ill 
 
 ■ 
 
 m
 
 THE LANGHAM SERIES 
 
 AN ILLUSTRATED COLLECTION 
 
 OF ART MONOGRAPHS 
 
 EDITED BY SELWYN BRINTON, M.A,
 
 THE LANGHAM SERIES OF 
 ART MONOGRAPHS 
 
 EDITED BY SELWYN BRINTON, M,A. 
 
 Vol. I. — Bartolozzi and his Pupils in 
 England. By Selwyn Brinton, M.A. 
 With Coloured Frontispiece and sixteen 
 full-page Illustrations (xvi + 96) 
 
 Vol. II. — Colour-Prints of Japan. By 
 Edward F, Strange, Keeper of Prints 
 in the Victoria and Albert Museum. 
 With two Coloured and numerous full- 
 page Illustrations (xii-f-85) 
 
 Vol. III. — The Illustrators of Mont- 
 martre. By Frank L. Emanuel. With 
 two Coloured and numerous full-page 
 Illustrations (viii -1-85) 
 
 Vol. IV. — AuGusTE Rodin. By Rudolf 
 DiRCKs. With two Photogravures and 
 eleven full-page Illustrations (viii + 72) 
 
 Vol. V. — Venice as an Art City. By 
 Albert Zacher. With two Photo- 
 gravures and numerous full-page Illus- 
 trations (viii -f- 88) 
 
 Vol. VI. — London as an Art City. By 
 Mrs. Steuart Erskine. With one 
 Etching and sixteen full-page Illustra- 
 tions (viii + 95) 
 
 Vol. VII. — Nuremberg. By H. Uhde- 
 Bernays. With two Coloured and 
 numerous full-page Illustrations 
 
 (viii + 85)
 
 \'oL. V'lll. — The Eighieenth Century 
 IN English Caricature. By Selwyn 
 Brinton, M.A. With two Coloured 
 and sixteen full-page Illustrations 
 
 (viii + 96) 
 
 Vol. IX. — Italian Architecture. By 
 J. Wood Brown, M.A. With numerous 
 full-page Illustrations (viii + 88) 
 
 Vol. X. — Rome as an Art City. By 
 Albert Zacher. With numerous full- 
 page Illustrations (viii + 95) 
 
 Vol. XI.— J. F. Millet. By R. Muther. 
 With two Photogravures and ten 
 full-page Illustrations (viii + 72) 
 
 Vol. XII.— J. M. Whistler. By H. W. 
 Singer. With one Photogravure and 
 sixteen full-page Illustrations 
 
 (viii-l-83) 
 
 Vol. XIII. — Goya. By Richard 
 MuTHER. With one Photogravure 
 and sixteen full-page Illustrations 
 
 (viii + 64) 
 
 Vol. XIV. — Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 
 By H. W. Singer. With thirteen 
 full-page Illustrations. (viii + 73) 
 
 I'l Preparation 
 
 Moorish Citifs of Spain. By C. G. 
 
 Gallichan. 
 Oxford. By H. J. Masse. 
 Pompeii. By R. Muther. 
 
 These volumes will be artistically pre- 
 sented and profusely illustrated, both with 
 colour plates and photogravures, neatly 
 bound in leather.
 
 THE BELOVED
 
 DANTE GABRIEL 
 ROSSETTI 
 
 BY 
 
 H. W. .SINGER 
 
 2. <^ S^S' 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER^S SONS 
 
 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 1906 
 
 Z. (^ "© 5 8
 
 All rights reserved
 
 \'^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 I 
 
 Rossetti's Early Life — Pre-Raphaelitism — The Germ — 
 Decorative Art — The Blessed Damozel — E. E. 
 Siddal — Ford Madox Brown — Ruskin . Pp. 1-50 
 
 II 
 
 Rossetti's Art — The Dante Pictures — Beata Beatrix — 
 The Arthurian Legend — Romanticism — Lady Lilith 
 — Proserpine — The Beloved — Dr, Johnson at the 
 Mitre — Moral Pictures ... Pp. 50-66 
 
 III 
 
 Short Biographical Sketch — List of Rossetti's Principal 
 Works in Public and Private Collections . Pp. 66-73
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I. The Beloved , . . . 
 
 II. Portrait of Rossetti bv Himself 
 
 III. The Annunciation 
 
 IV. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin , 
 V. LucREZiA Borgia .... 
 
 VI. Dante Meeting Beatrice in Paradise 
 
 VII. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal 
 
 VIII. Beata Beatrix 
 
 IX. Jon CCEUR 
 
 X. Lady Lilith . 
 
 XI. Proserpine 
 
 XII. Study for Principal Figure or th 
 
 Damozel ..... 
 XIII. Dante's Dream .... 
 
 Frontisp. 
 
 lece 
 
 Facing 
 pa^c 
 
 z 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 36 
 40 
 
 4+ 
 SO 
 S6 
 
 £ Blessed 
 
 60 
 64
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl 
 
 ATTENTION has repeatedly been drawn 
 l\ to the fact that in recent years we have 
 JL JL numbered among our artists men who, 
 in their many-sided activity, remind us of 
 the Master-spirits of the Renaissance. Former 
 barriers have been broken down, and we are now 
 able to speak about art instead only of the artist. 
 Similarly, we find that architects — who not so long 
 since were merely men of the compass and the 
 ruler, with difficulty accomplishing a passable ele- 
 vation in water-colour — now are decorative artists, 
 who do not dream of leaving to a strange painter 
 the task of giving their work the charm of suitable 
 colouring and form. They even, on occasion, 
 model with their own hands all the plastic decoration 
 which they themselves have designed. 
 
 Watts and Leighton were masters of sculpture as 
 of painting, — Legros, StaufFer, above all, Klinger, — 
 adepts in the field of engraving and lithography, 
 and Klinger has even written an important 
 dissertation on the Theory of Art. In short, 
 we are reminded of Leonardo da Vinci, of Buo- 
 
 A
 
 2 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 narotti and Raphael Santi, each of whom was no 
 less active in the most different fields of art. 
 ^ In those days genius strove to play a many- 
 
 sided part in a culture whose highest standard was 
 the understanding possessed by the artist for the 
 noble sister art of poesy. This applies so little to 
 our days that it may seem absolutely incompre- 
 hensible to many of our artists. But Raphael was 
 not content to excel as architect, painter, and 
 director of the graphic arts ; it was not enough for 
 Michael Angelo to be only a sculptor, architect, 
 and painter — they aimed at yet further laurels. Both 
 have sought to express themselves in sonnets. 
 
 Their verse has not remained of equally living 
 interest. We need not occupy ourselves with 
 Raphael's few stanzas, which are forced and ill- 
 rounded. Even the more pretentious rhymes of 
 Michael Angelo only represent for us so many 
 lifeless words. The groundwork of their thought 
 lies on "a few platonic ideas and some Petrachian 
 anti-theses." 
 
 If we consider the matter well we have no cause 
 •"» for wonder. The work of the creative artist, the 
 outcome of feeling, and that of the poet which 
 originates in thoughts and ideas, are each not only 
 completely different, but seem to be at variance 
 with one another. The fact that we know very 
 learned men, critical spirits, who were also famous 
 poets does not affect this contention. 
 
 All the more important, therefore, must the man 
 appear to us who is the one exception to this rule,
 
 H. Spiilmann's CoUecHon 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ROSSETTI BY HIMSELF 
 (Pencil Drawing)
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 3 
 
 the man who indeed unites in himself the attributes 
 of a great poet and a great painter. Gabriel Charles 
 Dante Rossetti himself believed that it was his poetic 
 creations that would keep his memory green. 
 
 Be that as it may, for the majority at the 
 present day, who undoubtedly are more attracted 
 by formative than by poetic art, he is above all the 
 celebrated painter. I may at once remark that in 
 Rossetti's* case there are only a very limited number 
 of people who would at all consider the point ; for 
 how few know much about Rossetti except from 
 hearsay ! Even in England only a comparatively 
 small circle had any opportunity of seeing his works 
 during the long period which lies between the time 
 when he first came to the fore and his death. 
 They passed in many cases straight from his studio 
 into the possession of the patron, without being 
 publicly exhibited in the interim. It is, of course, 
 well known that Rossetti was the chief founder of 
 the Pre-Raphaelite school, whose strivings, though 
 ridiculed, were afterwards recognised as one of the 
 most powerful and productive germs in the de- 
 velopment of nineteenth-century art. Yet who is 
 aware that the Pre-Raphaelitism which was then 
 laughed at was something quite different from that 
 whose immense influence is now so fully appre- 
 
 * Editor's Note. — I believe that some (and perhaps 
 many) among my readers will prefer to endorse Rossetti's 
 own view, as above stated. His marvellously imaginative 
 art suffers from technical defects from which his verse is 
 free.
 
 4 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 ciated ? In fact, two entirely different things 
 are denoted by one and the same term — " Pre- 
 Raphaelitism." On the one hand, the impetus 
 which Rossetti first gave, and which afterwards, 
 when other masters had further worked it out, 
 became of so much importance for our art life ; and, 
 on the other hand, the style which Rossetti in 
 course of time created for himself, which, however, 
 was neither derived from the movement of his youth- 
 ful period nor exercised any widespread influence 
 on others. 
 
 We are frequently astonished at the diversity of 
 genius in its manifestation. Sometimes it seems as 
 if we could explain this manifestation, as if we could 
 recognise signs which explain its entry into our 
 world. Sometimes, however, the man of genius ap- 
 pears one knows not how nor why. As far as Rossetti 
 is concerned, he belongs to those about whom we 
 V^ may say in addition that such exceptional conditions 
 could not fail to produce an exceptional personality. 
 The admixture of race is in itself interesting. He 
 was three parts Italian, one part English, yet by 
 birth and residence an Englishman. It was thus 
 possible for him to influence the culture of his 
 day in a new direction by his Italian nature as 
 no one who was only a native could have done, yet 
 in a way which a complete foreigner, lacking the 
 'British side of his nature, could not possibly have 
 accomplished. 
 
 The observation, therefore, fits in Rossetti's case 
 as with many other of our great men that Nature
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 5 
 
 apparently does not at one first attempt produce a 
 genius. A race goes on reproducing itself in 
 mediocrities till at last it suddenly produces a really 
 exceptional being. But it is the next generation, 
 the son, who becomes the actual genius. We may 
 here instance Darwin's father, and, amongst artists, 
 the fathers of Raphael Santi, and of Giovanni 
 Bellini. Rossetti's father, too, was distinctly above 
 the average. He was unusually gifted both as 
 regards character and intellect. Although he could 
 not himself attain the greatest heights, it was 
 granted him to bequeath to his son a power which 
 thus only in the second generation reached its 
 highest development. Dante Gabriel himself, even 
 if he did not owe to his gentle, refined mother any 
 of those qualities which led up to his greatness, 
 yet owed her much for the watchful care with 
 which she guarded and cherished his wonderful 
 mind. She knew how to guide and develop, to an 
 unusual degree, the tendencies of her sons and 
 daughters. It is said that Dante Gabriel, at five 
 years of age, took pleasure in Hamlet^ and at six 
 wrote dramatic scenes ; while at ten he and his 
 brother had already read Faust^ most of Shakespeare, 
 much of Scott, as well as The Arabian Nights. 
 
 To these preliminary favourable conditions or 
 birth and early education we must add another, 
 which was continually present during the first half 
 of his life — the struggle for his daily bread. This* 
 must not be under-valued as an active factor ; for 
 he was a sybarite by nature, and needed a stimulus
 
 
 o'^ 
 
 
 6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 for creative work. Many a man is crippled by 
 need. Rossetti, however, had he been brought up 
 in luxury would probably have achieved little. 
 We see him, therefore, at an age when the coming 
 man is foreshadowed, a youth, but already ripened 
 in his intellectual development, already distinct 
 from all other men, who before the completion of 
 his eighteenth year could look with success on 
 printed verse, and on whom the meeting in his 
 father's house with poets, learned men, and banished 
 patriots had imprinted its seal. ' 
 
 After he had attended a drawing-school for three 
 years he applied for entrance to the Academy 
 Schools. One of his fellow-students tells us of his 
 appearance on the day when he applied for admis- 
 sion. His fame had preceded him, and many eyes 
 were directed with curiosity on the newcomer, 
 thin and ill-developed for his eighteen years. Thick, 
 beautiful, and closely curled masses of rich brown 
 unkempt hair fell about an ample brow and almost 
 to its wearer's shoulders. Strongly-marked bushy 
 eyebrows cast heavy shadows over his deep-set 
 eyes, from which a kind of proud cynicism, a 
 suppressed energy, shone forth which often made 
 them appear uncanny His high cheek-bones pro- 
 truded the more plainly from his cheeks being so 
 colourless and hollow, betraying the sleep-destroy- 
 ing night work to which even then he had recourse. 
 He was clean-shaven, and showed thick, not to say 
 sensuous lips, and a square, manly chin. His height 
 was below the medium, his gait unsteady, he stepped
 
 Tate Gallery 
 
 Photo. Mansell &■ Co. 
 
 THE ANNUNCIATION 
 
 " Ecce Anctlhi Domini"
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 with jerky strides in front of his companions, his 
 hands in his pockets and, by a quick movement or 
 his head, throwing his hair back from his face. 
 His whole attitude indicated challenge, intellectual 
 pride, and boundless self-confidence. His bare 
 neck, not too spotless low collar, and shoes guiltless 
 of polish, with a black frock coat, far too large and 
 well-worn, completed his external appearance. Add 
 to all this, as soon as he spoke, a hesitating 
 manner ; and we have before us a man who could 
 not fail to attract attention — even among the very 
 unconventional art students. And yet — one eye- 
 witness concludes — we never had the feeling that 
 he intended or cared to attract attention. 
 
