Rossetti, Dante Gabriel

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born into a petty-bourgeois intellectual family. His father, Gabriel Rossetti , a carbonarius who fled from Italy in 1821 , became a professor of Italian at Kings College , and his mother was Francis Polidori . In 1850, Rossetti published his first poem, The Blessed Virgin , inspired by The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe . Most of Rossetti's other poems date from the 1860s and 1870s; they were published under the general title Ballads and sonnets in 1881 . Gabriela's sister, Christina Rossetti , was also a famous poetess.

In 1848 , at an exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts , Rossetti met William Holman Hunt , Hunt helped Rossetti finish the painting "Childhood of the Virgin Mary", which was exhibited in 1849, and he also introduced Rossetti to J.E. Millet . Together they found the Brotherhood of the Pre-Raphaelites . Hunt, Millet, and Rossetti deliberately challenged conventional wisdom; they created their manifesto and published it in their own publication , Rostock . Subsequently, Rossetti departs from Pre-Raphaelitism .

From 1854 to 1862, he also taught drawing and painting at the first educational institution in England for the lower classes of society. At the same time, he turned out to be an excellent teacher, and students idolized him.

Elizabeth

The great influence on his life and work was also made by the acquaintance, marriage and subsequent death (according to one version - suicide) of his wife ^[2] , poetess Elizabeth Siddal ( English Elizabeth (Lizzie) Siddal ).

When they met, Lizzie was already sick with tuberculosis . She was his student, model and lover. Rossetti made many sketches with Elizabeth, some of which later served as sketches for his paintings. ^[3] They lived together for almost ten years, but only got married on May 23, 1860. After the birth of a dead child in May 1861, her health finally fell into decay. She began to take large quantities of laudanum ^[2] .

Melancholy and sick with tuberculosis, Lizzy died two years after her marriage (02/11/1862) from an overdose of laudanum , an alcohol tincture of opium . One of Rossetti's best paintings is dedicated to her - The Blessed Beatrix (Beata Beatrix, 1864 - 1870 ). Beatrix is ​​shown seated, she is drowsy, similar to death, while the bird, the messenger of Death, lays a poppy flower on her palm.

The first orders from the philanthropist and art collector Frederick Richards Leyland Rossetti and Whistler received between 1864 and 1867. Leyland collected Renaissance art , as well as the Pre-Raphaelites ( Whistler and Albert Mora ).

Rossetti, in a fit of grief, tormented by a sense of guilt that gave too much time to work, buried the manuscripts of his poems with Elizabeth. In 1870, he obtained permission to exhume the corpse and took out poems to publish them in his first collected works. The collection appeared in 1870 .

The last years of life

In 1871, Rossetti fell in love again. It was the wife of his friend William Morris. They became lovers, and Jane posed a lot for Rossetti.

Over time, the poet’s lifestyle becomes closed, only his closest friends saw him. The later years of Rossetti were marked by an increasingly painful mood, he began to abuse alcohol and chloral hydrate , lived a recluse.

In June 1872, Rossetti attempted suicide by drinking a whole bottle of opium tincture. He survived, but began to suffer from a mania of persecution and for some time was considered insane. Despite this, Rossetti continued to work and write, he had many followers in both art and poetry.

In 1879, Rossetti painted a portrait of one of his patrons, philanthropist and art collector Frederick Richards Leyland .

Since 1881, he began to suffer from hallucinations and bouts of paralysis . He was transferred to the sea resort of Burchington-on-Sea and left in the care of a nurse. There he died on April 9, 1882.

The most famous paintings of late Rossetti. Their main features are aesthetics , stylization of forms, eroticism , the cult of beauty and artistic genius. In almost all of these works, the same model is present - Rossetti's lover, Jane Burden , wife of William Morris . With the deterioration in mental health of Rossetti, his dependence on Jane increases, he was obsessed with it and devoted a huge number of paintings to her, immortalizing her name as well as the name Elizabeth Siddal . Among his most famous works are Waking Dream , Proserpine ( 1877 ). In addition, he worked a lot as an illustrator and designer of books, performed (in collaboration with W. Morris) sketches for stained-glass windows and panels , turned to photography, monumental and decorative painting ^[4] .

In 1857 , Rossetti, along with other masters (including Morris ) painted the walls of one of Oxford 's new buildings with scenes from Thomas Malory 's book “The Death of Arthur”. Under the influence of this work, Morris painted the Queen of Ginevre, portraying his future wife Jane Burden as the wife of King Arthur. Morris and Rossetti painted this woman many times, finding in her features of romantic medieval beauty, which both were so admired ^[5] . Other Rossetti models are also known - Fanny Kornfort , relations with which lasted for many years, and Alexa Wilding .

In 1852, Rossetti visited an exhibition of photographs. In subsequent years, he used photographs as a landscape background or as posthumous portraits. He often took pictures of his paintings himself, and once even painted a photograph with paints. His hobby found his way out in a series of photographs of Jane Morris taken at Rossetti's house in Chelsea in July 1865 . The photographer himself is unknown, but each photograph bears the imprint of the artistic inspiration of Dante Gabriel, who himself seated the model ^[6] .

Rossetti denies the public function of literature, recognizing art as one aesthetic value. His poetry is saturated with mystic-erotic content, is repelled from positivism, idealizes the past, aesthetizes Catholicism. Rossetti refuses all socio-political issues. Ignoring the revolutionary Chartist and social reformist poetry of the 1830s and 1950s, he seeks models for himself from romantics such as Keats and Coleridge . Characteristic features of Rossetti's poetry are: descriptiveness (careful drawing of details) with a general mystical mood, pretentiousness of syntactic constructions (the predicate in it always precedes the subject, contrary to the rules of the English system of speech); installation on melodiousness, addiction to alliterations and refrain. We meet with him (what Oscar Wilde then uses) a description of precious stones and metals, paints, smells, conditional exoticism. Rossetti's only work on a contemporary theme is the poem “Jenny”, where a corrupt love is aesthetized and the expression “cult of sin” finds its expression ^[7] .

