The year 1858, while the Oxford affair was still in train, saw the completion of two pen-and-ink drawings which had been in hand a long time. These wereHamlet and OpheliaandMary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee.
MARY MAGDALENE AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.MARY MAGDALENE AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.
The drawing ofMary Magdalene, perhaps the most perfect of all Rossetti's early works, was begun at least by 1853, and continued to occupy his thoughts in one form or another for many years. Rossetti wrote a sonnet for the picture, which is found in his first volume, called "Poems."
Another subject finished in 1858 wasMary in the House of John. The scene is at late twilight, or in an eastern night, the red glow of the sky casting a purple light over the clustered dwellings of Nazareth, with deep blue hills beyond. In the interior of the room are Mary and St. John, the latter seated in shadow, engaged in striking light from a flint; whilst Mary, standing before the tall window, fills a hanging lamp from a jar of oil.
Another important item to be recorded under 1858 is a water-colour calledBefore the Battle, painted for Rossetti's American friend, Professor Norton, of Harvard.
The most important work of 1859 is a highly-finished little head in oils, calledBocca Baciata, which was bought by the late Mr. Boyce. The model for this was Miss Fanny Cornforth, afterwards Mrs. Schott, whose florid type of beauty reappears in a series of sensuous pictures of the kind that Rossetti began to paint after 1862—Aurelia(Fazio's Mistress),The Blue Bower,The Lady at her Toilet,Lilith, andThe Lady of the Fan. These pictures, and numerous portraits in oil and water-colour, give a sufficiently recognizable idea of this model, who exercised almost as remarkable an influence over Rossetti's life as over his art.
Bonifazio's Mistress, a specially charming little water-colour, was painted in 1860. It shows a lady (dressed in the same brightly be-ribanded flounces as Lucretia Borgia wears in the little 1851 group) who has been sitting to her lover, a painter, when suddenly she has fallen back in her chair, dead.
The connection of this subject with the poet, Bonifazio (or Fazio) degli Uberti is entirely fanciful. There can be little doubt that it was intended to illustrate Rossetti's own story of "St. Agnes of Intercession."Bonifazio's Mistresshas no connection whatever either in subject or composition with the oil painting of the same name done in 1863, and afterwards re-namedAurelia. The latter is simply a three-quarter length figure of a lady plaiting her hair before a toilet glass.
This (1860) was the year of Rossetti's marriage, as has already been stated, and in June he was at Paris on his honeymoon. While there he executed two pen-and-ink drawings, one of which was the design ofHow they met Themselves, done to replace the earlier version of 1851, which had been lost. The other represents a scene from Boswell's "Life of Johnson," a curious source of inspiration for Rossetti, rendered more remarkable from the fact that the incident chosen is of a humorous and spicy character. Dr. Maxwell told the story how two young women from Staffordshire had come up to town to consult Johnson about Methodism, in which they were much interested. "Come," said he, "you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will talk over that subject"; which they did, and after dinner he took one of them on his knee, and fondled her for half-an-hour together.
In 1861 Rossetti's translations from the Italian poets were at last published, together with the "Vita Nuova." Rossetti thought out a very charming design of two lovers kissing in a rose-garden, which he proposed to etch on copper for the title-page. The plate, however, displeased him, and he destroyed it. The central idea of this design reappears inLove's Greeting, a panel designed for the Red House, and in a water-colour of 1864 inscribedRoman de la Rose, in which Love appears overshadowing the kissing pair with his wings.
In 1861 was painted, on a little panel, 10 by 8 inches, a portrait of Mrs. Rossetti, calledRegina CordiumorThe Queen of Hearts, showing just the head and bare shoulders, on a gold ground, behind a parapet on which rests one hand holding a purple pansy. A more important outcome of the year is the fine composition known asCassandra. The subject is a scene on the walls of Troy just before Hector's last battle. Rossetti wrote two sonnets for the drawing which will be found in his volume of "Poems."
About this time (1861-1862) the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. was just being started, with William Morris, Rossetti, Faulkner, Burne-Jones, Madox Brown, Webb, and others as the active promoters of a venture which was to reform the arts of decoration and furniture making. Tapestry, furniture, wallpapers, stained glass, painted panels, and later on carpet-weaving and dyeing, were among the industries to which this band of highly original artists and designers turned their attention. The Anglo-Catholic movement and the demand for decoration of an aesthetic and sensuous kind gave the new firm plenty to do, amongst their first commissions being the embellishment of two new churches then being built by Bodley, St. Martin's on the Hill, Scarborough, and St. Michael's at Brighton. For the former Rossetti executed a design for two pulpit panels and several windows, achieving from the very first a mastery over this branch of art which few designers have surpassed. It is characteristic of his original mind that he went right back to the fundamental principles ofvitraux, paying no attention whatever to the elaborations which had grown round them, and recognizing that a picture which was transparent, that is, seen by transmitted light, must be conceived in flat tones and not made to give the illusion of shading, as can be done in the case of a surface from which the light is reflected.
ThePaolo and Francescawater-colour is generally attributed to the year 1861, although no particular authority exists for this beyond an auctioneer's catalogue. This beautiful little water-colour represents the first compartment of the double subject. In it Paolo and Francesca are seated before a window bearing the arms of Malatesta. Outside is a bright and sunny landscape. The lovers have stopped in the midst of their reading to give the fatal kiss that sealed their doom.