 Rossetti was received in the Academy Schools, 
 but naturally did not remain there long. To a 
 Rossetti, if to any one, the control, steadiness, and 
 slowness of such an institution must have appeared 
 insupportable. He recognised that, for him, the • 
 ways of the Academy were artificial — not artistic. 
 He could not persevere there — being in too great a 
 state of ferment and effervescence. Others might, 
 if they liked, proceed by steady ways comfortably 
 towards their goal : he for his part had to rush there, 
 even though he might be in danger of getting off 
 the track in his haste. He had so much to express, 
 and sought about him to acquire, quicker than in 
 the usual manner, the means to give utterance to all 
 that was fermenting within his mind. He saw 
 some works by Ford Madox Brown which deviated 
 from the Academic beaten route; 'which perhaps '\
 
 8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 further attracted him because he correctly perceived 
 that they lacked the purely technical exactness of 
 the Academicians. 
 
 This was the man for him ; and he asked Madox 
 Brown in writing whether he might become his 
 pupil. Brown was at that time not yet accustomed 
 to recognition of any sort. It throws a precious 
 light on Rossetti's letter when Madox Brown 
 relates that the letter was so overfull of extravagant 
 expressions that he thought some one was playing 
 a practical joke on him. In order, therefore, to be 
 prepared for all emergencies he took a stout cudgel 
 with him when he went to the interview for which 
 Rossetti had asked. His doubts were, however, 
 soon at an end ; and he accepted his new pupil. 
 But he, too, required of Rossetti that the learning of 
 his profession was his first duty, and even set him to 
 copy expressionless bits of still life. Here, again, 
 Rossetti did not find what he had really hoped for. 
 Madox Brown remained his friend till death ; but 
 Rossetti was actually his pupil for but a very short 
 time. It was through him, however, that he 
 became acquainted with other aspirants of his own 
 
 age. 
 
 Dante Rossetti now settled in a studio with 
 Holman Hunt, who was of the same age as himself. 
 His comrade's example convinced him of the 
 i^ necessity 'of hard, uninteresting work; and his 
 energy in this struggle with his turbulent impulses 
 was so successful that, at the age of twenty, he 
 really could paint his first work in oils.
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 The two fellow-students were on friendly terms 
 with a younger colleague, who had far outstripped 
 them in technique, John Everett Millais, in whose 
 home one fine evening in the year 1848 they were 
 all looking through Carlo Lasinio's cartoon engra- 
 vings of the frescos of the Campo Santo at Pisa. On 
 that day, and (one may well be astonished, from 
 looking at this very imperfect work) with this 
 source of inspiration, one of the most powerful Art- 
 movements of the century, the so-called " Pre- 
 Raphaelitism," came into existence. With the per- 
 ceptive eye of a genius Rossetti was able to recog- 
 nise from these thin, poor engravings the beauty 
 which Lasinio had had before him, even though he 
 had been unable to reproduce it. Each of these 
 youths felt a chord in his nature touched, a canon 
 of art realised which all had surmised but failed 
 to define clearly or to express. In this moment of 
 exaltation they vowed to one another to be disciples 
 of honest truth in Art, and Rossetti then urged the 
 formation of a " Brotherhood." What oppressed 
 them, what seemed to them to lie upon Art like a 
 cloak of lead, was the influence of Rafaelle Santi, or 
 we should perhaps, say that strangely distorted view 
 of art which dated back to Raphael, although natur- 
 ally he was only to blame for its first impulse and 
 nothing further. Ruskin * has very ably described 
 this nightmare : "We begin in all probability by 
 telling the youth of fifteen or sixteen that Nature is 
 full of faults, and that he is to improve her ; but 
 
 * Ruskin's *'Pre-Raphaelitism," p. 22.
 
 10 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 Q 
 
 that Raphael is perfection, and that the more he 
 copies Raphael the better; that after much copying 
 of Raphael, he is to try what he can do himself in 
 a Raphaelesque, but yet original manner : That is 
 to say, he is to try to do something very clever, out 
 of his own head, but yet this clever something is 
 to be properly subjected to Raphaelesque rules, is to 
 have a principal light occupying one seventh of its 
 space, and a principal shadow occupying one third 
 of the same ; that no two people's heads in the 
 picture are to be turned the same way, and that all 
 the personages represented are to possess beauty of 
 the highest order, which ideal beauty consists partly 
 in a Greek outline of nose, partly in proportions 
 expressible in decimal fractions between the lips and 
 chin ; but partly also in that degree of improvement 
 which the youth of sixteen is to bestow upon God's 
 work in general." 
 
 How detestable to our enthusiasts such rules and 
 restrictions appeared is shown by the reaction which 
 they called forth. When the Brotherhood was 
 formed its members swore solemnly that whenever 
 they painted a model they would reproduce in 
 Nature's sharp* outlines ; they would copy without 
 the slighest attempt at any idealisation. Each 
 scene depicted must be placed in some landscape 
 
 * Editor's Note. — At this distance of time it seems as 
 easy for us to believe that Nature's outlines were in 
 England of " the forties " sharp as that poor Raphael was 
 ever this nightmare of oppressive perfection.
 
 Tate GitUery, London 
 
 Photo. Man sell 
 
 THE GIRLHOOD OF MARY VIRGIN
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI ii 
 
 which really existed, or in a room which was an 
 actuality, faithfully depicted. 
 
 It was owing to these harsh rules, which almost 
 amounted to caricature, that they lost, almost from 
 the very beginning, the membership of Madox 
 Brown. As a matter of fact they themselves scarcely 
 ever kept strictly to any of them. 
 
 What attraction indeed had the Portfolios of the 
 Campo Santo to youths imbued with these ideas ? 
 As has already been said, instinct rather than reason 
 was here at work. Rossetti to whom all toilsome 
 learning, all artificial imposition, was irksome, who 
 with a full heart and impetuous mind was obliged 
 at once to plunge in medias r«, breathed more freely 
 when he found kindred spirits. He saw here how 
 powerful feeling completely had the mastery over 
 deliberation ; and yet artistic efficiency was not 
 wanting. In fact the inner life of these early masters 
 was great, although their power of achievement was 
 small. He noticed it was so in spite of many an 
 incorrect drawing, in spite of much that was impos- 
 sible — above all, in spite of a complete absence of all 
 well-thought out rules of composition. He did not 
 then doubt for one moment longer that he had found 
 the saving word, the idea that should bring freedom, 
 the haughty original itself; and emblazoned " Pre- 
 Raphaelitism" on his own and his followers' standard. 
 
 He had as it were with one blow restored his 
 self-confidence, which had perhaps been wavering ; !• 
 and convinced himself that he was not irrevocably 
 straying on by-paths if he left the broad foot-road
 
 12 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 of the craft, in order to arrive at his goal by less 
 orthodox ways. 
 
 This was for him the most essential in the battle 
 cry of" Pre-Raphaelitism;" it was indeed all he owed 
 to the old masters, for he had never copied them in 
 any respect. At most he could only adduce them if 
 he were seeking moral support for other articles of 
 belief in his artistic creed. One of these articles of 
 faith was his exclusiveness, his idea of art for art's 
 own sake — an idea which must stand high above all 
 attempts to use art merely to serve other ends. In 
 the autumn of 1849 this belief was still looked upon 
 as rank heresy. Even the new Brotherhood which 
 had started its career with rules, business procedure, 
 and a membership of seven persons did not dare to 
 proclaim it loudly and undisguisedly. It was re- 
 solved, however, to issue a paper bearing the strange 
 title of "The Germ : Thoughts towards Nature in 
 Poetry, Literature and Art," in which these artists 
 sought to secure the spread and recognition of their 
 ideas less by arguments than by examples, and even 
 by poetry and stories. In the third number the 
 lengthy title was shortened into : " The Germ, 
 being Thoughts towards Nature." 
 
 This magazine, of which four numbers only 
 appeared, has much that is really remarkable to 
 show from Dante Rossetti's hand. In the very first 
 number his story "Hand and Soul "appeared, which 
 sets forth the heretic belief already mentioned. 
 This it does with a strange mixture of poetic re- 
 serve, capricious narration, and veiled allusions (to
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 13 
 
 his own life, to the Vita Nuova and other works or 
 Dante). It may well be assumed that at that 
 period, in spite of the concluding sentence, very few 
 readers can have understood what the author was 
 aiming at. The story is, however, so important a 
 document of his intellectual outlook that I should 
 like to sketch, at any rate, its bare outlines. 
 
 As a framework Rossetti has set the (imaginaiy) 
 researches of an (equally imaginary) German scholar. 
 Dr. Aemmster. He is supposed to have discovered 
 a new early Italian master, Chiaro dell' Erma, 
 whose works are to be found at Dresden and in the 
 Pitti Palace at Florence. In the last-named collec- 
 tion, to a painting of a single female figure clad in 
 green and grey drapery, Rossetti hangs his tale, in 
 order to relate episodes from the life of Chiaro. 
 
 Chiaro, a noble youth from Arezzo, has a most 
 enthusiastic love for Art. The fame of Giunta 
 Pisano reaches him, and he determines to become 
 his pupil. He arrives in Pisa, disguises himself as a 
 poor man, and at last introduces himself to Giunta, 
 at the same time expressing his wish to be accepted 
 by him as a pupil. When, however, he is shown 
 into the studio he receives a shock ; for what he sees 
 there are lifeless imperfect forms. He feels that he 
 might himself be this man's master. 
 
 Then he determines to work out thoroughly 
 some one of his own thoughts, and let the world 
 know him as he is. But the lesson he had now 
 learned, of how small a greatness might win fame, 
 serves to make him torpid, and rendered his exer-
 
 14 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 tions less continuous. In Pisa, too, he finds a 
 luxurious life which poor Arezzo could not boast, 
 and wonders that he had never claimed his share 
 of the inheritance of worldly beauty and pleasure. 
 He throws himself into the vortex. 
 
 But one night in a gay company he hears one 
 Bonaventura^ a young painter from Lucca, highly 
 praised. The lamps shook before him and the music 
 beat in his ears. He rose up, alleging a sudden 
 sickness, and went out of that house with his teeth 
 set. He now took to work diligently at Pisa, in 
 order to waste no time through returning to Arezzo. 
 In a house near the church of San Petronio — 
 whence the sounds of the organ and the strains of 
 the chaunted mass can reach him, with a few books, 
 his painting materials, and a silver statuette of the 
 Virgin before which all summer long stood a glass 
 with a lily and a rose, he sat painting for three years. 
 At the end of this time his name was spoken of 
 throughout all Tuscany. 
 
 It was tor the race of fame that he had girded 
 up his loins. He had not paused until fame was 
 reached ; yet now, in taking breath, he found that 
 the weight was still at his heart. The years of 
 his labour had fallen from him, and his life was still 
 in its first painful desire. With all that Chiaro had 
 done during these three years there had always been 
 the feeling of worship and service . . . but now he 
 became aware that much of that reverence which 
 he had mistaken for faith had been no more than 
 the worship of beauty. He said to himself: " My
 
 tar I i^oltection 
 
 LUCREZIA BORGIA (REPLICA) 
 
 Photo. F. Hollyei
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 15 
 
 life and my will are yet before me : I will take 
 another aimUo my life." 1^ 
 
 From that moment he set a watch on his soul, 
 and put his hand to no other works but only to g^^Oi\ V' 
 such as had for their end the presentment of some 
 moral greatness that should influence the beholder. 
 And to this end he multiplied abstractions : and 
 forgot the beauty and passion of the world. So the 
 people ceased to throng about his pictures. Mean- 
 while he had no more of fever upon him ; but 
 was calm and pale each day in all that he did and 
 in his goings in and out. And the weight was still 
 close at Chiaro's heart ; but he held in his breath, 
 never resting (for he was afraid), and would not 
 know it. 
 
 One day, however, there was a great Church 
 Festival, and every one in Pisa was celebrating it. 
 The Guilds, the citizens, even kinsmen at enmity 
 with one another, all streamed towards the church 
 or to amusements, and with them went Chiaro's 
 model. So, waiting in vain for his model, he sat the 
 whole long morning in his room and heard the 
 peals of the church bells and the noise of the crowd. 
 Yet he feared to be idle, for then he could not 
 escape from his thoughts. When it was nearly mid- 
 day he went to the window. The crowds of 
 churchgoers were streaming out from the porch of 
 San Petronio. Among them were a great number 
 of the Gherghiotti and the Marotoli, then the 
 leading families of Pisa, but at enmity with each 
 other. An insolent question was heard from the
 
 i6 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 one faction, and in a trice the rapiers flashed forth 
 
 \ -.^ and blood poured out in streams. On the very 
 
 ^^ ,.;J^ wall over which it trickled down was the great 
 
 ^ ^j fresco — the Allegory of Peace, which Chiaro had 
 
 but that year completed for the church. 
 
 Chiaro turned away ; the sight blinded him — 
 the light felt dry between his lids, and he could 
 not look. . . . When he was able to collect a2;ain 
 his thoughts, they were these : " Fame failed me ; 
 faith failed me ; and now this also — the hope that 
 I nourished in this my generation of men. Where 
 I write Peace, in that is the drawing of swords, and 
 there men's footprints are red. Nay, it is much 
 worse with me. Am I not as a cloth drawn before 
 the light that the looker may not be blinded ? but 
 which showeth therebj' the grain of its own coarse- 
 ness, so that the light seems defiled, and men say : 
 ' We will not walk by it.' " And the fever en- 
 croached slowly on his veins till he could sit no 
 longer and would have risen, but seemed as if 
 stricken with palsy ; but suddenly he found awe 
 within him, as he saw in his room a woman clad in 
 a green and grey raiment fashioned to that time, 
 her hands well joined ; her face was not lifted, but 
 set forward. She moved no closer towards 
 him ; yet he felt her breath, as if beside his face. 
 As she stood there her speech was with him : 
 not, indeed, from her mouth nor in his ears ; 
 but distinctly between them. She was the Image of 
 his own Soul. . . . Rossetti makes this phantom 
 lady, in almost Biblical language, condemn (and not
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 17 
 
 comfort) Chiaro for his presumption and want of 
 courage. 
 