Contemporary Rossetti Walter Pater praised his poetic work:

“In those days when poetic originality seemed to be the most widespread in England , a certain new poet appeared with the construction and melody of the verse, vocabulary and intonation uniquely peculiar, but he obviously refused any formal tricks designed to draw attention to the author: intonation was more likely perceived as evidence of the authenticity of living natural speech, and this speech itself seemed a completely laid-back expression of all that truly wonderful that the poet really saw and felt oval ". ^[8]

The best of Rossetti’s ballads are Stratton’s Waters, King’s Tragedy, Sister Helen , The staff and scrip, and A last confession ) The subtle melody and technical perfection of his verse are undeniable. Rossetti had the greatest success in the era of symbolism , in particular in Russia.

• Self-portrait (1847), National Portrait Gallery (London) .
• “The Youth of the Virgin Mary ” ( eng. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin ), 1848, Tate Gallery , London.
• The Annunciation ( Latin Ecce Ancilla Domini ), 1850, Tate Gallery , London.
• Two Mothers , 1852, Walker Art Gallery , Liverpool .
• Carlisle Wall or The Lovers (1853), Tate Gallery , London.
• “The Anniversary of the Beatrice’s death” ( The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice ) or “ Dante drawing an angel ” (1853)
• " Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal " (1854), Delaware Museum of Art , Delaware .
• “ Found ” (1854), Delaware Museum of Art, Delaware .
• Arthur's Tomb or The last meeting of Launcelot and Guenevere (1855), Tate Gallery , London.
• Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah (1855), Tate Gallery , London.
• The Passover in the Holy Family: Gathering Bitter Herbs (1855-56), Tate Gallery , London.
• The Vision of Dante , 1856, Tate Gallery , London.
• " Writing on the Sand " ( English Writing on the Sand ), 1857-58, British Museum , London.
• Sir Galahad at the Ruined Chapel (1859), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery .
• “ Dante 's Love ” (1860), Tate Gallery , London.
• Bocca Baciata (1860), Boston Museum of Fine Arts .
• Lucrezia Borgia , 1860-61, 1868, Tate Gallery , London.
• “ Beatrix Beatrix ” (1864), Tate Gallery , London.
• “The Beloved ” or “The Bride” or “ The King's Daughter ”, 1865–66, 1873, Tate Gallery , London.
• “ Monna Vanna ” ( Monna Vanna or Belcolore ) (1866), Tate Gallery , London.
• “ Pia de Tolomei ” (1868), Spencer Museum of Art Lawrence .
• Veronica Veronese (1872), Delaware Museum of Art, Delaware .
• Proserpine (1874), Tate Gallery , London.
• The Virgin of the Holy Grail (1874), a collection of Andrew Lloyd-Webber .
• " Astarte of Syria ", 1876-77, Manchester Art Gallery .
• The Vision of Fiammetta (1878), a collection of Andrew Lloyd-Webber .
• " Pandora " (1878), Lady Lever Art Gallery .
• Proserpine (1882), Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery .

Nikolai Gumilyov ’s poem, “Muses, stop crying,” is dedicated to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting “Beata Beatrix” and allegedly contains a reference to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet dedicated to his father (“in a diamond sonnet ... sing me a song about Dante and Gabriela Rossetti”) the sonnet “Portrait”, dedicated to the same picture ^[9] .

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the photographs of Lewis Carroll

1. Collected works, 2 vv., 1886; Letters, 2 vv., 1895; Preraphaelite diaries a. letters, 1900; Letters to his publisher, FS Ellis, L., 1928.
2. Swinburne AC, Essays a. studies, 1875; Sharp W., DG Rossetti, 1882; Hamilton W., The aesthetic movement in England, 1882; Pater W., DG Rossetti (the English poets, ed. Ward, v. IV), 1883; Knight J., Life of DG Rossetti, 1887 (with bibliography.); Benson AC, DG Rossetti (English men of letters), 1904; Brooke SA, A study of Clough Arnold, Rossetti a. Morris, 1908; Boas FS, Rossetti a. his poetry, 1914; Dupré H., Un italien d'Angleterre, P., 1921; Caine H., Recollections of Rossetti, 1928, Bachschmidt FW, Das italienische Element in DG Rossetti, Münster Diss., Breslau, 1930; Klenk H., Nachwirkung DG Rossettis, Erlanger Diss., 1932; Waller RD, The Rossetti Family, 1824-1854, 1932; Klinnert A., DG Rossetti u. St. George, Diss., Würzburg, 1933. Vengerova Z., Sobr. Soch., vol. I., St. Petersburg., 1913, D.G. Rossetti.
3. Rossetti WM, Bibliography of the works of DG Rossetti, 1905.
4. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The House of Life. Publisher: Agraf (Moscow), 2009. Hardcover, 336 pages. ISBN 978-5-7784-0387-1 . Preface, translation and detailed comments by Vlanes (Vladislav Neklyaev). The book also contains the full text of the original.

• A.I.Somov . Rossetti, Dante Gabriel // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• "House of Life" and other Rossetti works translated by Vlanes
• The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• Art Renewal Center - Biography, paintings (English)
• History of art: Neoclassicism and Romanticism
• May 12 marks the 185th anniversary of the birth of Dante Gabriel Rossetti , “Sunday” (Russian)
• Rossetti, Dante Gabriel in Network Literature