The year 1848 was a time of revolution across Europe: from France to Romania there was turmoil and rioting as liberal modernists strove to overthrow the old regimes. How very British, not to indulge in such continental political mayhem but proclaim a revolution in art. A group of young English artists, painters, poets, and art critics, formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). They rejected the posed classical compositions of establishment artists, like Sir Joshua Reynolds, criticizing this 'contrived art' of the Mannerists that had succeeded the Italian masters Raphael and Michelangelo. The Brotherhood sought to recover the 'genuineness' of the art before Raphael, adhering to four principles: to express genuine ideas, to study and reproduce Nature, "to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote", and, finally, of course, to produce 'good art'.
This exhibition, as its title indicates, focuses on the family of the Rossettis, which was at the forefront of the PRB movement. The father Gabriele, a poet, a critic of his beloved Dante Alighieri, and a revolutionary, had fled Naples in 1821 to settle in England, where he taught Italian. In 1826 he married Frances, the daughter of another Italian exile Gaetano Polidori. Her brother was John Polidori, who was a physician to Lord Byron and author of the first vampire story in The Vampyre (1819). Gabriele and Frances were to have four children: Maria Francesca, Dante Gabriel, William Michael, and Christina Georgina, who were all to become distinguished artists and writers.
As you enter the exhibition you are confronted with Dante Gabriel Rossetti's oil painting of 1850, entitled Ecce Ancilla Domini, or The Annunciation. The composition for this traditional Biblical scene is completely novel. The Virgin Mary, who is modelled by his sister Christina, is not dressed in the mediaeval royal blue but in plain virginal white, and she almost cringes on a bed as the angel Gabriel half turns offering her lilies, a symbol of death, predicting the fate of her unborn son, Jesus. It is a stunning painting both for its simplicity and power. However it is not to everyone's taste and Jonathan Jones of The Guardian describes it as "..like some sort of taxidermy exhibit, a leaden quotation of medieval art that’s neither properly medieval, nor bitingly modern”. Ah well, you can't please everybody and there are many who find the PRB artists are not to their taste: for example, the art critic Alastair Sooke, who admits, “I've never got on board with the Brotherhood. All that medieval cosplay – it's fogeyish”. And, it is true the PRB retrieval of a past age and style can be seen as outdated alongside continental impressionism, heralding the dawn of modernism and its alignment with the industrial age.
Turning away from the centre piece you become aware the walls are covered with snippets of Christina's poems, which are being gently recited in the background. It has to be recognised that integrating recited poetry in an exhibition is not easy as the environment is inevitably packed with spectators and the lines tend to get lost in the hubbub of people. In reality, though Christina and her poems have their place, the star of the show is Dante Gabriel whose drawings and paintings power their way through each room of the exhibition.
The room that follows the entrance is full of Dante Gabriel's drawings from his teenage years. They are often dark and foreboding, which is not surprising as he sketches illustrations of Edgar Allen Poe poems and stories, conveying mystery and the macabre.
Progressing on, it is interesting to see the interplay between Dante Gabriel and his wife Elizabeth Siddal. Often referred to as Lizzie, she was the most significant of the female models who posed for the PRB. She became Dante Gabriel's muse and he represented her as the ideal female beauty. She herself became an artist and a poet. Her watercolours have an ethereal quality: perhaps not great art but revealing a true talent. Lizzie had poor health and died when she was just 32 years old. There is much speculation about the cause of her death and even suicide has been considered. It is quite poignant to see on display a lock of her hair next to a snip of Dante Gabriel's. He was devastated by her death and buried a book of his poems in her coffin, which he later thought better of and retrieved them so they could be published:
Without her? Tears, ah me! For love's good grace, And cold forgetfulness of night or day.