 " Fame, in noble soils, is a fruit of the Spring, 
 but if she show not all her glory to you must 
 you then at once destroy your garden ? And even 
 if the year fall past in all its months — the soil 
 be indeed to thee peevish and incapable ... let it 
 be enough that others have found the feast there- 
 from good, and thanked the giver." Then Chiaro 
 went slowly upon his knees. And when he looked 
 into her eyes he wept ; and she came to him, and 
 cast her hair over him and took her hands about 
 his forehead. " It is thy complaint that Faith is 
 denied to thee : yet who bade thee strike the point 
 between Love and Faith ? And Chiaro held silence 
 and wept into her hair which covered his face, and 
 the salt tears that he shed ran through her hair upon 
 his lips and he tasted all the bitterness of shame. 
 " And now for this thy last purpose. How is it 
 that thou, a man, wouldst say coldly to the mind 
 what God hath said to the heart warmly ? When 
 at any time hath He cried unto thee : ' My son, 
 lend me thy shoulder, lest I fall ? ' In all that thou 
 doest work from thine own heart simply. One 
 drop of rain is as another, and the sun's prism is in 
 all.' She left his side quietly and stood up as he 
 had first seen her, with her fingers laid together, 
 and her long dress covering her feet, and called to 
 him : * Now paint me thus, as I am, to know me 
 weak as I am — and in the weeds of this time.' 
 And he did as she bade him without thinking of 
 
 B
 
 i8 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 fame, without the purpose of strengthening himself 
 in Faith, without even the wish to influence his 
 fellow-men." 
 
 This narrative is, as it were, framed within the 
 fiction of Dr. Aemmster, and of a supposed visit of 
 the narrator to the Pitti Gallery in 1847, where on 
 the picture, whose history is related above, he finds 
 the inscription " Manus animam pinxit " with the 
 date " 1239." We hear that Italian copyi'^ts are 
 amused at his interest in the work, which they 
 explain by the well-known preference of the English 
 for vague mysticism ; while a Frenchman leaves 
 this problem of criticism with the words : " If it be 
 impossible to understand a thing it must surely be 
 because there is nothing there to understand." . . . 
 Such in its broad outlines is the gist of this tale, 
 which seems much more like a sermon, with the 
 text " Art for Art's own sake." If any one in the 
 year 1849 maintained that Art did not alone exist 
 for purposes of moral and intellectual improvement, 
 that its purpose might even be pure enjoyment, 
 this meant a great deal more than if it were said at 
 the present day. Rossetti therein played the role 
 of the ultra-refined artist who affords a special 
 delight to the select few. That there are intelli- 
 gent men who can only think of wishing to popu- 
 larise art — as is their attempt even to-day — must 
 have seemed quite impossible for him to conceive. 
 His conception of art is as of a sacred thing to 
 which only a few elect can find the tortuous 
 way ; and even externally his art displays itself
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 19 
 
 only to these few. This is shown by his choice 
 of subjects. 
 
 My contention that Rossetti did not wish to 
 instruct with his art, and therefore did not use it 
 in the first instance as the illustration of a story, 
 may at first startle the reader when he recalls the 
 titles of Rossetti's pictures. The average observer 
 is met by many difficult points in his representa- 
 tions of Dante, of the Arthurian Legend, and of 
 the fiction of his English contemporaries. The 
 demands sometimes made on our intellect by 
 historical scenes supposed to be taken from musty 
 old chronicles are often greater than a learned man, 
 the pride of his university, would feel equal to, let 
 alone one of us ordinary mortals. Rossetti does 
 not reckon upon such exceptional knowledge. But 
 he does reckon on that smaller circle of the most 
 advanced in culture. To this inner circle he feels 
 that the leading events in the work and life of a 
 Dante, the chief outlines of the Arthurian Legend, 
 the choicest gems of contemporary poetry will be 
 as familiar as are, to the general body of Christians, 
 the chief events of Scripture History. He addresses 
 himself only to this circle, because, as a matter of 
 course, through their high degree of culture they 
 have the most complete equipment for understand- 
 ing him. If he paints for this circle the First Meeting 
 of Dante and 'Beatrice^ or Guinevere^ or The Labora- 
 tory, or Lucre-zia Borgia, he is well aware that they 
 are quite competent to follow him as easily as could 
 the general public if he should use his art to portray
 
 20 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 *' Mary in the Temple," " Jesus among the 
 Scribes," or " St. Peter and St. John at the gates of 
 the Temple." 
 
 We must bear this in mind when we call 
 Rossetti a Romanticist, judging merely from his 
 peculiarities of style. This he was not in the sense 
 of the search for the pathetic, for an escape from 
 the common world. But that he could not help in 
 a certain sense a leaning towards Romanticism is 
 clear when we consider how his intellect was freed 
 by finding such noble comrades in thought as the 
 predecessors of Raphael Santi, and how, in addition 
 to this, he regarded art as something esoteric, and 
 cultivated a comprehensive poetic and literary 
 knowledge of Dante and the early Italian writers. 
 Finally the painters, too, whose works he took as 
 his guide, could not but lead an artist of 1850 to 
 Romanticism. Rossetti commenced his life-work 
 with some religious subjects, which must be consi- 
 dered quite apart from the Dante pictures. Instead 
 of the dry narrative pictures then in vogue, which 
 explain events quite clearly to each butcher, baker, 
 and candlestick-maker, in these, the real Pre- 
 Raphaelite works of Rossetti, there breathes a 
 yearning, passionate spirit of mysticism. There is 
 nothing of the simpering or devout Madonna, the 
 chubby infant, the stereotype good-natured or ugly 
 studio-model, who had to sit, just as the case 
 might be, either as Joseph or as a hangman. 
 Rossetti's wonderful Mary is quite a modern 
 maid, but with a reserved intensity of expression in
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 21 
 
 which the majority perhaps will not see the old 
 well-known piety and religiosity, but in whom some 
 of us will find again the searchings of the centuries 
 for the key to those inexplicable contradictions of 
 human fate. 
 
 What a splendid field of work lay before this 
 little group of Pre-Raphaelites. All these refined, 
 deeply intellectual missionaries of culture sat to 
 one another for their works ; in addition to this 
 they would paint their friends, among whom were 
 numbered some who became afterwards the 
 greatest poets of their country. It must often be a 
 torture to the artist who wishes to represent an 
 inmost thought, an inspired moment of emotion, 
 and only has at his disposal the empty face of the 
 professional model, which in all probability is but 
 the product of generations of market women and 
 street-sweepers. Rossetti's Virgins are taken from 
 his sister Christina, the poetess and author of the 
 " Goblin Market," whose beauty rests on a deeper 
 basis than that of mere regularity of feature. 
 
 Rossetti also imparted a more important role to the 
 InfantChrist than thatof cheerfuldimpled chubbiness 
 and peaceful innocence. And then all his persons 
 do not act as befits their time and character. They 
 act as Mary, Jesus, Anna, and Joseph would never 
 have been able to act ; much more as people of 
 the present day would act if they were placed in 
 the same position It is this which makes the 
 average observer feel that unwonted demands are 
 made upon him. He feels that it is possible for
 
 22 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 there to be a bridging over between this anachronism 
 and his own soul . . . but he on his own side must 
 add his quota to the building of the bridge, and this 
 makes him feel uneasy. 
 
 There was, however, more than this in Rossetti's 
 art at which his contemporaries could take um- 
 brage. Madox Brown was surely one of the most 
 advanced of these, and his judgment was in addition 
 coloured by intimate friendship. Even he, however, 
 could write of Rossetti (Diary, September 5, 1854) : 
 " Whatever he may create is sure to be beautiful. 
 But the rage for strangeness disfigures his ideas." 
 Among the fragmentary sentences which Rossetti 
 himself has written down, there is one word which 
 must be the result of his experiences of that time. 
 He says : " The critic of the new school sits down 
 before a picture and saturates it with silence." 
 " If one painted Boors drinking^ and even were re- 
 fined oneself, they would pardon and in some degree 
 revere one. Or, if one were a drinking boor one- 
 self, and painted refinements, they would condone 
 the latter. But the refined, painted by the refined, 
 is unpardonable." 
 
 For even to the most casual observer it is clear 
 in a moment that these events could not have 
 happened as depicted. Speaking of what lies 
 nearest at hand, the Holy Family did not dwell in 
 such rooms. How easy it was, therefore, for every- 
 body to lift their hands in righteous horror and 
 exclaim ? " Shall true art jest thus with facts ? 
 What is the signification of these flames round the
 
 
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 HSH 
 
 
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 /f. letiartfs Collection Photo. F. HoUyei 
 
 DANTE MEETING BEATRICE IN PARADISE
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 23 
 
 feet ? What, again, of these lilies, three of which, 
 so strangely detached, hang down from the cloth on 
 the wall ; while in the other picture they, on one 
 long stem, are held by a boy-angel in a strange sort 
 of vase with a handle on a pedestal consisting of 
 nothing but folios ? " 
 
 One sees everywhere that much more than the 
 mere familiar situation speaks to us from the pictures. 
 This, too, is true of the non-Scriptural works of 
 those early years, such as, for instance, the one in 
 which a man, dressed as a monk, looks round for a 
 couple whom a friend is anxious to introduce to 
 him. What is here represented is certainly no 
 trivial episode, grubbed up out of old forgotten 
 manuscripts. A self-evident earnestness speaks from 
 this picture. We can hardly overcome an uneasy 
 feeling that we have been guilty of great lack of 
 culture ; for we feel that this painting, with no 
 self-evident story, refers to something which we 
 ought to know. " Dante painting the Angel on the 
 anniversary of Beatrice'' s death " : when this is the 
 title that we find we are almost ashamed of not 
 having recognised it at once, as much as if we had 
 not recognised Rembrandt's '■''Abraharn entertaining 
 the AngeW 
 
 The circumstance, which each of the critics of 
 those days noticed — that behind these pictures there 
 lay a mass of intellectual culture, acquired both by 
 experience and by study, and enriched by his own 
 wealth of ideas — to this circumstance alone may be 
 ascribed the fury with which Rossetti and his com-
 
 24 DANTE GABRIE L ROSSETTI 
 
 rades were received. The secret of the initials 
 P.R.B. (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), which each 
 of them added to his signature on the pictures, had 
 very soon become known, and may certainly have 
 helped to fan the wrath of the righteous. On the 
 one hand a gibe was suspected against the deity 
 Raphael, and such presumption deserved condign 
 punishment ; on the other hand, it was in itself 
 an audacity to affix a trail of initials to one's name. 
 This had been till then a privilege only reserved to 
 the proud members of the Academy! 
 
 Yet it must be insisted on by us that Rossetti and 
 his comrades, however they might innocently offend, 
 did not in any manner call forth opposition. As 
 regards their outward demeanour and dealings the 
 Pre-Raphaelites did not show the slightest arrogance 
 or the wish to attract attention. Their Ancilla 
 Domini^ Childhood of Christy RienzPs Oath^ Lorenzo 
 and Isabella are individually too harmless to account 
 for this savage onslaught on the whole group, unless 
 we explain it by supposing it due to that rage and 
 rancour, which is apt to seize the majority of 
 humanity as soon as a genius gives them convincing 
 proofs of their own intellectual inferiority. 
 
 It is perhaps rather unnecessary to put the question 
 as to whether the Pre-Raphaelites would really even- 
 tually have conquered, if they had carried on their 
 crusade against narrow-mindedness to the bitter end. 
 They received the support of Ruskin, who was 
 indeed incapable of grasping their artistic potentiali- 
 ties, yet certainly recognised the literary significance
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 25 
 
 of a man like Rossetti, the moral importance of a 
 Ford Madox Brown or Holman Hunt — and on these 
 grounds was only too ready to break a lance for the 
 whole group. He theorised the movement, he 
 explained its basis and its aesthetic principles of 
 faith — in a logical sequence of which, be it observed 
 in parenthesis, no single member of the group had 
 any idea, much less had shown adherence to. In 
 spite of the fact that thereby a new stimulus was 
 given to the continuance of the struggle, all, with 
 perhaps the sole exception of Holman Hunt, retired 
 from the lists ; and left their champion critic to 
 defend a theory, the practice of which they them- 
 selves gave up. What each of them eventually 
 became (Madox Brown, Millais, Woolner, and 
 Rossetti), he became because he went on developing 
 himself on his lonely path, without remaining true 
 to Pre-Raphaelitism, the enthusiasm of his youth. 
 
 But the feeling which had led to the foundation 
 of the Brotherhood was not laid aside by Rossetti 
 with its dissolution. Even if no longer firmly 
 united to him, he yet again attracted people who 
 approached the intellectual heritage of the first Pre- 
 Raphaelites although they cultivated it in a newer 
 direction, more full of promise for the future. 
 
 The goal, which connected one part of the old 
 group by attracting further talent, was the attain- 
 ment of a united decorative art according to a definite 
 style, and the application of what nowadays we call 
 workshops of "Arts and Crafts." 
 
 Rossetti had received, one after another, orders for
 
 26 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 an altar-piece, then for stained glass-windows and a 
 chancel fresco, all of these works of applied art. 
 Afire with enthusiasm for this, as indeed for every- 
 thing in which he took an interest, he at once got 
 new talent together for this industry. The artists 
 had a glorious task before them, in which again 
 Ruskin's inspiration was to help then, when 'on the 
 occasion of the erection of a new debating and 
 reading room at the University of Oxford, it was 
 decided that the upper rounded spaces between the 
 windows should be painted with pictures from the 
 Arthurian legend. Rossetti undertook to do two, 
 William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Val Prinsep, 
 Spencer Stanhope, J. H. Pollen, and A. Hughes 
 each one of the spaces, three for the present 
 remaining blank. Rossetti was not able to execute 
 his own beautiful design, having to break off his 
 work on account of a bad attack of illness of Miss 
 Siddal. All the paintings very soon perished, as the 
 brick-wall had only been whitewashed, and they had 
 painted on it directly with tempera, without any 
 experience in the management of this medium. 
 
 At this present day only the splendid roof fresco 
 which William Morris executed is said to be pre- 
 served out of the whole decoration of the room. 
 The well-known art movement connected with his 
 name originated, in fact, in these beginnings. The 
 firm of Morris Sc Co. became known later all over 
 the world, and the work of Morris himself in most 
 varied fields of activity became so important and so 
 typical that one might easily forget that the work
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 27 
 
 of his life is only the evolution of a thought which 
 others had first conceived. For it was in all proba- 
 bility Madox Brown, and Rossetti in particular 
 (who in addition to his other qualities had a special 
 talent for financial questions), who made the pro- 
 posal, an unheard of one at that time, that artists 
 should combine for a commercial undertaking. In 
 1 861 the firmof Morris & Co., afterwards of world- 
 wide fame, was founded. In our own days, when 
 we have seen, not so long ago, the rise of arts and 
 crafts workshops of the most varied kind, it is of 
 particular interest to look at the prospectus of those 
 days. Here it is : 
 
 MORRIS, MARSHALL, FAULKNER & Co. 
 Fine Art Workmen 
 
 IN PAINTING, CARVING, FURNITURE, AND THE METALS 
 8 Red Lion Square, Holborn, W-C 
 
 Members of the Firm 
 
 F. Madox Brown P. Paul Marshall. 
 
 C. J. Faulkner W. Morris 
 
 Arthur Hughes D, G. Rossetti 
 
 E. BuRNE-JoNEs Philip Webb 
 
 " The growth of Decorative Art in this country, 
 owing to the efforts of English architects, has now 
 reached a point at which it seems desirable that 
 artists of reputation should devote their time to it. 
 Although no doubt particular instances of success
 
 28 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 may be cited, still it must be generally felt that 
 attempts of this kind hitherto have been crude and 
 fragmentary. Up to this time, the want of that 
 artistic supervision which can alone bring about 
 harmony between the different parts of a successful 
 work has been increased by the necessarily excessive 
 outlay consequent on taking one individual artist 
 from his pictorial labours. 
 
 The artists whose names appear above hope by 
 association to do away with this difficulty. Having 
 among their number men of varied qualifications, 
 they will be able to undertake any species of decora- 
 tion, mural or otherwise, from pictures, properly so 
 called, down to the consideration of the smallest work 
 susceptible of art beauty. It is anticipated that by 
 such co-operation the largest amount of what is 
 essentially the artist's work, along w-ith his constant 
 supervision, will be secured at the smallest possible 
 expense, while the work done must necessarily be of 
 a much more complete order than if any artist were 
 incidentally employed in the usual manner. 
 
 These artists, having for many years been deeply 
 attached to the study of the Decorative Arts of all 
 times and countries, have felt more than most people 
 the want of some one place where they could either 
 obtain or get produced work of a genuine and 
 beautiful character. They have therefore now estab- 
 lished themselves as a firm, for the production, by 
 themselves and under their supervision, of: 
 
 " I. Mural Decoration, either in Pictures or in 
 Pattern work, or merely in the arrangement of
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 29 
 
 colours, as applied to dwelling-houses, churches, or 
 public buildings. 
 
 "II. Carving generally, as applied to Architecture. 
 
 " III. Stained Glass, especially with reference to 
 its harmony with Mural Decoration. 
 
 " IV. Metal Work in all its branches, including 
 Jewellery. 
 
 "V. Furniture, either depending for its beauty on 
 its own design, on the application of materials 
 hitherto overlooked, or on its conjunction with 
 Figure and Pattern Painting. Under this head is 
 included Embroidery of all kinds, Stamped Leather, 
 and ornamental work in other such materials 
 besides every article necessary for domestic use. 
 
 " It only remains to them to assure the public 
 that work of all the above classes will be estimated 
 for, and executed in a business-like manner ; and it 
 is believed that good decoration, involving rather the 
 luxury of taste than the luxury of costliness, will be 
 found to be much less expensive than is generally 
 supposed." 
 
 How remarkably quickly innovations which at 
 their time caused a great sensation pass away out 
 of remembrance. Do not these words sound almost 
 identical with the advertisements of our modern 
 artistic workshops ? Even the fallacious and decep- 
 tive suggestion that the artistic work " will not 
 prove costly " we find there as in circulars of the 
 present day. Yet the men who draw up our 
 modern circulars have doubtless known nothing 
 about that of 1861, even by hearsay ; and are abso-
 
 30 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 lutely convinced that they are announcing per- 
 fectly new truths, and following new aims. 
 
 Rossetti did work of various kinds for these artis- 
 tic workshops, though perhaps nothing of startling 
 importance. As already stated, Morris was the 
 man who fully developed and brought to perfection 
 the germ which lay hid in the whole project. 
 Rossetti, however, soon drifted apart upon that path 
 on which he was eventually to accomplish his life's 
 work, and on which we will now follow him. In 
 the second number of the " Germ " there appeared 
 his poem entitled Jhe Blessed Damozel. . . . When 
 we consider the close connection between Rossetti 
 and Dante we are doubly reminded of the latter's 
 utterance : 
 
 "£ pero sapp'ia ciascuno, che nulla cosa per legome 
 musaico armonixzata si puo della sua loquela in altra 
 trasmutare senza rompere tutta sua dokezza e 
 
 armoniay 
 
 THE BLESSED DJMOZEL 
 
 The blessed damozel leaned out 
 From the gold bar of Heaven ; 
 
 Her eyes were deeper than the depth 
 Of waters stilled at ezen ; 
 
 She had three lilies in her hand. 
 
 And the stars in her hair were seven. 
 
 Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem, 
 
 No wrought fozvers did adorn. 
 But a zvhitc rose of Mary s gift,
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 31 
 
 For service meetly worn ; 
 Her hair that lay along her back 
 ' PFas yellow like ripe corn. 
 
 Her seemed she scarce had been a day 
 
 One of God's choristers ; 
 The wonder was vot yet quite gone 
 
 From that still look of hers ; 
 Albeit, to them she left, her day 
 
 Had counted as ten years. 
 
 {To one, it is ten years of years. 
 
 . . . l^'et now, and in this place. 
 Surely she leaned o'er me — her hair 
 
 Fell all about my face. . . , 
 toothing: the autumn-fall of leaves. 
 
 The whole year sets apace.) 
 
 It was the rampart of God'' s house 
 
 That she was standing on ; 
 By God built over the sheer depth 
 
 The which is space begun ; 
 So high, that looking dozvnward thence 
 
 She scarce could see the sun, 
 
 ***** 
 
 From the fixed place of Heaven she saw 
 
 Time like a pulse shake fierce 
 Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove 
 
 Within the gulf to pierce 
 Its path ; and now she spoke, as when 
 
 The stars sang in their spheres. 
 
 The sun was g07ie nozv ; the curled moon 
 
 Was lik,e a littie feather 
 Fluttering far dozen the gulf; and nozv
 
 32 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 She spoke through the still weather. 
 Her voice was like the voice the stars 
 Had zvhen they sang together. 
 
 {Ah sweet J Even nou\ in that biro's song. 
 
 Strove not her accents there, 
 Fain to be hearkened ? When those bells 
 
 Possessed the mid-day air, 
 Strove not her steps to reach jny side 
 
 Down all the echoing stair F) 
 
 "/ wish that he were come to me. 
 
 For he will come^^ she said. 
 ** Have I not prayed in Heaven ? — on earth. 
 
 Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd? 
 Are not two prayers a perfect strength ? 
 
 And shall I feel afraid? 
 
 '■'■When round his head the aureole clings. 
 
 And he is clothed in white, 
 r II take his hand and go with him 
 
 To the deep zee I Is of light ; 
 As unto a stream zve zvill step down. 
 
 And bathe there in God^s sight. 
 
 *' We tzvo zvili stand beside that shrine. 
 
 Occult, withheld, untrody 
 Whose lamps are stirred continually 
 
 M^ith prayer sent up to God ; 
 And see our old prayers, granted, melt 
 
 Each like a little cloud. 
 
 " We two will lie in the shadoiv of 
 
 That living mystic tree 
 Within whose secret growth the Dove
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 33 
 
 Is sometimes felt to be, 
 While every leaf that His plumes touch 
 •Saitk His Name audibly. 
 
 " And I myself tvill teach to himy 
 
 I myself lying so. 
 The songs I sing here ; which his voice 
 
 Shall pause in, hushed and slozv. 
 And find some knozvledge at each pause. 
 
 Or some new thing to know." 
 
 {^Alas! We two, we two, thou safst I 
 
 Yea, one wast thou with me 
 That once of old. But shall God lift 
 
 To endless unity 
 The soul whose likeness with thy soul 
 
 Was but its love for thee ?) 
 
 " We two,^^ she said, " will seek the groves 
 
 Where the lady Mary is. 
 With her five handmaidens, whose name 
 
 Are five stveet symphonies, 
 Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, 
 
 Margaret and Rosalys. 
 
 " Circlewise sit they, with bound locks 
 
 And foreheads garlanded ; 
 Into the fine cloth white like fiame 
 
 Weaving the golden thread. 
 To fashion the birth-robes for them 
 
 Who are just born, being dead. 
 
 *' He shall fear, haply, and be dumb : 
 
 Then will I lay my cheek 
 To his, and tell about our love,
 
 34 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 Not once abashed or weak : 
 And the dear Mother approve 
 My pride ^ and let me speak. 
 
 " Herself shall bring us, hand in hand. 
 
 To Him round zvhom all souls 
 Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads 
 
 Bowed zvith their aureoles : 
 And angels meeting us shall sing 
 
 To their citherns and citoles. 
 
 " There will I ask of Christ the Lord 
 
 Thus much for him and me : — 
 Only to live as once on earth 
 
 iVith Love, — only to be. 
 As then awhile, for ever now 
 
 Together, I and he.''* 
 
 She gazed and listened and then said. 
 
 Less sad of speech than mild, — 
 " All this is when he comes." She ceased. 
 
 The light thrilled towards her, flPd 
 With angels in strong level fight. 
 
 Her eyes prayed, and she smiPd. 
 
 (/ saw her smile.) But soon their path 
 
 Was vague in distant spheres : 
 And then she cast her arms along 
 
 The golden barriers. 
 And laid her face between her hands, 
 
 And wept. {I heard her tears.) 
 
 To waste words on the beauty of this poem 
 would be superfluous. I should, however, like to 
 emphasise this — that it is the most wonderful
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 35 
 
 piece of work, in all the history of the world, which 
 has ever been produced by a youth of less than 
 nineteen summers. At this age many have already 
 sung of love, vehemently and boldly, proudly and 
 heroically, fantastically and with exaggeration. 
 Who, however, at eighteen years of age has treated 
 the subject with the experience of a man who has 
 been through the fire, who has raised himself and 
 his passion, almost before temptation existed for 
 him, let alone that he had succumbed, to a really 
 divine height; in which height neither cramped nor 
 suppressed, it is able to flourish from the beginning, 
 and this without staining his soul with one single 
 drop of gall and wormwood. Other youths loudly 
 proclaim the beauty of their mistress, let the lofty 
 song of love rise into the abstract, become diffuse 
 over their longing and wished for happiness, — and 
 place their own Ego as central point of their present 
 and past experiences. One has the feeling as if 
 each had silently hoped that his work might come 
 before the eyes of the beloved one, and thus win 
 her for him. Rossetti sings of love, not of the 
 loved one ; the bearer of his thought is not himself, 
 is not a man but a maid — and that a dead maid. 
 In the blessedness of heaven she lives in unconscious 
 half-slumber, from which she only awakens when, 
 bending over the golden gateway, she looks down 
 upon him for whom she has already waited ten long 
 years. His coming, their happiness together will be 
 the touch of magic, which shall make a reality of 
 all the splendour around her, since without his love,
 
 36 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 (for which she waits with gentle, tearful smiles), 
 there can be no Heaven for her. The traces of a 
 reserved smouldering fire show through these lines 
 more distinctly than in many a celebrated poem, in 
 which wild passion takes form in the warmest 
 imagery, the most enticing words. 
 
 Dante Rossetti was surely by nature one of the 
 most sensuously emotional characters which has 
 ever existed. The love of women, the beauty of 
 women, the beauty of the human body, were to 
 him the goal of his wishes, the highest form of that 
 happiness for which his soul thirsted. How was it 
 that he did not become a sensualist ? How was it 
 that in his art the man is not mirrored in whom 
 enjoyment, carried to excess of satiety, results in 
 loathsome cynicism ? It is a noteworthy fact that 
 Rossetti, of whom we have already learnt that life and 
 art to him were one, of whom we have countless 
 proofs that he was passionately fond of the joyous- 
 ness of life, that this Rossetti has only drawn one 
 single female nude figure and two paintings of moral 
 subjects, — both in the spirit of a stern judge. And 
 yet his art knows only one object, the portrayal or 
 the sensuous splendour of woman's form, in which 
 he delights with a fervour scarcely less than that of 
 Rubens. To two, perhaps to three women we owe 
 the splendid service of having preserved the purity 
 of his art — Rossetti's mother with all that she in- 
 culcated in his soul, perhaps, too, his sister Chris- 
 tina. Later certainly Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, 
 who became his wife. She was perhaps one of the
 
 I'ictcria and Ail\rt Mity 
 South A^t'fisuio-ton 
 
 1 'koto. F. Holly er 
 
 ELIZABETH ELEANOR SIDDAL 
 (Pen ana ink drawing)
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 37 
 
 most remarkable women that ever existed. No 
 less a personage than the poet Swinburne, who 
 became later so famous, both in public writings 
 and in private letters, has given his testimony to 
 this. " It is impossible that even the reptile 
 rancour, the omnivorous malignity of lago himself, 
 could have dreamed of trying to cast a slur on the 
 memory of that incomparable lady." He then 
 says : " To one at least who knew her better than 
 most of her husband's friends the memory of all her 
 marvellous charms of mind and person — her match- 
 less grace, loveliness, courage, endurance, wit, 
 humour, heroism and sweetness is too dear and 
 sacred to be profaned by any attempt at expression " 
 [Academy^ December 24, 1892). He lays special 
 stress on her fecundity of invention and recognition 
 in matters pertaining to poetry, and closes his 
 words with the declaration : " She was a woman as 
 wonderful as she was amiable." 
 