In 1861 or 1862 Rossetti designed two woodcuts for his sister Christina's "Goblin Market," published by Messrs. Macmillan. In 1865 he drew two more designs for "The Prince's Progress." The covers for these two little volumes, as well as for his own when they appeared, were designed by Rossetti, and are as original and effective and tasteful as his decorative work invariably was.
After the tragic death of his wife, on February 11th, 1862, Rossetti could no longer bear to occupy the rooms they had inhabited at Chatham Place, and began to seek for others. In the meantime he took lodgings for a few months in a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He had a fancy for getting away from the crowd of London, and yet for being near the river, which caused him to examine one or two old houses in the then by no means fashionable neighbourhoods of Hammersmith and Chelsea. He finally decided in favour of No. 16, Cheyne Walk, a house which from some traditional association with Queen Elizabeth became known as Tudor House and is now called Queen's House. It is also said to have been described by Thackeray in "Esmond" as the home of the old Countess of Chelsey. Here he started a jointménagewith Mr. Swinburne, Mr. George Meredith, and (at casual intervals) his brother. Mr. Meredith's subtenancy was not of long duration; in point of fact he never really occupied his rooms. But Mr. Swinburne remained long enough to have shared very considerably the traditions which soon grew up round Tudor House, and whilst there wrote the most famous of his dramas, "Atalanta in Calydon," as well as many of the "Poems and Ballads," and a portion of "Chastelard." The gloom which at first had threatened Rossetti gradually wore away before the robustness of his nature; settling into and furnishing his house on new, and at that time practically unheard-of, principles, afforded abundant distraction; and for some years, until his own illness intervened, Rossetti played the genial and charming host to many old friends of his intimate group, and to an increasing circle of new ones who were attracted by sympathy or by the growing glamour of his name.
One of the charms of the house at Chelsea was its long garden, more than an acre in extent, with an avenue of trees on to which the studio looked. As time went on this garden became tenanted with a miscellaneous assortment of birds and animals, round which a veritable saga of anecdote has gathered. These, with his affection for bric-Ã -brac, his spontaneous generosity, his ever-ready wit, his love of good stories, and his endless flow ofvers d'esprit, form a contrast to the somewhat sombre atmosphere in which he sought his inspirations, and in which, owing to the seclusion of his later years, he was popularly supposed to live.
To resume the thread of Rossetti's work, the well-known picture ofBeata Beatrix, now in the National Collection, bears date 1863, but was only partially painted in that year, the completion being long delayed. One reason for the difficulty may have been that Rossetti desired to make this picture a living memorial of his wife, and that no regular studies of the face had been done for it. What he felt about it we may gather from the fact that for some years he refused to send out a replica, even when replicas had become a regular and lucrative form of business. In the end, however, he was prevailed upon to paint more than one repetition of the subject, none however equal in quality to the original.
To 1863 belongs a small oil picture calledHelen of Troy, a full-faced study, head and shoulders only, of a rather pretty model, with masses of rippling yellow hair. The last of theSt. Georgesubjects also belongs to this year, and represents St. George in the act of slaying the dragon; a water-colour version of one of the incidents in a series designed for windows, but treated a little differently. Next come three small subjects:Belcolore, a very finely painted head of a girl biting a rosebud;Brimfull, a water-colour sketch of a lady stooping to sip from a glass; and thirdly, a picture calledA Lady in Yellow, belonging to Mr. Beresford Heaton. We are now entering upon the period when Rossetti ceased to paint small heads and began to devote himself to larger single figure subjects, lavishing upon them the wealth of his fine imagination, and surrounding them with quaint and beautiful accessories such as he alone knew how to select. The first picture of this type, and in point of execution one of the very finest, isFazio's Mistress, a small oil painting dated 1863, but considerably altered ten years later, when Rossetti renamed itAurelia.
The year 1864 contains two or three more prominent examples of Rossetti's attraction towards a luxuriant and seductive type of feminine beauty. The most important isLady Lilith, which embodies perhaps the fullest expression of Rossetti's power in this direction. Adam's mythical first wife is shown as a beautiful woman leaning back on a couch combing her long fair hair, while with cold dispassionateness she surveys her features in a hand mirror. "Body's Beauty" Rossetti called the picture afterwards, contrasting it with his conception of "Soul's Beauty," theSibylla Palmiferaof 1866-70.
Still in the same vein—of "Women and Flowers"—is the next great picture begun in 1864, theVenus Verticordia. The principal version of this, an oil painting, was not finished until some time in 1868. The earliest in point of date is a little water-colour commissioned as a replica, which was delivered during the year. The picture represents the goddess of beauty undraped and standing in a bower of clustering honeysuckle which hides her to the waist. In her left hand she holds an apple, in her right a dart upon which is poised a sulphur butterfly. Others are hovering round. Behind is the grove of Venus, and a blue bird winging its way through space.
The remaining productions of 1864 are all in water-colour. They includeMorning Music,Monna Pomona,Sir Galahad,Sir Bors, andSir Percival—belonging to Rossetti's earlier manner;Roman de la Rose, andThe Madness of Ophelia, a scene representing Laertes leading Ophelia away, whilst the king and queen are looking on.