Lizzie came from an ordinary background and the exhibition reveals how the PRB were 'social revolutionaries' as they sought out working-class female models and elevated them into figures of erotic fantasy. Dante Gabriel, however, could never quite marry his social ideals with his art. Generally, unlike his contemporary artist Ford Maddox Brown, he shunned any political messages in his work. One exception on display in the exhibition is his painting Found which was an attempt to highlight a moral problem. The theme of the painting is prostitution and depicts a young man from the countryside attempting to rescue a woman who has fallen into the oldest profession. It is a muddled composition and it is perhaps indicative that the painting was never finished, though Dante Gabriel would work on it on and off for 27 years.
The nub of the exhibition, once you have passed through the hors d'oeuvre of sketches and pen and ink drawings is a plethora of exotic female beauties in various historical and mythical guises. Here we discover Dante Gabriel's fantasy for women, who have emanated from poor backgrounds, it is to be depicted in lavish costumes, with glorious colours and with the most amazing over-blown hairstyles. The women are splendid but not a happy bunch there are no smiles or laughter; these exotic women look pensive and distantly past the spectator's gaze, as if belonging to another world and to Sooke' eyes, as “irredeemably porny”.
Back in 2009, the BBC broadcast a six-part series on the PRB called 'Desperate Romantics'. In truth, the series was a bit 'desperate' and suffered from mixed reviews and a dwindling audience. I tried to watch it myself but it was all about sex – perhaps you may think that was no bad thing but you can always have too much of a good thing. Dante Gabriel's female portraits may also be seen as a series of erotica but by dressing his ladies up as mythologic or literary characters, he follows the standard route of the classical masters, except he uses real women he had as lovers as his models - a modern, revolutionary(?) trend indeed.
In this mode by 1860 Dante Gabriel had started a liaison with Jane Morris, the wife of a fellow PRB member William Morris, and the last room of the exhibition is a paean for yet another big-haired muse. The epitome of his female portraits she pensively plays the part of Prosperine (such was its importance to him, Dante Gabriel painted eight similar portraits of her in this pose). In the ancient myth Proserpine, or Persephone, to give her Greek name, is abducted to the underworld where she languishes for six months only to return with Spring – she is the personification of the seasons bringing vegetation and the harvests.
Dante Gabriel's depiction of Prosperine is of his muse Jane at her most beautiful: she is exquisite with delicate precise features, flawless pale skin, and slender hands - she holds a pomegranate, a symbol of fertility. The symbolism of the scene in Dante Gabriel's rendition could be interpreted as Jane's own plight drawn between her husband, two daughters and her lover but ending in the stuff of life!
This last room of females is a glorious, can I say, climax, to this ambitious exhibition. Be warned it is a big, big exhibition that tells us a lot, mainly about Dante Gabriel but we can see some of his interactions both with his family and the PRB movement which he seems to have almost reluctantly embraced, his real preference being to favour exotic symbolism.
As you leave there is a series of photos of Jane Morris shot in1865 by John Parsons which helps us understand the poses and the conceits of Dante Gabriel's art.
Tim Boatswain, 18/04/23
To coincide with The Rossettis Exhibition the St Albans Cathedral is hosting a Study Day that will explore the historical context, the cultural impact of the family, and take a look at some of the exciting exhibits:
10.30 – 11.30 am: The Rossettis and the revolutionary world of 1848 (Prof Tim Boatswain, Professor of Anthropology and History)
11.30 am – 12 pm: Refreshment Break
12 pm – 1 pm: The Cultural Influence of the Rossettis (Prof Geraint John, Emeritus President of the Civic Society)
1 pm – 2.15 pm: Lunch Break
2.15 pm – 3.15 pm: The Rossetti Exhibition (Keynote Speaker, Dr Carol Jacobi, Curator of British Art 1850 -1915 at Tate) |
3.15 pm – 3.30 pm: Q & A Session
When: Saturday 20th May
Where: Offa Room, St Albans Cathedral
Cost: £25
To register: https://www.stalbanscathedral.org/Event/the-rossettis-a-new-way-of-living
Comments