 Walter Deverell, one of the later enrolled mem- 
 bers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, had 
 discovered her in the year 1849, when he accom- 
 panied his mother shopping ; she was in a milliner's 
 business. With his mother's help he induced her 
 to sit to him for his Viola ; later on she sat for 
 Millais for his Ophelia (1852), and for Holman 
 Hunt as the chief figure in two pictures, Christian 
 Priests escaping from the Druids^ and Valentine 
 Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus (185 1). When 
 Rossetti saw her she became his property : he drew 
 and painted her innumerable times. Till her death.
 
 38 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 and even afterwards, she was the model for the 
 chief figure in his pictures. This description of 
 her outward appearance comes from his brother : 
 " Tall, finely formed, with a lofty neck, and 
 regular yet somewhat uncommon features, greenish- 
 blue unsparkling eyes, large perfect eyelids, brilliant 
 complexion, and a lavish heavy wealth of coppery- 
 golden hair." 
 
 Her neck in particular, " regal like David's 
 tower," delighted Dante Gabriel. To complete 
 the picture we must include the brilliant com- 
 plexion, which at first might appear very seductive, 
 but could not but cause anxiety as soon as it became 
 recognised that it was hectic. 
 
 In the year 1850 she entered into this *'new 
 life" as a girl of seventeen. If Deverell had spent 
 that morning at home the potentialities of this soul 
 would doubtless for ever have lain sleeping in the 
 darkness of night. The wonderful chance of fate 
 intervened — and twelve years of love spent by the 
 side of Rossetti made of her a being who created 
 pictures and sketched situations, which found their 
 market even in far-distant America — from whom 
 Rossetti himself gained much — and who could fill 
 a Ruskin (who admired Rossetti as perhaps none 
 other did) with such unqualified enthusiasm that she 
 the model was more to him than the artist's creation 
 which she inspired. Nor did that alone suffice ; 
 but these years formed her into a being who could 
 write poems, among which are to be found pearls 
 such as the following :
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 39 
 
 AT LJST 
 
 I O mother, open the zvindotv wide \ 
 
 And let the daylight in : '^ \ ' 
 
 The hills grow darker to my sight. 
 And thoughts begin to swim. 
 
 And, mother dear, take my young son 
 
 (Since I was born of thee). 
 And care for all his little ways. 
 
 And nurse him on thy knee. 
 
 vs 
 
 t- 
 
 And, mother, wash my pale, pale hands, ^ 
 
 And then bind up my feet : ^ \ H\ 
 
 My body may no longer rest 
 Out of its winding sheet. 
 
 And, mother dear, take a sapling twig 
 
 And green grass nezvly mozon, ?' "^"f ^ 
 
 And lay them on my empty hed 
 
 That my sorrow be not known. 
 
 And, mother, find three berries red 
 
 And pluck them from the stalk. 
 And burn them at the first cockcrow. 
 
 That my spirit may not walk. 
 
 And, mother dear, break a zvillow wand, 
 
 And if the sap be even. 
 Then save it for my lover'' s sake 
 
 And heUl know my soul's in heaven. 
 
 And, mother, lohen the big tears fall 
 (And fall, God knows, they may), 
 Tell him I died of my great love. 
 And my dying heart was gay.
 
 40 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 Jnd, mother dear, zvhen the sun has set. 
 
 And the pale church grass zvaves, 
 Then carry me through the dim twilight 
 
 And hide me among the graves. 
 
 What a wonderful moment for our race was that 
 when the intellectual side of life was so far in 
 advance of the physical. Rossetti, still on the 
 threshold of the sanctuary whose zealous priest he 
 was to become, can write a laudatory hymn in 
 honour of the purest of love in a poem so unique 
 as " The Blessed Damozel." Elizabeth Eleanor 
 Siddal, when, in spite of all kinds of illness and 
 adverse circumstances, the goal of her marriage, so 
 heartily longed for, was at hand, utters her feelings 
 in such an epithalamium as this " At Last." It 
 begins with the long-drawn sigh of the hunted who, 
 after dangers barely escaped, feels herself safely pro- 
 tected and in peace. This is hardly expressed when 
 it suddenly changes into a sorrowful dirge, into the 
 wish now to be allowed to die, afar off, so that her 
 death may fall more lightly upon her beloved. The 
 period which caused even great characters only to 
 think of themselves led her to write in this vein. 
 
 It was Rossetti's love which had so transformed 
 the cutler's daughter from Sheffield, the erstwhile 
 seamstress, into such an artist, such a poetess, and 
 such a fine character. And to her also he owed 
 quite as much. He drew and painted whole 
 drawersful of " Guggums" — his pet name for her. 
 She was the centre point of his life and his art. 
 When she died, after two years of married life, he
 
 Tate Gallery, London 
 
 Photo. Mansell &■ Co. 
 
 BEATA BEATRIX
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 41 
 
 was as one paralysed. The best which he had to 
 give, the manuscript of his splendid, unpublished 
 poems, he buried in the wealth of her golden hair 
 as she lay in her coffin. For a long time he could 
 create nothing ; only after he had given to the 
 memory of his wife the wonderful monument of 
 one of the most beautiful pictures, Beata Beatrix — 
 which clearly portrays her transfigured features — 
 then and then alone did peace gradually come 
 over him. 
 
 Through her he had become the modern " master 
 of the half-figures," the master who in this form 
 repeatedly sounds the paean of beauty and love. It 
 was doubtless her incurable, severe sufferings which 
 caused him not to misuse her beauty for trivial or 
 even lower aims. Ruskin wrote him once with a 
 kind of divine inspiration : 
 
 " I think Ida " (his favourite name for Miss 
 Siddal) " should be very happy to see how much 
 more beautifully, perfectly, and tenderly you draw 
 when you are drawing her than when you draw 
 anybody else. She cures you of all your worst 
 faults when you only look at her." 
 
 Even externally she realised his ideal ; and with 
 her features he was able to personify physical 
 beauty, and yield to his old impulse of fighting 
 against the existing state of art. For the highest 
 ideal of female beauty of the art of his day was a 
 coy, demure, simpering prettiness of feature. The 
 disciples of this idea prudishly threw up their 
 hands in holy horror at the sight of the full rich
 
 42 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 lips, the rounded features, the marked capacity 
 for enjoying life possessed by Rossetti's types ! 
 Although all his female figures bore the signs of 
 great intellectual qualities, they were none the 
 less endowed with sensuous charm. Adorned by 
 wonderful jewellery and rich clothing, this joyous 
 full life was convincingly expressed by a dazzling, 
 rich scheme of colour. 
 
 Rosetti recovered himself after the death of his 
 wife and did a great deal of good work ; indeed the 
 most of his life-work, I know very well that it is not 
 even the features of his wife which look forth on us 
 from the greater number of his best-known works ; 
 that Fanny Wilding, MissCornforth, Marie Spartali, 
 above all Mrs. William Morris are repeated quite as 
 often as Miss Siddal ; even that some of these women 
 later on played a not unimportant part in his life as 
 well as in his art. In spite of this, however, I main- 
 tain that what Rossetti became, he became through 
 the stimulation and support which his wife gave him. 
 It was she who led him to the point where it became 
 clearly manifest to him in what manner his genius 
 should express itself. His later pictures, however 
 good they may be in themselves, only repeat what 
 had come to him during; the time that Miss Siddal 
 was at his side, although among the faces of his 
 figures her features do not occur. 
 
 I can now, after I have endeavoured to show m 
 what Rossetti's genius consisted, and how the 
 evolution of this genius was furthered, express my- 
 self more briefly in tracing the course of its develop-
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 43 
 
 ment. We saw how as a youth he passed through 
 a period of storm and stress, and saw, too, how this 
 tendency to opposition at first led to a touch of 
 Naturalism. His great literary culture, the con- 
 ditions of his daily life, above all his wonderful 
 poetic qualifications, prevented this Naturalism as- 
 suming too pronounced a form. These conditions 
 had rather the tendency to force him into a kind of 
 Romanticism. Then love in its purest form entered 
 his life and gave the artist that was in him his 
 definite form ; and this form remained unchanged 
 even after his love had been taken from him. 
 
 After the death of his wife Rossetti first tried to 
 distract his thoughts by fitting up a new home. 
 With Whistler he was one of the first who showed 
 appreciation for the beautiful ohjeis cTart of bygone 
 epochs, as well as for the wonderful productions of 
 the Japanese ; and, like Whistler, he also possessed 
 a refined taste. As time went on he was able to 
 work again. For some years he still gathered friends 
 about him, chief among whom were the poets 
 Swinburne, P. B. Marston, and Meredith, the artists 
 W. B. Scott and Halliday, and in addition patrons 
 at whose head were Rae, Flint and Leathart. His 
 works now passed directly into the possession of these 
 latter. Owing to his sensitiveness to criticism he had 
 long resolved not to exhibit. When on the death 
 of one of his patrons his works only fetched very 
 moderate prices, at an auction of the latter's effects, 
 he endeavoured to find a possibility of preserving 
 his pictures from the fluctuations of such a market. 
 
 '•
 
 44 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 He afterwards employed an agent to sell a part of 
 his works. Poetic work, in particular his translations 
 from the early Italian poets, occupied him greatly 
 during the first years after the loss of his wife. And 
 at last some years of important artistic creative work 
 came to him. Then commenced his illness which, 
 though in another form than that of his wife, but 
 equally slow and terrible, gnawed at his physical 
 strength. In his case, in addition to this, his intel- 
 lectual strength was destroyed. The chief cause 
 was his suffering from increasing chronic sleepless- 
 ness. At that time the deadly effects of chloral did 
 not appear to have been known. He used this 
 extensively, and only recognised his danger after it 
 was too late. Periods of short relief alternated with 
 those of the deepest depression, and he gradually 
 approached his end. 
 
 This was the period in which he lost many of his 
 friends, only very few of whom could manage to get 
 on with him to the very last. As is always the case 
 in these circumstances, the bad qualities in his 
 character got the upper hand in proportion as the 
 remedy undermined his strength of will. There 
 were whole years in which most people spoke of 
 him only as of a selfish epicurean. It is quite clear 
 that the possibilities of this character lay in him ; 
 for here again he showed the influence of the artistic 
 temperament. Long before this these characteristics 
 assumed other than a semi-tragi-comic appearance, 
 their traces in him were observable. When he 
 wanted to paint one of his best-known pictures
 
 Horniitian Collection 
 
 Photo. F. Hollytr 
 
 JOLI COEUR
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 45 
 
 Found he was staying with Ford Madox Brown, 
 to whose comprehensive notes we owe much that 
 affords us an accurate insight into Rossetti's character. 
 He was then continually in money trouble and 
 borrowed from friend or foe alike, unconcerned as to 
 whether it was easy for them to give, which, to tell 
 truth, was never the case in his circle. In conver- 
 sation his affairs and his interests were for him as a 
 matter of course the most important, if not the only 
 subject, to be considered. He had absolutely no 
 perception for what might wound his friend's feelings, 
 or the reverse. 
 
 The principal reason for Rossetti's being at that 
 time with Madox Brown was because he wanted 
 to paint the calf ajid other details in the picture 
 Found^ which we have just mentioned. On Novem- 
 ber 27, 1854, Madox Brown writes in his diary: 
 " Out to buy pewter spoons in honour of William 
 Rossetti coming to dinner ; one being broken by 
 Katey and two melted by Ruth, so as to leave but 
 one serviceable one of four. Saw Gabriel's calf; 
 very beautiful but takes a long time. Endless 
 emendations, no perceptible progress from day to 
 day, and all the time he wearing my great-coat, 
 which I want, and a pair of my breeches, besides 
 food and an unlimited supply of turpentine . . . 
 Snow came on." 
 
 On December 16 following he writes : "This 
 morning, i6th, Gabriel not yet having done his 
 calf, and talking quite freely about several days yetj 
 having been here since November i, and not seem-
 
 46 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 ing to notice any hints . . . Emma " (Mrs, Madox 
 Brown) " being within a week or two of her con- 
 finement, and he having had his bed made on the 
 floor in the parlour one week now, and not getting 
 up till eleven . . . besides my finances being re- 
 duced to_^2 I2S. 6d., which must last till January 20, 
 I told him delicately he must go, or go home at 
 night by the 'bus." (The Madox Browns lived 
 at Hampstead in North London.) " This last he said 
 was too expensive. I told him he might ride to his 
 work in the morning and walk home at night. This, 
 he said, he should never think of . . . So he is gone 
 for the present "... and obviously with the air of 
 one deeply injured. 
 
 Rossetti owed, indeed, a great deal to Ruskin, 
 who did a great deal for him, partly directly, more 
 indirectly by generously enabling Miss Siddal to 
 try the effect of several treatments. Yet even 
 Ruskin himself had to experience the inconsiderate- 
 ness of the artist. He writes once : 
 
 Denmark Hill, i860. 
 
 "Dear Rossetti, — Thank you for your kind 
 letter. I . . . quite understand your ways and 
 way of talking . . . But what I do feel generally 
 about you is that without intending it you are in 
 little things habitually selfish — thinking only of 
 what you like to do, or don't like ; not of what 
 would be kind. Where your affections are strongly 
 touched I suppose this would not be so — but it is 
 not possible you should care much for me, seeing me
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 47 
 
 so seldom. I wish you and Lizzie liked me enough 
 to — say — put on a dressing-gown and run in for a 
 minute rather than not see me ; or paint on a pic- 
 ture in an unsightly state, rather than not amuse me 
 when I was ill. But you can't make yourselves to 
 like me, and you would only like me less if you 
 tried. As long as I live in the way I do here, you 
 can't of course know me rightly. 
 
 " I am relieved this morning from the main 
 trouble I was in yesterday ; and am ever affection- 
 ately yours, 
 
 «J. RUSKIN." 
 
 " Love to Lizzie." 
 
 "I am afraid this note reads sulky — it is not that: 
 I am generally depressed. Perhaps you both like 
 me better than I suppose you do. I mean only, I 
 did not misinterpret or take ill anything yesterday ; 
 but I have no power in general of believing much 
 in people's caring for me. I've a little more faith 
 in Lizzie than in you — because though she don't 
 see me, her bride's-kiss was so full and so queenly- 
 kind ; but I fancy I ga/l you by my want of sym- 
 pathy in many things, and so lose hold of you." 
 
 Ruskin had, as we said, indeed a claim on her 
 devotion ; at that time, however, he comforted him- 
 self with the thought that one can only expect from 
 an artist in return for each friendly act that which 
 he at the same time gives to mankind in general. 
 
 Another witness, Stillmann the journalist, writes: 
 " Rossctti's was one of the most fascinating
 
 48 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 characters I ever knew, open and expansive, and, 
 when well, he had a vein of most delightful talk 
 of the things which interested him. He was the 
 spoiled child of his genius and of the large world 
 of his admirers ; there was no vanity about him 
 and no exaggeration of his own abilities, but other 
 people, even artists whom he appreciated, were 
 of merely relative importance to him. What- 
 ever was to his hand was made for his use ; and 
 when we went into the house at Robertsbridge he 
 at once took the place of master of the house, as 
 if he had invited me, rather than the converse, 
 going through the rooms to select, and saying : * I 
 will take this,' of those which suited him best, and 
 * You may have that,' of those he had no fancy for. 
 No one rebelled at being treated in his princely 
 way, for it was only with his friends that he used 
 it. He dominated all who had the least sympathy 
 with him or his geniiis." 
 
 It is true one was quite ready, half jocularly, to 
 accept this from a young man, above all from a man 
 who visibly bore the imprint of genius ; but it is 
 easy to imagine how it was later on when, with 
 broken nerves, tormented by the mania of persecu- 
 tion and other delusions, the sick man capriciously 
 demanded what formerly he had accepted as a favour. 
 To this was added at times a repellent sensitiveness, 
 a callous egotism, and a gloomy unsociability in place 
 of the former ingenuousness. 
 
 We must here dwell but shortly on the probable 
 influence which this unhealthy condition of mind
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 49 
 
 and body exercised on Rossetti's art. That it did 
 so is undeniable. He was always much opposed to 
 any criticism ; in his old age, however, he was 
 possessed by a positively morbid dread of it. He 
 was always lucky in disposing favourably of his 
 pictures. Later in life he started a real business in 
 them, and several times bought his pictures back 
 and sold them afresh at a good profit. He made 
 profitable use of the same idea by painting two or 
 more replicas of all pictures. Let us pass on to the 
 artistic decadence which his later work shows. 
 Several of his works he took in hand again and 
 painted over them, by which means they were totally 
 spoilt. A particularly marked example of this is 
 to be found in the wonderful picture Li/ithy in which 
 he wanted to incorporate the most complete type of 
 sensuous beauty. Fortunately we possess photo- 
 graphs of the work as it originally appeared before 
 the repainting altered and spoiled the features, ex- 
 pression, and even the whole scheme of colouring. 
 
 Gradually, his artistic power becoming exhausted, 
 his style grows mechanical. Originally the full 
 voluptuous lips of his female figures were the reflec- 
 tion of an actuality, continually received and mirrored 
 from the surface of his temperament. 
 
 Now, however, he lacks the living interest in the 
 women, through the contemplation of whom his 
 work is to receive life. He turns their features to 
 profit by his art ; for him they descend to the 
 level of mere models. Then he seems to only 
 remember their outlines, emphasises and exaggerates 
 
 D
 
 50 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 these by sheer force of habit, and creates empty 
 phantoms. Formerly his figures breathed forth the 
 boundless joyousness of life, now he no longer creates 
 but consciously repeats those outward signs which 
 formerly were taken as a token of the vital power 
 within him. Separate features of the face he works 
 at on a conventional pattern, whether they suit the 
 rest of the model's individuality or not ; and so at 
 last the same mouth, the same eyes, are continually 
 repeated — each become to a certain extent a sort ot 
 Rossetti trade mark. Similarly his colouring became 
 dull, ostentatiously peculiar, a contrast to his former 
 wealth and richness in this particular, and he fell into 
 a mannerism of heavy shadowing. In short, his 
 early works, like those of Michael Angelo,can always 
 be recognised by their leonine strength ; his later 
 by their weak points ; as was the case, too, with 
 Balthasar Denner. 
 
 We can thus say of him as of many another great 
 artist, whose later days were dimmed by an envious 
 fate, he died not too soon for his fame. 
 
 II 
 
 Of Rossetti's art at the commencement of his 
 career much has already been said. Both the move- 
 ments which produced all great artists of the nine- 
 teenth century, namely, the passing away of the 
 existing ideals, the longing for a more intimate com- 
 munion with Nature, find intimate expression in
 
 Bancroft Collection, America 
 
 LADY LILITH 
 {Before painting oz>er) 
 
 Photo. M ail sell &• Co.
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 51 
 
 Rossctti's art. From his works themselves, especially 
 the Childhood of Mary Virgin and the Annunciatioriy 
 this is perhaps not so clear as from the course which 
 Rossetti's own development took, and, above all, 
 from the literary witnesses who speak of the artistic 
 opinions of Rossetti and his friends. Outwardly 
 these pictures have indeed a certain similarity with 
 the works of the German Nazarene school ; and only 
 the knowledge which we have from other quarters 
 that we are dealing with absolutely different natures 
 enables us to understand the great difference which 
 exists between the works of these two groups. A 
 certain cold reserved imperfection is the result on the 
 one hand of youthful want of skill, on the other 
 hand of foolish voluntary renunciation. A mystic 
 haze lies in both cases over the work, but in the one 
 case it is the indistinctness of the lifeless faith which 
 misuses the symbol for the enthralment of the mind, 
 while in the other the child of poetic longing sees in 
 the symbol the key to inspire his fantasy. A certain 
 similarity between the types of both groups may 
 perhaps be caused by the mere coincidence of their 
 being contemporary. This extends to such pictures 
 as Genevieve (after Coleridge) and to the water- 
 colour, Dante painting the Angel on the Anniversary of 
 Beatrice's Death. 
 
 This Dante picture is the first of that great series 
 of pictures which Rossetti consecrated to the life 
 and the works of his famous Italian namesake. It 
 represents a scene which is described in the "Vita 
 Nuova." " On that day which completed the year
 
 52 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 since my lady had been called to the company of 
 the Citizens of Eternal Life, remembering me of 
 her as I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the 
 resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets. And 
 while I did this, chancing to turn my head, I 
 perceived that some were standing beside me to whom 
 I should have given courteous welcome, and that 
 they were observing what I did ; also I learned 
 afterwards that they had been there a while before 
 I had observed them. Perceiving whom I arose to 
 salute them, and said: "Another was with me." The 
 principal other Dante scenes which Rossetti chose 
 for his pictures are : The " Meeting with Beatrice 
 on Earth " (Vita Nuova, chap. 2) and " The 
 Meeting with Beatrice in Paradise" (Divina Com- 
 media), "Beatrice at a Marriage- feast denies Dante 
 her Salutation" (Vita Nuova, chap. 10), "Giotto 
 painting the Portrait of Dante," "Paolo and 
 Francesca," " Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah 
 (Purgatorio, xxviii), "La donna della Finestra " 
 (Vita Nuova), "Beata Beatrix" (Vita Nuova), 
 and "Dante's Dream" (Vita Nuova, chap. 18). 
 In almost all of these the Beatrice is Miss Siddal. 
 We will specially mention three: ' II Saliito di Beatrice 
 (1859), Beata Beatrix (1863) and Dante's Dream 
 (1871-81). 
 
 As early as the year 1849 Rossetti had made a 
 pen-and-ink drawing of the "Salutation of Beatrice." 
 This also appears as a combined set of paintings 
 with Dante's Amor as centre-piece, but showing too 
 the earthly scene, the meeting in one of the streets of
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 53 
 
 Florence, as it actually might have taken place. 
 This is reversed in the case of the paintings in oils 
 in 1859 o'^ ^ cupboard for William Morris's house 
 at Upton. In this work the note of Pre-Raphaelitism 
 no longer rings out. I have only given a repro- 
 duction of the one panel, the Meeting in Paradise^ 
 because it is a particularly interesting sign of develop- 
 ment. For not only can we say that with such a 
 picture Rossetti bids farewell to Pre-Raphaelitism, 
 he indicates at the same time the path which he 
 will take from that time onward. Any one seeing 
 the picture for the first time will be surprised how 
 it already expresses what the most celebrated 
 exponent of Pre-Raphaelitism has to say. The 
 two angels to the right might in fact have been 
 painted by Burne-Jones. They are exactly his type. 
 This is also true of the angels on the picture of the 
 Blessed Damozel and of the Ministrants on Dante'' s 
 Dreamy two works of Rossetti's of a later period in 
 which he consciously delighted in a return to the 
 style of bygone years. The Beata Beatrix represents 
 the splendid memorial which Rossetti erected to his 
 dead wife. In it he painted her features from 
 memory. As a prelude to this work he himself once 
 wrote : "The picture {Beata Beatrix) 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. You will remember
 
 54 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 how Dante dwells on the desolation of the city in 
 connection with the incident of her death, and for 
 this reason I have introduced it as my background, 
 and made the figures of Dante and Love passing 
 through the street, and gazing ominously on one 
 another, conscious of the event ; while the bird, a 
 messenger of death, drops the poppy between the 
 hands of Beatrice. She, through her shut lids, is 
 conscious of a new world, as expressed in the last 
 words of the "VitaNuova" — " Quellabeata Beatrix 
 che gloriosamente mira nella fascia di colui qui est 
 per omnia saecula benedictus." (That blessed 
 Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His coun- 
 tenance "who is blessed throughout all ages.") 
 
 Beata 'Beatrix may be considered a landmark in 
 Rossetti's works. Having passed over from pre- 
 Raphaelitism to Dante, he had thus come to the 
 romantic Middle Ages. In addition to the other 
 Dante pictures he paints a series of poetically rich 
 illustrations of the Arthurian legend, endless pas- 
 sionate scenes in glowing colours such as The 
 Laboratory^ Borgia^ The Blue Bower^ La belle 
 dame sans Merely Bonifazio's Mistress^ Lucrezia 
 Borgia^ in all of which the ground note is " Roman- 
 ticism." Romanticism it is which offers the widest 
 scope to fantasy of form, and encourages him in an 
 unmeasured increase of his colour effects. The 
 passionate depth of his colouring far exceeds that of 
 the old Venetian school. In the evolution of this 
 richness of colour he sees his goal as painter, and con- 
 tinually the feeling with him becomes more and
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 55 
 
 more insistent that it is best displayed in portraying 
 with simplicity that most beautiful of existing sub- 
 jects — woman. With the creation of Beata Beatrixy 
 for which much of his preceding work had prepared 
 the way, this perception seems to have become 
 deeply rooted. 
 
 Now follows a long seriesof splendid female half 
 figures, forming the master's life's work, to which 
 in addition to Bocca Bacctata (1859), Reg'ina Cordium 
 (1861), and Fair Rosamond^ 1 reckon zho Be/co/ore 
 (1863), Jurelia {lS62)y Lady Li/lth {lS6/[.\ Fenus 
 Verticordia (1864), // Ramosce/Io{iS6$), The Beloved 
 (1865-6), Monna Vanna (1866), Sibylla Palmifera 
 (1860-70), /<?// Ca?«r(i867), The Loving Cup (1867), 
 Aurea Catena (crayon, 1868), Reverie (the same, 
 1868), La donna delta Fiamma (ditto, 1870), Silence 
 (ditto, 1870), Mariana (1870), Lady with Fan 
 (crayon, 1870), Pandora (1871), Water Willoiu 
 (1871), Veronica Veronese (1802) La Ghirlandata 
 (1873), Proserpina (1873-7), The damsel of Sanct 
 Grael (1874), La hello Mano (1875), The Blessed 
 Damozel ( 1 876-7), Mnemosyne (1876), Astarte 
 Syriaca (1877), Sea-Spell (iSjy)^ Fiammetta (1878), 
 La donna delta Finestra (1879), The Day Dream 
 (1880), and La Pia (1881). In this long list every- 
 thing is not of the same merit, although it does not 
 contain any replicas in more or less disguised form. 
 His fantasy first entered the service of womanly 
 charm, then that of womanly dignity. At the 
 commencement unconscious emotion is the motive 
 power of his work, and wonderful female forms
 
 56 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 arise, marvellously painted, lavishly endowed with 
 beauty, bodily and artistic. After the circle of his 
 adherents had been intoxicated by the splendour of 
 his creations there seems no doubt that Rossetti 
 himself became conscious of this power. His genius 
 became fettered, he began to aim at charm, at an 
 all-compelling attraction, at all which formerly came 
 naturally when he simply went on painting without 
 this special purpose. This is why in course of time 
 some of his heroines seem to wish too openly to 
 captivate. Instead of tender they appear sentimental, 
 instead of graceful affected, and in the worst cases 
 the faces are empty and mawkish. 
 
 The period of the more dignified female figures 
 really only begins after Rossetti had lost some of 
 his ingenuousness. Thus it appears to me that the 
 best of his deeper works does not reach the same 
 standard as the most excellent of those in lighter 
 vein. The crown of these was once the splendid 
 Lady Z,z7/V/;, before Rossetti himself, with a regrettable 
 want of self-criticism, endeavoured to improve by 
 painting over, and thus spoiled it. Portunately we 
 possess photographs at least of this masterpiece as it 
 originally appeared. 
 
 A truly dazzling woman, in whom each detail 
 has arrived at the point of the most complete per- 
 fection, sits in an armchair, carelessly leaning back 
 and most luxuriously dressed. One is not reminded 
 by anything of the deficiencies of the time of ado- 
 lescence, and nothing gives even a premonition of 
 the autumn of impending decay. Breathing among
 
 '/'. G. J^obertson Collection, London Photo. MansellG- Co. 
 
 PROSERPINE (REPLICA)
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 57 
 
 roses, surrounded by the splendour of other flowers 
 and the masterpieces of choice artists, she combs out 
 her wonderful hair. Not a single feature betrays 
 mindless empty vanity. Not a look permits us even 
 the thought that this woman could wish to employ 
 this Heaven-sent gift of beauty for ulterior motives. 
 As with Galatea become flesh she knows herself to 
 be beautiful beyond measure without self-com- 
 placency, from love of truth alone. 
 
 It appears to me probable that Rossetti created 
 this picture quite in this spirit, without putting any 
 other construction on it. Perhaps it was with him 
 as with Bocklin, who also created works of art to 
 which friends afterwards assigned titles of their own. 
 But, unlike the latter, Rossetti may have perhaps 
 lent an ear to the words of these friends before the 
 work was absolutely completed. And so this won- 
 derful woman at last became Lilith, that witch-wife 
 of Adam, who, fleeing before him as a wicked 
 temptress, was spirited away through the air. The 
 painter's art should therefore have consisted in forcing 
 us to look upon LiHth's contemplation of her charms 
 as self-conscious. The combing of her tempting 
 golden locks ought to have resembled that of the 
 alluring Loreley with her fatal charm. 
 
 Later on Rossetti himself actually deviated from 
 his earlier interpretation — which indeed derives no 
 confirmation from the expression of this woman's 
 features. He designs her again as simply a per- 
 sonification of the beauty of the body, in contra- 
 distinction to Sibylla Palmifern^ in which he desig-
 
 58 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl 
 
 nates the personification of the beauty of the 
 soul. 
 
 We are here again confronted with an instance 
 which shows us how little the artist himself is in 
 the position to judge of his own work. It is indeed 
 true that as to size and arrangement these two 
 paintings are companion pictures. But while Rossetti 
 had found an altogether ideal model for Lilith in 
 Fanny Cornforth, he could not spiritualise the really 
 very pretty face of Miss Wilding, who sat to him 
 for Sibylla Pahnifera. It was not till later that 
 Fate offered him another model for this. The sub- 
 lime type of his more serious muse was the future 
 Mrs. William Morris, who appears again and again 
 on all the pictures in which he strikes a more lofty 
 note. I should, therefore, not contrast the Lilith 
 with Sibylla Pahnifera, but with Proserpina as the 
 personification of the beauty of the soul. 
 
 She stands in a gloomy passage of the lower regions 
 penetrated by a pale bluish moonbeam, holding in 
 her hand the bitten pomegranate, one single grain of 
 which, if once eaten, chains her there for ever. 
 From her noble features speaks forth, in the most 
 wonderful manner, the meditative melancholy, the 
 soft sadness of the loving soul, who, if not for ever, 
 must yet tarry for many moons far from all she 
 most desires. 
 
 Of all the many and various pictures for which 
 Mrs. William Morris sat to him, Proserpina appears 
 to me to be the one least labouring under poverty of 
 thought, to be that in which the beauty of this
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 59 
 
 woman appears to me most happily caught.* In 
 most 6( his other examples, e.g.^ the Donna del/a 
 Finestra^ Astarte Syriaca^ Pandora^ and Mnernosyne^ 
 his creative strength appears to be paralysed by having 
 before him so spiritualised and earnest a type ; and 
 he over-accentuates, as if he feared lest one might 
 not recognise these merits without his emphasising 
 them. In this he reminds one of a bad dramatist, 
 who has no confidence in his own talents, and so 
 has to explain by an aside that which really ought 
 to come to us by the dialogue alone. 
 
 In this constellation of Rossetti's creations it seems 
 to me that the brightest radiance streams forth from 
 that splendid picture. The Beloved or The Bride (y. 
 Frontispiece), which I saw in London at an exhibition 
 in 1889, and later on in 1896 again in the home of 
 its fortunate possessor George Rae, at Birkenhead, 
 near Liverpool. In this opinion to my great satis- 
 faction I am supported by F. G. Stephens, the former 
 Pre-Raphaelite brother of Rossetti, and gladly add 
 my testimony on this point to his. Just as it is 
 difficult to exactly describe a Madonna by Gianbellini, 
 a Holy Conversation by Giorgione, or coming to 
 more recent times, a colour-symphony of Turner, 
 or to say the last word on a Moreau, or a Bocklin, 
 so it is almost impossible to convey a real idea of 
 the beauty of this work. This beauty, which lies 
 
 * Editor's Note. — I may be perhaps permitted here to 
 add my testimony to the author's verdict, having had the 
 privilege of meeting this marvellous woman at a time 
 when her beauty was still at its zenith.
 
 6o DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 above all in the colour and painting, can only be 
 enjoyed by the eye, not conveyed by verbal descrip- 
 tion. The commission for this picture was given 
 already in 1863 ; and it is one of those few master- 
 pieces of Rossetti which has not passed out of the 
 hands of its original possessor. It is the embodiment 
 of the conception aroused by the Song of Solomon 
 in themindof the most richlyimaginative and passion- 
 ate painter of the nineteenth century; and shows us 
 the culminating point of the wonderful pastoral play, 
 the passage where the splendid Sulamite, after with- 
 standing temptation, utters the words : " My Beloved 
 is mine, and I am his ; let him kiss me with the 
 kisses of his mouth, for my love is better than 
 wine." 
 
 "The picture comprises — as if they had halted in 
 a marriage procession, towards the spot where the 
 enraptured bridegroom awaits them — five life-size 
 adult maidens and a negro girl. This last, in the 
 front of the group, and bearing a mass of roses in a 
 golden vase, is adorned with barbaric jewellery, all 
 of which harmonises with her dusky skin, which, 
 although it has the true Titanesque ruddy undertint, 
 is of a deep bronze-brown surface hue. The 
 negress and her burthen are intended to contrast 
 intensely with the costume and face of the bride 
 herself, who is clad in an apple-green robe, as lustrous 
 as silk and as splendid as gold and embroideries of 
 flowers and leaves in natural colours can make it. 
 This garment and its decorations support the colour 
 of the dark maid's skin and heisjhten the value of
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 6i 
 
 the pure red and white of the bride's carnations ; 
 while the contours of the African's face and form 
 contrast with the Caucasian charm of the bride, her 
 noble countenance, and * amorous-lidded eyes.' . . . 
 
 " Besides her robe the bride wears about her head 
 and throat a veil of tissue differing in its green from 
 that of the robe, and above her forehead rises an 
 aigrette of scarlet enamel and gold, that resembles in 
 some respects the peculiar head-dress of ancient 
 Egyptian royalty ; this is set like a coronet upon her 
 hair. While advancing towards the bridegroom 
 with an action at once graceful and natural, she, 
 half thoughtfully, half in pride of supreme loveliness, 
 has moved the tissue from her face and throat. 
 With the same movement she has thrown backwards 
 a large ringlet of her hair, revealing the softened 
 dignity of her love-laden eyes, as well as her face, 
 which is exquisitely fair and fine, and has the least 
 hint of blushes within the skin, as though the heart 
 of the lady quickened, while we see there is tender- 
 ness in her look, but voluptuous ardour no- 
 where. . . . 
 
 "This work indicates the consummation or 
 Rossetti's powers in the highest order of modern 
 art, and is in perfect harmony with that poetic 
 inspiration which is found in every one of his more 
 ambitious pictures. 
 
 " This example can only be called Venetian 
 because of the splendid colouring which obtains in 
 it " says Stephens. " Tintoret produced works 
 which assort most fortunately with this one, and
 
 62 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 his finely dramatic mode of designing reappears, so 
 to say, in The Beloved. But in order to prevent 
 misunderstanding we must hasten to add that 
 Tintoretto's colour was never so clear and bright, 
 although equally glowing." 
 
 " The technique is so fine that it leaves nothing 
 to be desired, even in the lustrousness of the gold 
 vase, in the varied brilliancy of the robe of the bride, 
 in the subtle delicacy of the carnations, solidly and 
 elaborately modelled as they are, and varied to suit the 
 nature of each of the figures. Rossetti's Beloved is 
 in English art what Spenser's gorgeous and passionate 
 " Epithalamium " is in English verse, and, if not 
 more rapturous, it is more compact of sumptuous 
 elements." 
 
 From considering the Dante picture of Rossetti's 
 middle period, from his Beata Beatrix we have reached 
 these representations of the female half-figure which 
 are the jewels of Rossetti's life-work and culminate 
 in so truly wonderful a picture as The Bride. Even 
 when his pictures seem apparently connected with 
 Dante, such as the T)onna della Finestra^ they do not 
 really derive their origin from Dante, but spring 
 from Rossetti's conviction that the highest for him 
 lay in the representation of simple womanly beauty. 
 It was this conviction that caused him to deviate 
 from his former ideals, from Prc-Raphaelitism, from 
 Romanticism, from the Dante cult as such. If, in 
 spite of this, he yet produces two great Dante 
 pictures, we may regard it as a token of the 
 weakening of his creative power, which caused him.
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 63 
 
 towards the end of his life, to revert to the work 
 of his early years. 
 
 The Blessed Damozel and Dante's Dream are beau- 
 tiful, but it is a calm, self-conscious beauty, of which 
 the artist is entirely master — not that beauty which 
 streams passionately and vehemently from the finger- 
 tips of the self-forgetting genius. Almost a genera- 
 tion had passed after composing this wonderful poem 
 before he turned to it again to immortalise it on 
 the canvas. But a great work can only be created 
 once ; an attempt to again live through the past 
 becomes mere repetition devoid of the vital spark. 
 We see this in the engraver's art. There we find 
 artists who complete their work down to the smallest 
 detail, line for line, and then transfer it to the steel 
 plate. Their work remains a mere cold echo of the 
 pen and ink drawing. Great artists, however, 
 sketch a few bold outlines on the plate, and the 
 real work of transcribing Nature into a system 
 of lines does not take place till they work them- 
 selves with the engraving needle. The picture 
 is thus created not before but during the act of 
 engraving, and such work alone shows clear signs 
 of real spontaneity. 
 
 Dante's Dream, Rossetti's largest picture, is one 
 of those the effect of which unfortunately he himself 
 diminished by painting over. Beatrice's hair, origi- 
 nally dark, is now golden. Whilst two virgins lift 
 the veil from the dead Beatrice, the God of Love, 
 who leads Dante by the hand, kisses her. Wrapt 
 in deep, grave thought Dante stands aside, regarding
 
 64 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 the scene. The picture illustrates the passage in the 
 « Vita Nuova." 
 
 " Then Love spoke thus : Now all shall be made clear ; 
 Come and behold our Lady where she lies" 
 
 These idle fantasies 
 Then carried me to see my Lady dead. 
 
 And when I entered. 
 Ladies I saw with a veil covering her ; 
 And with her was such very humbleness. 
 That she appealed to say, I am at peace.*^ * 
 
 Although this introduction to Rossctti's art can 
 do little more than cast a few lights on the chief 
 works of the artist — the pre-Raphaelite pictures, the 
 Romantic and Dante paintings, and above all the 
 marvellous female half-figures of his prime — ^justice 
 requires us at least to mention his less important 
 works. For it will help us to appreciate more fully 
 this master, who in addition to all this was a most 
 gifted poet. 
 
 With the exception of Dante and the creators of 
 the Arthurian legend, he went for his greatest works 
 to no one poet for inspiration. But he occupied 
 himself with many others, and, though the result 
 was chiefly sketches and small compositions, this may 
 be a matter of chance. From Homer he took the 
 subject of his somewhat crowded canvas Cassandra. 
 Although he had been familiar with Shakespeare 
 from hiscarliest youth he drew upon him but rarely, 
 merely for a sketch for Lady Macbeth^ and for 
 
 * Rossetti's "Early Italian Poems," i86i,p. 261.
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 65 
 
 pictures from " Measure for Measure," " Much Ado 
 about Nothing," and Hamlet." His Hamlet and 
 Ophelia presents a great contrast to the commonplace 
 illustrations of that period, not only by the intellec- 
 tual type of both figures, but also by the colour and 
 artistic charm of execution. He drew also upon 
 Coleridge, Poe, Browning, Allingham, W. B. Scott, 
 Goethe, and Heine for his subjects ; and illustrated 
 an edition of Tennyson's poems. 
 
 It is worthy of note that he once even conde- 
 scended to a humorous picture. Dr. Johnson at the 
 Mitre^ in addition to great humour, shows most 
 excellent artistic qualities. The story goes that two 
 young ladies from Staffordshire once applied to 
 the famous Dr. Johnson for advice on the subject 
 of Methodism, in which sect they were particularly 
 interested. He boldly invited them to dinner at the 
 Mitre Tavern to discuss the subject with them ; 
 but when the meal was over took one of them upon 
 his knee, and fondled her so that quite other than 
 dogmatic arguments came into both their heads. 
 This is the episode depicted by Rossetti. 
 
 We must not omit reference to what may be 
 termed the moral pictures. Found, Hesterna Rosa, and 
 Mary Mzgdalene before the Gate of Simon the Pharisee. 
 Of all three many replicas exist, and in all of them 
 the artist takes the part of the stern judge. To this 
 he may have felt impelled more from artistic than 
 moral conviction. For our present state of society 
 the standpoint of the stern moral judge is in Art 
 the only possible one. Any one wishing to combat
 
 66 DANTE GABR IEL ROSSETTI 
 
 this Standpoint may do so by speeches or writings, 
 even through the medium of poetry but not in forma- 
 tive Art. For if a work of Art is to point a moral, 
 to appeal to the understanding of men, the subject 
 thereby acquires such an importance that the actual 
 form no longer takes the predominance. This was 
 unconsciously felt by an artist of such refinement of 
 thought as Rossetti, and so he can only approach a 
 subject when he feels in accord and sympathy with 
 his public. 
 
 Finally, we must mention Rossetti's skill as 
 a portraitist. This was displayed not so much in 
 oil paintings as in water-colours, and especially in 
 drawings, crayons, pen and ink, and pencil ; and 
 reached a high degree of excellence, forming a part 
 of his life's work not to be under-estimated. 
 
 Hi 
 
 Gabriel Rossetti was born at Vasto (Naples) on 
 February 28, 1783. He was librettist at the opera 
 and custodian of the Naples Museum, but because 
 of his participation in the insurrectionary movements 
 of the years 1820 and 1821 had to flee the country, 
 and after a short stay at Malta came to London in 
 1824. Then, two years later, he married Frances 
 Maria Lavinia Polidore, the daughterof a compatriot, 
 whose mother was an Englishwoman. In 1831 
 he became Professor of Italian at King's College. 
 He made it the chief object of his life to prove
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 67 
 
 in various writings the anti-papal tendency of Dante, 
 from the latter's works. One of his books was put 
 upon the Index. To these parents was born on 
 May 12, 1828, at London, a second child and first 
 son, our artist, Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti. He 
 himself later on signed his name as only Dante 
 Gabriel Rossetti. He was first sent to a preparatory 
 school, then to King's College till he was fourteen, 
 when he decided upon becoming an artist and 
 attended Carey's Drawing School, and later on the 
 classes at the Royal Academy. Then for a short 
 time he became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown. In 
 1849 ^^ produced his first important picture. Long 
 before this, however, his wonderful poetic talent had 
 shown itself. His first ballad, which was printed 
 privately, he wrote as early as 1840 : ** Retro me 
 Sathanas." " The Choice," " The Portrait," and 
 the wonderful "Blessed Damozel " had been written 
 in 1847. During the years 1849 and 1850 he 
 called into existence the movement known as "Pre- 
 Raphaelitism." In the beginning of the fifties he 
 visited France and the Netherlands. Strange to say 
 he never visited, nor wished to visit Italy, nor indeed 
 was he very partial to travelling. The decade of 
 the fifties was for him a period of marked develop- 
 ment both as poet and painter. Ruskin's friend- 
 ship almost freed him from material cares, Eleanor 
 Elizabeth Siddal, with whom he became acquainted 
 in 1849, to whom he became betrothed in 1851, 
 and whom he married in i860, was the source of 
 the deepest emotions of his soul.
 
 68 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTl 
 
 In addition to his pictures it was about this time 
 that he wrote his valuable translations of Dante and 
 other early Italian writers, which were completed 
 and first published in 1861. The sudden death of 
 hiswife on February 1 1, 1862, interrupted hisdevelop- 
 ment. He first of all found comfort in a new pur- 
 suit, his talent for collecting. It was partly from 
 him that the passion for Japanese curios, Delft, and 
 old furniture arose, which later on became so general. 
 He then erected one memorial after another to his 
 wife by painting wonderful female half-figures. The 
 earlier of these, or, at any rate, the first, still bore her 
 features ; later on other beauties took her place. 
 Women and girls in all positions of life offered them- 
 selves to him as models. 
 
 In the year 1870 his collected poems appeared, 
 and immediately assured him a permanent position 
 by the side of Tennyson, Browning, and Swinburne. 
 After this height came an abrupt downfall. Never 
 very strong he suffered particularly from neuralgia, 
 and, as a consequence of this, from sleeplessness, for 
 which a well-meaning acquaintance advised him to 
 try chloral. He had recourse recklessly to this 
 remedy, and increased its evil'effects by the free use 
 of alcohol, to which he had recourse to overcome 
 the nausea and depression which the chloral had 
 occasioned. His physical and mental strength 
 quickly suffered. When in October 1871 Robert 
 Buchanan, in a criticism bearing the title, " The 
 Fleshly School of Poetry," charged several of 
 Rossetti's Sonnets with being indecent, he was 
 still able to answer with a dignified retort, entitled,
 
 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 69 
 
 "The Stealthy School of Criticism." But when 
 in the succeeding year the criticism was enlarged 
 and appeared in pamphlet form, it brought about 
 mental derangement. He had to be placed under 
 surveillance in a doctor's family, there made an 
 attempt on his life, and was only saved from the 
 consequences of this attempt by the timely inter- 
 vention of Ford Madox Brown. 
 
 The responsibility for the misery of the last 
 years of Rossetti's life may well be thrown on the 
 head of this one man, the writer of that criticism. 
 Even though he afterwards retracted all that he had 
 said, yet he cannot for one moment be forgiven. 
 Not because his repentance came too late, but 
 because in the whole history of criticism there has 
 never been an attack which was so unspeakably, so 
 wantonly outrageous as this. If a critic can cover 
 with filth such absolutely chaste sonnets as numbers 
 eleven to twenty of the " House of Life," this 
 cannot be entirely explained by the inversion of the 
 phrase, ** To the pure all is pure." For even to 
 such a person there is not one single passage in these 
 poems, as faultless in art as in their morals, on 
 which he could attempt to base his condemnation. 
 And when, finally, he criticises such a magnificent 
 creation as " A Last Confession " with words which 
 would only be suitable for the most dissolute pro- 
 duction, then we see that we need have little doubt 
 as to this critic's faculty of judgment. 
 
 The last decade of Rossetti's life passed exceed- 
 ingly sadly. Hopelessly ill, suffering from the 
 mania of persecution, from want of will and from
 
 70 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 
 
 melancholia, he lost most of his friends. For in his 
 lucid intervals he appeared a normal being with 
 whom it seemed reasonable to be offended, and 
 anger and distrust were expressed in such a manner 
 that men were tempted to forget they were dealing 
 with a sick man. 
 
 Occasional trips to Scotland and different parts 
 of England only effected short periods of improve- 
 ment. Relief was only brought by death, which 
 reached him on April 9, 1882, at Birchington, near 
 Margate. Strangely enough one thing remained to 
 him through all his years of suffering — his power 
 of poesy. His " Ballads and Sonnets " which 
 appeared in 1881 are scarcely inferior to the collec- 
 tion which appeared eleven years earlier. 
 
 His oldest and most faithful friend Ford Madox 
 Brown designed his unpretentious monument, which 
 consists of three reliefs : the Temptation in the 
 garden of Eden, the spiritual union of Dante and 
 Beatrice, and the Death of St. Luke. His brother, 
 who still survives, wrote his epitaph. 
 
 " Here sleeps Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti, 
 honoured under the name of Dante Gabriel Rossetti 
 among painters as a painter and among poets as a 
 poet. Born in London of parentage mainly Italian 
 on May 12, 1828. Died at Birchington, April 9, 
 1882. This cruciform monument, bespoken by 
 Dante Rossetti's Mother, was designed by his 
 lifelong friend Ford Madox Brown, executed by 
 J. and H. Patteson, and erected by his brother 
 William and his sister Christina Rossetti."
 
 LIST OF ROSSETTI'S WORKS IN 
 PUBLIC COLLECTIONS. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM. 
 Corporation Art Gallery. 
 
 " Sir Galahad " ( Water-colotcr.) 
 
 " Beata Beatrix" {replica, com- 
 pleted by Madox Brown). 
 
 'La Donna della Finestra " {re- 
 plica). 
 
 'The Boat of Love." 
 
 CARDIFF. 
 Public Gallery. 
 
 ' ' Signor Giuseppe Maenza" (i'wo 
 Pencil Drawings). 
 
 DUBLIN. 
 
 National Gallery. 
 
 "Miss Jane Burden" (later, 
 Mrs. Morris) ; Pen and Ink 
 Drawing. 
 
 LIVERPOOL. 
 Walker Art Gallery. 
 " Dante's Dream." 
 
 LLANDAFF. 
 
 Cathedral. 
 
 Triptych ;" The Seed of David. ' 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 British Museum (Print 
 Room). 
 
 • ' Study for one of the wall paint- 
 ings in the Union Reading 
 Room, Oxford," and other 
 drawings. 
 
 National Portrait 
 Gallery. 
 
 Portrait of the Artist, by him- 
 self {Crayon and Pencil). 
 
 " Rossetti's Mother and Sister 
 Christina {Crayon). 
 
 Tate Gallery. 
 
 " The Girlhood of Mary Vir- 
 gin." 
 " Ecce Ancilla Domini. 
 " Beata Beatrix." 
 " Rosa Triplex." 
 Portrait of Mrs. Morris. 
 
 Victoria and Albert 
 
 Museum. 
 
 " The Daydream." 
 
 " Belcolore or Monna Vanna" 
 {replica). 
 I "Miss Siddal"' {Pen Draxi'- 
 1 ing).
 
 72 WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS 
 
 " Study for Mnemosyne, or the 
 Lamp of Memory," and 
 other drawings. 
 
 OXFORD. 
 
 TAyLORi.\N Museum. 
 
 "Dante Drawing an Angel" 
 ( Water-colour). 
 
 Union Reading Room. 
 
 " Sir Launcelot Before the Shrine 
 of the Sangreal " (Tempera 
 wall-painting) 
 
 STAINED GLASS 
 
 WIN DO WS. 
 
 SCARBOROUGH. 
 
 St. Martin's Church. 
 
 Two of ' ' Adam and Eve in 
 Paradise" ; seven of " The 
 Parable of the Vineyard " ; 
 one of " The Crucifixion " ; 
 six of "St. George and the 
 Dragon." 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 Christ Church, Albany 
 Street. 
 
 " The Sermon on the Plain."
 
 WORKS IN PRIVATE COLLECTIONS 73 
 
 We will only refer to three private collections. 
 There are numerous sketches, drawings, and family 
 portraits in the possession of the surviving brother in 
 London, William Michael Rossetti. Among existing 
 collections those of Mr. Rae and Mr. Murray are 
 particularly worthy of special mention. 
 
 BIRKENHEAD. 
 George Rae. 
 
 Oil Paintings. 
 " Fazio's Mistress." 
 " The Beloved, or the Bride." 
 " Monna Vanna." 
 "Sibylla Palmifera." 
 "A Christmas Carol." 
 "The Damsel of Sanct Grael.' ' 
 "Miss Fanny Cornforth (Mrs. 
 Schott)." 
 
 Water-colours. 
 
 "Paolo and Francesca da 
 
 Rimini." 
 "The Damsel of Sanct Grael." 
 "The Death of Breuse sans 
 
 Pitid" 
 " The Chapel Before the Lists." 
 " The Tune of Seven Towers." 
 " The Blue Closet." 
 " St. George and Princess Sabra." 
 " Lucrezia Borgia." 
 "Heart of the Night, or 
 
 Mariana." 
 " Venus Verticordia." 
 
 Crayo7i. 
 
 " Salutation of Beatrice 
 (Triptych, Pen and Ink 
 Sketch). 
 
 A "Magdalene" (Head). 
 LONDON. 
 C. Fairfax Murray. 
 Oil Paintings. 
 
 " Bocca Baciata." 
 
 " Girl at a Lattice." 
 
 " Amor, Amans, Amata (Panel 
 for a Sofa). 
 
 " Belcolore." 
 
 Water-colours, 
 
 '^The Laboratory." 
 
 " La Belle Dame sans Merci. ' 
 
 " A Christmas Carol." 
 
 "Giotto Painting Dante" {re- 
 plica). 
 
 " Bonifazio's Mistress." 
 
 "Dr. Johnson and the Methodist 
 Ladies." 
 
 "Christ." 
 
 "The Merciless Lady." 
 
 " Tibullus' return to Delia." 
 
 " Lucrezia Borgia" (replica). 
 
 "A Fight for a Woman." 
 
 In addition to these Mr. Murray possesses per- 
 haps the greatest number of Rossetti's drawings and 
 studies in any one collection, among them many 
 portraits and important sketches, six cartoons for 
 glass windows of St. George and the Dragon, and 
 the only two portions known of Rossetti's etching, 
 The Rose Garden. 
 
 F
 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne &' Co. Limited 
 Tavistock Street, London
 
 SOME PRESS OPINIONS 
 
 The Times. — *' Another series of little art monographs -which is as 
 attractive in format as any." 
 
 The Standard. — " This nicely printed littk volume contains repro- 
 dtcctions of some of the more farnous Bartolozzi prints, together 
 with a list of most of the important ones." 
 
 Morning Post. — " The Langham Series: The first volume, ^Barto- 
 lozzi and his Pupils in England,^ by Mr. Selwyn Brinton, is an 
 excellent summary of a subject most popular at the present time. 
 It should prove a great boon to the collector." 
 
 Pall Mall Gazette. — "Mr. Brinton is himself a collector and 
 knows his subject thoroughly. The volume is illustrated, and should 
 make aft appeal to all interested in the art of engraving.^' 
 
 " Westminster Gazette." — " 'Bartolozzi,' by Selwyn Brinton (A. 
 Siegle), is the first of what promises to prove a series of very 
 dainty little monographs on artistic subjects. . . . Mr. Selwyn 
 Brinton, whose excellent volumes on the Italian Renaissance and 
 Correggio will be known to many readers, writes of his subject 
 with admirable knowledge and discrimination ; and to all who 
 would learn more of Bartolozzi arid his work, his brightly written 
 pages, which are embellished by many dainty illustrations, may 
 be cordially comtnended." 
 
 Academy and Literature. — "Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England." 
 " In this delightful little book we have a most excellent collection 
 of prints from, the tnaster . . . We have in complete, cheap, con- 
 venient form, well indexed and nicely printed what 7nay prove a 
 guide." 
 
 Scotsman. — " There is undoubtedly a considerable body of collectors 
 of Bartolozzi' s works in this cotmtry, and this little book should 
 serve as a handbook to such persons." 
 
 Birmingham Daily Post. — " The first volume of the series, '■Barto- 
 lozzi and his Pupils in England,' is full of information to the 
 lovers of specimens of the engravers' art." 
 
 The Observer. — " Well produced and written by acknowledged 
 authorities^ these new little books will probably find a ready 
 welcotne. ' ' 
 
 The Sheffield Independent. — '^Alr. Brinton presents us with a 
 wholly sympathetic and adequate study of Bartolozzi' s work." 
 
 Irish Times (Dublin). — " ^ Bartolozzi and his Pupils in England' is 
 a charming little book dealing with the life of the famous e?igraver. 
 Mr. Brinton writes with a thorough knowledge of his subject."
 
 V ^
 
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