In 1865 was painted theBlue Bower, a picture of theLilithgroup, done from theLilithmodel, and representing in a setting of gorgeous blue and green harmonies a woman playing upon a dulcimer.The Merciless Lady, which was painted in 1865, is a return to Rossetti's early romantic compositions, and is a particularly charming specimen. Nor was it his only water-colour of this year, though indisputably the best. For Mr. Craven he painted the subject calledWashing Hands—with the exception ofDr. Johnson at the Mitre, his one experiment in (eighteenth century costume.
Another calledA Fight for a Woman, is one of Rossetti's most spirited drawings. In point of invention this design goes back to very early days, as is proved by the existence of tentative sketches dating from about 1853. To the same date belongs the oil painting called originallyBella e Buona, but renamed by RossettiIl Ramoscelloin 1873, when it was taken back by him for retouching. It is a half-length figure, dressed in slate green, and holding an acorn branch.
THE BELOVED.THE BELOVED.
We now come to one of the most beautiful pictures, if not the most beautiful, that Rossetti ever painted—The Beloved. No one who has not seen it, with a warm sunlight bringing out its colour, can form the most remote conception of its brilliance. "I mean it to be like jewels," wrote Rossetti to its late owner, Mr. Rae; and jewel-like it flashes. The picture itself is described in a later chapter, amongst those selected for illustration.
In 1866, the year in which theBelovedwas finished, Rossetti started upon a second great picture of the same type, theMonna Vanna, a three-quarter length figure draped in magnificent gold and white brocade, and toying with a large fan. This was commissioned by Mr. Rae, as was alsoSibylla Palmifera, the third of the series, begun about the same time but not completed until 1870. Rossetti's sonnet entitled "Soul's Beauty" describes the subject—a Sibyl seated on a throne and bearing a branch of palm.
The record of 1866 closes with an oil portrait of the painter's mother, towards whom at all periods of his life his devotion was exemplary; a large crayon drawing of Christina Rossetti, with her thoughtful face resting on her hands; and two designs for her second volume of poems, "The Prince's Progress."
In 1867 Rossetti painted the oilChristmas Carolfor Mr. Rae, an entirely different subject from the early water-colour. This is a half-length figure of a girl, draped in a gold and purple robe of Eastern stuff, and playing upon a species of lute. Two small but pretty pictures of the same date areJoli CÅ“urandMonna Rosa. The first represents a coy-looking maiden fingering her necklace, whilstMonna Rosais chiefly a study in beautiful colour, representing a lady in a dress of pale emerald green, with golden fruit worked upon it, plucking a rose from a tree planted in a blue jar.
The next item of 1867 is the exquisiteLoving Cup. The subject is a lady raising a golden cup to her lips, and standing against a background of fair embroidered linen, surmounted by a row of heavy brazen plates.
The year 1868 was cut into by Rossetti's breakdown in health and sudden anxiety about his eyesight. Nevertheless, he painted the portrait of Mrs. William Morris, in a blue dress, seated at a table before a glass of flowers, which many competent judges regard as one of his very finest pictures, and which was the prelude to that long series of noble canvases by which he has become best known to the public. Mrs. Morris has lent her portrait to the National Gallery, where it hangs (at Millbank) beside theEcce Ancillaand theBeata Beatrix. Other productions of the same year, which closes the period of Rossetti's best work, wereBionda del Balcone;Aurea Catena, a fine drawing of Mrs. Morris; two studies for a future picture,La Pia, and some small replicas of no particular importance.
The insomnia which began to attack Rossetti in his thirty-ninth year, and which was the indirect cause of his subsequent breakdown, led him in 1869 to drop work for a time and to take a holiday at Penkill Castle in Ayrshire, the residence of an old friend. The visit is of interest, because it was not until this occasion that he gave a serious thought to the publishing of his early poems, some of which were still going about in manuscript in a more or less finished condition, though others were buried in his wife's grave. As a relief from the strain of painting, moreover, he began to write again. His first idea was to have the poems, such of them as he could collect or recall from memory, set up in type to keep by him as a nucleus for a possible volume; gradually, however, the idea of publishing outright grew or was forced upon him; and the last obstacle to this, the loss of so much of his early work, was finally removed one day in October, 1869, when, after a consent wrung from him very reluctantly, the grave was opened, and the manuscript poems recovered. In 1870 the book appeared, having as publisher Mr. F S. Ellis, of King Street, Covent Garden. The poems proved an immediate and lucrative success, and were favourably reviewed except for the single attack made upon them in a pseudonymous article by the late Mr. Buchanan. The effect of even one attack, however, and it was admittedly a very unfair and bitter attack, on a man of Rossetti's temperament, suffering from nervous fancies, and troubled by want of sleep, was disastrous. He viewed as a great conspiracy against him what other men, in sounder health, would have been able to disregard, and the effect was unhappily permanent. He had begun to acquire the habit of taking chloral as a cure for sleeplessness, without knowing, what is well known now, its lamentable after-effect, and for a short time, if one may accept his brother's judgment, Rossetti was hardly to be regarded as sane. A severe breakdown caused him to be removed once more to Scotland, where after a complete rest he was enabled to resume painting, and in September, 1872, he joined with Mr. and Mrs. Morris in taking the old Elizabethan Manor House of Kelmscott, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. His work here consisted to a large extent in repainting many of his old pictures, which he had sent to him for the purpose. In this way he worked upon theLilith,Beloved,Monna Vanna, and other important canvases, including even the little earlyEcce Ancilla Domini. Rossetti left Kelmscott in July, 1874, and returned to London; and that was the end of his connection with the quiet Gloucestershire retreat, which thenceforward became associated solely with the life of William Morris.
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 theRosa Triplex, a study of three heads from one sitter, now in the Tate Gallery, andPenelope, 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 calledMariana, 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 ofPandora, 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 ofDante'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.
MARIANA.MARIANA.
Impressive asDante's Dreammay 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 theBeata Beatrix, they alone would be enough to ensure him a place among the few great artists of the world.
The next great subject in point of date, namelyProserpine, has a complicated history attached to it. Rossetti began the picture upon canvas four times in 1872, with ill-success. He took it up again in 1873 and painted a fine version which was spoilt in straining. This was replaced in the same year by a second fine one which arrived at its destination damaged by an accident in transit. A third large picture had therefore to be painted in 1874, which still exists, and finally the damaged picture was patched and partially repainted in 1877, which is the date it bears in the corner. This is the finest and best known version, and is the one of which an autotype reproduction has been published. There are sundry other replicas and crayon studies of the subject which have not been mentioned, but of the earlier attempts nothing now seems to be left in the form of pictures, the canvases having been cut down into the form of single heads. In all these pictures the subject is the same. The ravished bride of Pluto is seen standing in a corridor of Hades, lighted by a bluish subterranean light, and holding in one hand the pomegranate of which she ate one fatal seed that bound her for ever to her destiny. In none of the pictures done from Mrs. Morris do we find so appropriate the distant air of melancholy with which the painter contrived to invest her features.
Of the other pictures painted at Kelmscott perhaps the most successful isVeronica Veronese, supposed to be taken from a passage in the letters of Girolamo Ridolfi, which describes how a lady, after listening to the notes of a bird, tries to commit them to paper, and finally to reproduce them on her violin. In the picture the Lady Veronica is robed in a rich gown of Rossetti's favourite green, with yellow daffodils in a glass beside her. The bird, a canary, is perched on a cage above her. She sits at a cabinet, on which is a sheet with the musical notes she has been writing down; and listening with dreamy blue eyes to the bird's song she lets her thumb wander over the strings of the violin suspended on the wall before her.
Before leaving the year 1872 there is a minor but interesting episode to record. In this year Rossetti took up an old background of trees and foliage which he had painted in 1850, in his Pre-Raphaelite days, when studying with Holman Hunt at Knole Park, near Sevenoaks. Nothing had ever been done to it since; but now Rossetti painted in two women playing instruments and a group of dancing figures, for which very charming crayon studies were made, and called itThe Bower Meadow. This interesting combination of early and late styles now belongs to Sir J. D. Milburn, of Newcastle.
La Ghirlandata, the next great oil picture by Rossetti, is dated 1873, and is one of those which has already crossed the Atlantic to the bourne whence works of art but seldom return. The picture represents a lady playing upon a garlanded harp, in the midst of a forest clearing, where angel faces peer down upon her, and mystical blue birds cleave the air. The whole is a subtle blending of subdued colour, where blue and green strive for the mastery. Beautiful as it is in these respects,La Ghirlandatalacks the invention and the interest of Rossetti's more vigorous early work.
The Damsel of the Sanc Grael, painted in 1874 for Mr. Rae, is a very different picture from the little water-colour of 1856-7. There was a simplicity and primitiveness about the latter which accorded well with the mediaeval sanctity surrounding the subject. When Rossetti came to paint the picture again in his later manner, he represented the austere damsel of the holy mysteries as a handsome girl with flowing chestnut hair, bright lips, and languishing eyes, sumptuously robed in a red gown with a heavily-flowered mantle. In painting this picture Rossetti probably did not seek much beyond mere beauty of form and decoration, in the attainment of which he has succeeded perfectly; and the same may be said in part of a better-known production of the same year, the much-praisedRoman Widow, which represents a lady seated by the marble tomb of her husband. A large unfinished canvas, painted simply in grisaille, calledThe Boat of Love, was begun at this time but abandoned in 1881. After Rossetti's death it was bought for the Birmingham Corporation Art Gallery, where it is now exhibited. It may be mentioned that the Birmingham Gallery possesses an unequalled collection of Rossetti's drawings, recently acquired (1906) through the munificence of two or three local donors.
One other subject dated 1874 is intimately bound up with Kelmscott. This is an oil picture called by a variety of names—Marigolds,Fleurs de Marie,The Gardener's Daughter, etc., but representing in actual fact a young girl standing in a room, and reaching up to place a mass of yellow marigolds and lilies in a flower vase upon a high cabinet of inlaid wood. The model is said to have been the gardener's daughter at Kelmscott, not that the detail signifies, except as connecting the picture with the place.
One of the first incidents to be recorded after Rossetti's return to London in 1874 was the dissolution of the partnership of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., and the re-construction of the firm under the sole management of William Morris. The dissolution was not effected without some unpleasantness, resulting in the estrangement of Morris and Brown. Morris and Rossetti never actually quarrelled; but from 1874 onwards the two men seldom saw each other, Rossetti's recluse habits of life being possibly responsible to some extent for the severance.
The latter part of 1875 and the first half of 1876 Rossetti spent at Bognor, and after that he visited the Cowper-Temples (afterwards Lord and Lady Mount Temple) at Broadlands in Hampshire, being then engaged upon his picture ofThe Blessed Damozel.
In 1877 he had a very severe physical illness, due to an uraemic affection which had been set up in 1872, and which eventually was the active cause of his death. He was removed to a little cottage near Herne Bay, and at one time gave up all hope of resuming his profession. "At last," says Mr. William Rossetti, "the power and the determination returned simultaneously; he drew an admirable crayon-group of our mother and sister, two others equally good of the latter, and yet another of our mother. Weather had been favourable, spirits and energy revived, and he came back to town nerved once more for the battle of life and of art." The group of Mrs. and Miss Rossetti is now in the National Portrait Gallery.
After 1877 Rossetti seldom if ever went beyond the doors of No. 16, Cheyne Walk, and as he suffered from fits of melancholy, and disliked being alone, a few faithful friends formed the practice of coming to visit him by turns. Mr. Theodore Watts was a more constant attendant, and had a bed at his disposal. A good number of acquaintances also frequented the house, some of them much more intimate than others and dating back in their relations to about 1866. Among these may be mentioned the artists J. M. Whistler and Alphonse Legros, Frederick Shields, F. A. Sandys and Fairfax Murray.
In 1878, or thereabouts, Rossetti's devotion to poetry received a fresh impulse, and he set himself assiduously to the production of sonnets. It was not until 1880, however, that he began really to compile materials for a new volume. In that year he wrote "The White Ship," and in the year following "The King's Tragedy." Finally, by March of 1881 the copy for "Ballads and Sonnets" was complete, and was accepted by Messrs. Ellis and White on the same terms as the first book. At the same time the latter, which was by now out of print, underwent some material alterations and was re-published in a new form.
The pictures for 1875 includeLa Bella Mano, which represents a lady washing her "beautiful hands" in a scalloped basin of brass; also some of the studies for theBlessed Damozel, a finished pen-and-ink study for a great picture of 1877, theAstarte Syriaca, and a large pencil drawing calledThe QuestionorThe Sphinx.
ASTARTE SYRIACA. (By permission of the Art Gallery Committee of the Manchester Corporation.)ASTARTE SYRIACA.(By permission of the Art Gallery Committeeof the Manchester Corporation.)
The following year was mainly devoted to theBlessed Damozel, an attempt to realize on canvas Rossetti's early poem which first appeared in "The Germ." The picture is a very fine one. Rossetti filled in the background behind the stooping figure of the damozel with a heavenly landscape, in which were countless pairs of embracing lovers. In 1877 he added a predella representing the earthly lover gazing up through space, and in 1879 he painted a replica, omitting the background of lovers and substituting two angel heads rather suggestive of those which occur inLa Ghirlandata.
The year 1877 contains but three items, two of which are, however, the important oil-picturesAstarte SyriacaandThe Sea-Spell. The third was aMagdalenbearing the vase of spikenard.
Astarte Syriacais a massive figure, with face and hair strongly reminiscent of Mrs. Morris. It was bought at its first owner's death for the Corporation Art Gallery of Manchester.
The two finished items of 1878—for as the years advance the output grows less and less—areA Vision of Fiammettaand a water-colour study of a head calledBruna Brunelleschi.Fiammettais a fine and striking conception, representing on a life-size scale the lady beloved by Boccaccio, to whom he addressed the sonnet which begins: "Round her red garland and her golden hair, I saw a fire about Fiammetta's head." The sitter forFiammettawas Mrs. W. J. Stillman.
La Donna della Finestrawas painted in 1879. This "Lady of the Window," also known as "The Lady of Pity," is she who in Dante's "Vita Nuova" is described as looking down upon the poet one day when he was overcome with grief. The head is taken from Mrs. Morris, much modified by the conventions which Rossetti at this time introduced into all his faces. Not the least charming feature of the picture is the clustering mass of beautifully painted fig-leaves growing up to the balcony in which the lady sits.
During 1880 and 1881 Rossetti was occupied with three large pictures,The Day Dream,The Salutation of Beatrice, andLa Pia; withFound, which had been re-commissioned by Mr. William Graham; and with several replicas, of which the most important was the smallerDante's Dream.
The Day Dreamis a portrait of Mrs. Morris seated in the lower branches of a sycamore tree.La Pia, the last original picture painted by Rossetti, depicts the story of Pia de' Tolomei, told in the fifth canto of the "Purgatorio." In Rossetti's canvas she is seen, sitting forward in a window, gazing out over the poisonous Maremma from the fortress where her husband had placed her to die.Found, which was one of the first pictures Rossetti attempted, was never completed. After Rossetti's death, as already mentioned, Sir Edward Burne-Jones added a little work to it, and in this condition it was taken over by the purchaser. It is now in America.
With this we come to an end of Rossetti's work as a painter. It remains briefly to close the record of his life.
In September, 1881, Rossetti, accompanied by Mr. Hall Caine, undertook an expedition to the lake district of Cumberland; but after a month his health, which at first had appeared to benefit, became alarmingly bad, and he returned hurriedly to London. After a partial recovery from this illness his work was once more interrupted in December by an attack of nervous paralysis, traceable to the effects of the drug he had been taking. In February, 1882, he was taken to Birchington-on-Sea, where a cottage had been placed at his disposal, and here he died on the 10th of April. He was buried, quietly and simply, in the little churchyard at Birchington, where a stone monument has been erected by his family in the form of a Celtic cross designed by Madox Brown. A memorial window embodying his own early design ofThe Passover, adapted by Mr. Shields, was also set up in the adjoining church.
