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Dante Gabriel Rossetti
English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1828-1882
Rossetti's first major paintings display some of the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His Girlhood of Mary, Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini both portray Mary as an emaciated and repressed teenage girl. His incomplete picture Found was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted up from the street by a country-drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones. This was also true of his later poetry. Many of the ladies he portrayed have the image of idealized Botticelli's Venus, who was supposed to portray Simonetta Vespucci.
Although he won support from the John Ruskin, criticism of his clubs caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to waterhum, which could be sold privately.
In 1861, Rossetti published The Early Italian Poets, a set of English translations of Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. These, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, inspired his art in the 1850s. His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired his new friends of this time, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti also typically wrote sonnets for his pictures, such as "Astarte Syraica". As a designer, he worked with William Morris to produce images for stained glass and other decorative devices.
Both these developments were precipitated by events in his private life, in particular by the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal. She had taken an overdose of laudanum shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child. Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and buried the bulk of his unpublished poems in his wife's grave at Highgate Cemetery, though he would later have them exhumed. He idealised her image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix.
These paintings were to be a major influence on the development of the European Symbolist movement. In these works, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He tended to portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, whilst another of his mistresses Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess.
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Scenes from Malory's Morte d'Arthur
1857
fresco Library Oxford Union Society
Painting ID:: 28172
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Scenes_from_Malory's_Morte_d'Arthur
1857
fresco Library Oxford Union Society
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The Girlhood of Mary Virgin
1845-9
Oil on canvas 81.2 x 65.4 cm
(32 3/4 x 25 3/4 in)
Tate Gallery London (mk63)
Painting ID:: 28233
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The_Girlhood_of_Mary_Virgin
1845-9
Oil on canvas 81.2 x 65.4 cm
(32 3/4 x 25 3/4 in)
Tate Gallery London (mk63)
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Ecce Ancilla Domini
1849-50
Oil on canvas 72.6 x 41.9cm (28 5/8 x 16 1/2 in)
Tate Gallery London (mk63)
Painting ID:: 28234
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Ecce_Ancilla_Domini
1849-50
Oil on canvas 72.6 x 41.9cm (28 5/8 x 16 1/2 in)
Tate Gallery London (mk63)
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Regina Cordium
1860
Oil on canvas 25.4 x 20.3 cm
(10 x 8in)
Johannesburg Art Gallery (mk63)
Painting ID:: 28244
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Regina_Cordium
1860
Oil on canvas 25.4 x 20.3 cm
(10 x 8in)
Johannesburg Art Gallery (mk63)
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Bocca Baciata
1859
Oil on wood 33.7 x 30.5 cm
(13 1/4 x 12)
Museum of Fine Arts,Boston (mk63)
Painting ID:: 28246
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Bocca_Baciata
1859
Oil on wood 33.7 x 30.5 cm
(13 1/4 x 12)
Museum of Fine Arts,Boston (mk63)
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Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti
English Pre-Raphaelite Painter, 1828-1882
Rossetti's first major paintings display some of the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His Girlhood of Mary, Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini both portray Mary as an emaciated and repressed teenage girl. His incomplete picture Found was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted up from the street by a country-drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones. This was also true of his later poetry. Many of the ladies he portrayed have the image of idealized Botticelli's Venus, who was supposed to portray Simonetta Vespucci.
Although he won support from the John Ruskin, criticism of his clubs caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to waterhum, which could be sold privately.
In 1861, Rossetti published The Early Italian Poets, a set of English translations of Italian poetry including Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova. These, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, inspired his art in the 1850s. His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired his new friends of this time, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti also typically wrote sonnets for his pictures, such as "Astarte Syraica". As a designer, he worked with William Morris to produce images for stained glass and other decorative devices.
Both these developments were precipitated by events in his private life, in particular by the death of his wife Elizabeth Siddal. She had taken an overdose of laudanum shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child. Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and buried the bulk of his unpublished poems in his wife's grave at Highgate Cemetery, though he would later have them exhumed. He idealised her image as Dante's Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as Beata Beatrix.
These paintings were to be a major influence on the development of the European Symbolist movement. In these works, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He tended to portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, whilst another of his mistresses Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess.
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