Part 3

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

"Then Love spoke thus: 'Now all shall be made clear; Come and behold our lady where she lies.'

* * * * *

Then carried me to see my lady dead; And standing at her head Her ladies put a veil over her; And with her was such very humbleness That she appeared to say, 'I am at peace.'"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh

Transcriber's Note

Text in italics was surrounded by _underscores_ and text in small capitals was changed to all capitals.

A few apparently missing periods were added. Otherwise the original was preserved.