So passed away, in the fifty-fourth year of his life, one of the most original artists of our time; I will not say one of the greatest painters, for that would invite controversy as to points in which he was, and knew himself to be, deficient. But as an artist, as one who saw, and could interpret and depict beautiful things in a beautiful way, there can be no two questions about Rossetti's greatness. Never before has one man blended so perfectly the sister gifts of poetry and painting that it was impossible to pronounce in which he was superior.
To complain, as some have done, of the mediaeval quality of his subjects is foolish. As well complain that fairy tales are old. Rossetti was mediaeval in his thoughts and tastes. Without any affectation or straining for effect he lived his intellectual life in a mystical, richly-coloured world of romantic knights and ladies. These, and not the hedgerows or buttercups of to-day, were what came to the surface in his creative moods. We have witnessed in these latter years a great revival of romance, springing up in various ways all over the continent of Europe. Of this revival in England, on the side of pictorial art, Rossetti was the fountain head. The gentle melancholy that pervades his work was derived from his namesake Dante, to whom he was doubly allied by ties of birth and sentiment. "He was moreover driven by something like the same unrelaxing stress and fervour of temperament, so that even in middle age it seemed scarcely less true to say of Rossetti than of Dante himself:
'Like flame within the naked hand,His body bore his burning heart.'"
The direction of his influence, and of the Pre-Raphaelite movement generally, has been worked out in a scholarly manner by Mr. Percy Bate, in a book called "The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters," where an attempt is made for the first time to trace the artistic lineage of such diverse executants as Mr. Spencer Stanhope, Mr. Walter Crane, Mr. Strudwick, Mrs. de Morgan, Mr. Byam Shaw, and others. On many of these the influence of Burne-Jones is more evident than that of Rossetti; but Burne-Jones himself owed much to Rossetti at the critical period of his career.
The subject of Rossetti's art is one that presents difficulty, on account of the semi-privacy which surrounded it during the painter's lifetime. The subject of Rossetti himself is more difficult still. It has become a sort of fashion to decry the man, and to forget the genius, among some who knew him only in his latest years—perhaps by hearsay mainly. Stories of his want of consideration for others, his egotism, his shabby treatment of patrons, his ungoverned temper, are reeled off with a sort of zest, as though they summed up the man. But in Rossetti good and bad were, as usual, inextricably mixed up, with a strong preponderance towards the former. There were periods when his brilliant, impulsive, magnetic personality swamped the most audacious faults. For a man to stand out above his fellows is often enough a signal for petty jealousy and stone-throwing. But in such cases, one may remark, it is not always a David who prepares the sling, nor is it always the giant who is on the side of the Philistines.
Rossetti's record as a painter divides itself naturally into three periods, beginning with a fairly numerous series of small romantic water-colours, which to many people represent the most charming, if not the most mature, feature of his work. The subjects for these were selected largely from Browning, from the "Vita Nuova" of Dante, and from the Arthurian legends, themes which appealed irresistibly to his imaginative mind, and which formed a common link between the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the later group of young Oxford men which included William Morris and Burne-Jones. Practically the only oil pictures painted by Rossetti during this period were theGirlhood of Mary Virgin, and the littleEcce Ancilla Domini, now in the Tate Gallery at Millbank. This period came to an end in 1862, with the death of Rossetti's wife, and the beautifulBeata Beatrix(also in the Tate Gallery) which was really a memorial of her pure features, was followed by a number of magnificent canvases painted from models of a rich and sumptuous type, amongst which may be specially mentionedThe Beloved,Monna Vanna, andSibylla Palmifera,Lady Lilith, theVenus Verticordia,The Loving Cup,Veronica Veronese,The Bower Meadow,La Ghirlandata,Sea Spell, andLa Bella Mano. Lastly comes a large group of single figure subjects painted from, or based on, the dark and almost exotic features of Mrs. William Morris. Of these may be named in particularMariana,Pandora,Proserpine,Astarte Syriaca,La Donna della Finestra,The Day Dream, and Rossetti's last finished pictureLa Pia.
Owing to an invincible dislike for exhibitions, and the secrecy which in consequence hung over Rossetti's work, the two earlier groups were hardly seen by the public at all until after his death, and his fame, when it spread, was based chiefly upon the large canvases of the latest group, which may account for the very general belief that Rossetti painted only from one type of sitter, with somewhat exaggerated characteristics, a further error which may be explained by the mannerisms which undoubtedly beset him towards the close of his life, when his health had failed permanently and his eyesight was no longer at its best.
Of the earliest pictures, painted for the most part when Rossetti was little more than a boy, the following are selected for illustration:
(1)Ecce Ancilla Domini, which was exhibited in 1850 and helped to bear the brunt of the vigorous onslaught which was made in that year upon the pictures of the newly formed Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. There is nothing which could possibly shock us now in the simple, girl-like figure of Rossetti's Virgin, crouching in half-awakened awe upon her pallet couch before the grave-faced angel who is holding out to her a lily. In many ways it is a far more reverent treatment of the scene than one is accustomed to in old Italian canvases with their sumptuously robed madonnas and angels gay with peacock-wings and jewelled trappings. The painting, too, is a masterpiece for so young and inexperienced an artist, full of skill in the handling of white draperies and restrained in the use of colour. The only bright notes in the picture are the crimson cloth worked with a lily, upon a stand at the foot of the bed, and the blue curtain at its head. Everything else is subdued and faint with the clear light of an English, not an Eastern, dawn, seen through the open window which frames the golden head of the angel.
(2)The Blue Closet. This was painted in 1857, and formed one of a notable series of small water-colours which once belonged to William Morris. Although neither Dantesque nor Arthurian in subject, it is strongly akin to the latter class in its feeling for mediaeval chivalry and dress, and has been chosen because both in colouring and composition it is one of the most perfect examples of Rossetti's early work. It represents two queens, the one on the left in red with green sleeves, and the one on the right in crimson and gray, playing upon opposite sides of an inlaid clavichord or dulcimer. Two other ladies stand behind them singing. Blue tiles on the wall and on the floor suggest the title, which in its turn gave rise to one of William Morris's poems.
The next illustration given, as typical of Rossetti's intermediate period is—
(3)Beata Beatrix, which was bequeathed to the National Collection by Lady Mount Temple, to whom it formerly belonged. This is so well known from reproductions that it is unnecessary to describe it in detail, further than to say that it represents symbolically the death of Beatrice as set forth in the "Vita Nuova." Beatrice is not dead, but is seated on a balcony in a trance, whilst standing a little way in the background watching her are Dante and the figure of Love. A crimson bird, the messenger of Death, is letting fall a poppy into her lap. Beatrice is robed in pure green, such as Rossetti loved to paint, with faint purple sleeves. A dial marks the fateful hour which was to bear her, on that 9th of June, 1290, "to be glorious under the banner of the blessed Queen Mary." On the frame, designed by Rossetti himself, are the first words of the lamentation from Jeremiah,Quomodo sedet sola civitas: "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people." There is a replica of this picture in the Corporation Art Gallery of Birmingham, but it was an unfinished one which was worked on after Rossetti's death by Madox Brown.
Our next illustration is from a pen-and-ink drawing, and is typical of a branch of work in which Rossetti excelled almost as notably as Burne-Jones. It represents:
(4)Mary Magdalene at the house of Simon the Pharisee. The date of this famous drawing is 1853, but it was not actually finished until some years later. The scene represents a procession of revellers, amongst whom is the Magdalene with her lover. In passing the door of Simon she sees within it the face of Christ, and striving to leave her companions she tears off the garland from her head and presses up the steps. Christ is watching her, and waits for her to reach him, whilst the others try to bar her passage. A young doe is cropping the bush which grows against the wall of the house.
(5)The Beloved, painted in 1866, is probably the most perfect of all Rossetti's pictures. The subject is the Bride of the Psalms advancing to her lover. "She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework; the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company." In the centre of the group is the bride, arrayed in such gorgeous stuffs as only Rossetti could imagine, of an indescribable green with flowing sleeves gorgeously embroidered in gold and red. On her head is an ornament of scarlet oriental featherwork which flashes like a jewel. Four dark-haired maidens accompany her, whose heads form a frame to her own beauty, and in front a little negro boy, with jewelled collar and headband, bears a golden vase of roses. The figures, though life-size, are only painted half-length. The faces are not of the type usually associated with Rossetti, and form a sufficient answer in themselves to those who think that he never painted from more than one model. The bride's, in particular, is a face of extraordinary beauty.The Belovedis one of a fine trio of pictures commissioned by the late Mr. George Rae of Birkenhead, the other two beingMonna VannaandSibylla Palmifera. As stated already, they represent Rossetti's prime, when his work was technically at its best, and before his health had broken down and driven him into forced or morbid mannerisms.
(6)Mariana. This picture belongs to 1870, and was at one time in the great Graham collection. The title is taken from "Measure for Measure," and has no connection with Tennyson's poem. It was begun originally in 1868, as a portrait of Mrs. Morris, and in most essentials resembles the beautiful picture lent by her to the Tate Gallery. Rossetti discarded the canvas at the time in favour of the latter version, but took it up again afterwards, painted in the figure of the boy singing, and gave it the Shakespeare name with the legend from the page's song, "Take, O take those lips away." In the Tate picture Mrs. Morris is seated at a table before a jar of roses; here the lady is holding an embroidery frame, but in each case she wears a gown of marvellous blue with contrasting chains and jewels.
DANTE'S DREAM.DANTE'S DREAM.
(7)Dante's Dream. This, from its size and on other grounds is regarded by many critics as the most important of Rossetti's pictures. It is certainly the most popular, and if frequent reproduction be any gauge, stands high amongst all modern pictures in this respect. Its painting occupied the greater part of 1870 and 1871, and was a great physical strain, so much so that in the year following Rossetti suffered from a severe break-down which permanently affected his health. The subject, and practically the composition also, are the same as in a small water-colour of 1856, and represents the vision related by Dante in the "Vita Nuova" as having come to him of Beatrice lying in death and angels bearing upward her soul in the form of "an exceedingly white cloud." Love, in a flame-coloured robe, is leading him up to the bier, and scarlet birds, typifying love, are flying in and out of the house. Two handsome maidens, in flowing gowns of green, are holding up the ends of the pall which covered the bier, while Love bends down and kisses the pale face of the dead lady. Beyond the arched doorway is seen a glimpse of Florence with the Arno. The picture when finished proved too large for its owner's room, and changed hands more than once before it finally found a resting-place in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. Rossetti painted a second rather smaller picture, to replace it, and added two predellas to the subject.
(8)Astarte Syriacais a vision of the Syrian Venus, massive and splendid in form, with vague eyes typical of her mysteries. She stands, facing the spectator, in a robe of gorgeous green, which half reveals the outlines of her body, clasping with both hands her jewelled girdle. On either side behind her are attendant spirits bearing torches. The picture is a good example of Rossetti's latest work. It was commissioned by the late Mr. Fry and painted in 1877. It now adorns the Corporation Art Gallery of Manchester.
OWNER
1847. Portrait of the Artist (pencil).National Portrait Gallery.
1849. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (oil).Lady Jekyll.
The Laboratory (water-colour).C. F. Murray.
1850. Ecce Ancilla (oil).Tate Gallery.
1851. Borgia (water-colour).
1852. Giotto painting Dante (water-colour).Sir John Aird.
1854. Found (unfinished oil).S. Bancroft, Jun.
Arthur's Tomb (water-colour).S. Pepys Cockerell.
1855. Paolo and Francesca (water-colour diptych).Rae Collection.
Rachel and Leah (water-colour).Beresford Heaton.
1856. Dante's Dream (water-colour).Beresford Heaton.
Fra Pace (water-colour).Lady Jekyll.
1857. Designs for Moxon's Tennyson (wood-cuts).Birmingham Art Gallery.
Chapel before the Lists (water-colour).Rae Collection.
The Tune of Seven Towers (water-colour).Rae Collection.
The Blue Closet (water-colour).Rae Collection.
Wedding of St. George (water-colour).Rae Collection.
Christmas Carol (water-colour).C. F. Murray.
1858. Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon (pen-and-ink).C. Ricketts.
Before the Battle (water-colour)Prof. Norton.
1859. Bocca Baciata (oil).C. F. Murray.
Salutation of Beatrice (oil).F. J. Tennant.
1860. Bonifazio's Mistress (water-colour).C. F. Murray.
Lucrezia Borgia (water-colour).Rae Collection.
Seed of David (oil triptych).Llandaff Cathedral.
1861. Dr. Johnson at the Mitre (water-colour).C. F. Murray.
1861. Paolo and Francesca (water-colour).W. R. Moss.
Regina Cordium (oil).Arthur Severn.
Parable of the Vineyard (Morris windows).St. Martin's, Scarborough.
Crucifixion (Morris window). St. Martin's, Scarborough.
1862. St. George and the Dragon (cartoons for Morris windows).Birmingham Art Gallery.
Tristram and Yseult (cartoons for Morris windows).
1863. Beata Beatrix (oil).Tate Gallery.
Belcolore (oil).C. F. Murray.
Fazio's Mistress (oil).Rae Collection.
1864. Lady Lilith (oil).S. Bancroft, Jun.
Venus Verticordia (oil).
Venus Verticordia (water-colour).Rae Collection.
Sir Galahad, Sir Bors, and Sir Percival (water-colour).Beresford Heaton.
Madness of Ophelia (water-colour).Mrs. C. E. Lees.
How they met Themselves (water-colour).S. Pepys Cockerell.
Joan of Arc (water-colour).Beresford Heaton.
1865. The Blue Bower (oil).Perrins Collection.
The Merciless Lady (water-colour).C. F. Murray.
1866. The Beloved (oil).Rae Collection.
Monna Vanna (oil).Rae Collection.
1866-70. Sibylla Palmifera (oil).Rae Collection.
1867. Christmas Carol (oil).Rae Collection.
Joli CÅ“ur (oil).Miss Horniman.
The Loving Cup (oil).T. Ismay.
1868. Portrait of Mrs. Morris (oil).Lent to Tate Gallery.
1869. Rosa Triplex (crayon).Tate Gallery.
1870. Mariana (oil).F. W. Buxton.
1871. Pandora (oil).Charles Butler.
1872. The Bower Meadow (oil).Sir J. D. Milburn.
Veronica Veronese (oil).W. Imrie.
1873. La Ghirlandata (oil).J. Ross.
Proserpine (oil).Charles Butler.
1874. The Roman Widow (oil).F. Brocklebank.
Damsel of the Sanc Grael (oil).Rae Collection.
The Boat of Love (grisaille).Birmingham Art Gallery.
Marigolds (oil).Lord Davey.
1875. La Bella Mano (oil).Sir C. Quilter.
The Question (pencil).Birmingham Art Gallery.
1876. The Blessed Damozel (oil).Perrin's Collection.
1877. Astarte Syriaca (oil).Manchester Art Gallery.
The Sea Spell (oil).
Portraits (Mrs. Rossetti and Christina Rossetti) (crayon)National Portrait Gallery.
1878. Fiammetta (oil).Charles Butler.
1879. Donna della Finestra (oil).W. R. Moss.
The Blessed Damozel (oil).Hon Mrs. O'Brien.
1880. Dante's Dream (oil).W. Imrie.
The Day-dream (oil).Ionides Collection: South Kensington Museum.
1881. Dante's Dream (oil).Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
La Pia (oil).Russell Rea.
CHISWICK PRESS: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.,TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.