloom of
his poetical inspiration. We must thank the
instinct of the young man, which made him
avoid a teaching which is bound to be fatal
to both realism and romanticism. It may be
that he himself deplored the lack of training
at certain moments of discouragement in his
life, but the kind of training available at
the time of his début would not have added
much to his achievement. He managed to
say what he had to say, and in many cases
to say it well. He saved himself the loss of[79]
time necessary to forget certain of the artistic
préjugés then in vogue, they would have
been very much in his way, even if he had
quite succeeded in getting rid of them. The
rather amateurish side to Rossetti’s art is
vastly compensated for by the precious qualities
he has been able to preserve.

It is unfortunate that, through his refusal
to exhibit, the public has been acquainted
first with his later work, which shows the
decline of his faculties caused by his ill
health. Neither the fresh creations of his
early work nor the gorgeous pieces of his
middle period are as well known as they
deserve to be.

As a young man Rossetti possessed an
extraordinary influence over the members
of the group round him. Later when his
work became less sincere his influence declined
and what promised to be at the
beginning a great renaissance of the English
School has ended with him. Such a disaster
is certain to befall the school or the artists[80]
who do not refresh themselves continually
by the “communion” with nature. Ruskin
says in his Pre-Raphaelitism: “If they adhere
to their principles, and paint nature as
it is around them, with the help of modern
science, with the earnestness of the men of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, they
will, as I said, found a new and noble school
in England. If their sympathies with the
early artists lead them into mediævalism or
Romanism, they will of course come to
nothing.” These words were prophetic.

The plates are printed by Bemrose & Sons, Ltd., Derby and London
The text at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh