Translator, poet, graphic artist, painter and founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. All this could harmoniously unite in one man - Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Stages of Rossetti's work can be divided not by new paintings, or changes in style, but by those women who became his sitters. Each caused him strong feelings, and therefore the canvases are filled with a gamut of emotions. These ladies: Elizabeth Siddal, after her was Fanny Cornforth, followed by Jane Morris, the last was Alexa Wilding. All of them have a number of similarities, namely the presence of full and sensual lips, golden curls, pronounced cheekbones and heavy chin. The artist also posed his friends, acquaintances and relatives. He could create works for literary artwork, work on mythological or biblical subjects, but did not like sketches, landscapes. Accuracy of graphics, amazing sense of color with difficulties in building complex perspectives distinguished the artist's artwork.
Beata Beatrix
The biographer of the artist was his brother. Rossetti himself could be called independent, possessing a fiery temperament and temperament, he quickly and easily carried away, could go on reckless acts, and was shrewd. Possessing an Italian temperament, Rossetti was not afraid to drastically change his life. Today he could do translations, tomorrow he could quit the academy and make copies of popular subjects. Spending together with a talented artist and model a dozen years, on the legal marriage, he decided only before the death of his chosen one. Favorite work he gave his soul, put his passion, and that “need” and “must” could not perform physically.
Joan of Arc
Each of the four Rossetti children learned by listening to the adults' interactions with frequent visitors. The artist's father, Gabriel Rossetti, came to Britain's capital as a political refugee. In Naples he became famous as a famous poet, but after the move he became a teacher of Italian, a literary scholar, specializing in the study of Dante's work. He was just over forty when he married a twenty-year-old British woman, who gave her husband four children.
Lived Rosseti decent, but were not rich. Dante had not only a literary gift, but also artistic talent, and therefore his father insisted that the boy practiced as often as possible.
With his mother, the children spoke English, with his father in Italian, studying in college, the future artist mastered German, French, Latin. True, to study, he was indifferent and even teachers said that he suffers from bouts of idleness. By twenty years of study at the Royal Academy of Dante abandoned. But persuaded Ford Madox Brown to take him as a pupil. Together they worked in the studio, and in the evenings took lessons at the school of nature sketches. Friends these two talented people will be until the end of days.
The Beloved
Open, characterized by sincerity and impulsiveness, with a touch of fearlessness handsome Rossetti was popular with the ladies. But he did not attach any serious importance to his numerous relationships. And yet there were important people in his life, whom he sincerely appreciated. Among them Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais and Elizabeth Siddal, who worked as a clerk in a hat store.
Last day of 1848. The first meeting of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoods at Millais' home took place. At heart, all three artists were children who had been bothered by books about the Knights of the Round Table. They began to put their secret signs on the paintings “P.R.B”, wanted to change the history of art and add bright colors to it, to find the ideal female beauty and convey it in paintings. They could pose as seamstresses, portraying Shakespeare's heroines, and “night butterflies” for biblical stories.
Ecce Ancilla Domini March 1850
They asked for mothers, sisters, mistresses. They also looked for ladies of the heart (or impeccable models), and considered academic boredom to be their enemy. Each of these dreamy boys had true talent.
The painter Walter Deverell told me about Elizabeth Siddal. He described with wild delight the hat store clerk with ravishing red hair. The beautiful woman posed for all the Brotherhood representatives, but afterward she became Dante's trademark, muse, passion, and only love.
Lady Lilith
The couple began to live together. They could argue about creative issues in the evenings over a glass of wine, wake up late in the morning, and spend the afternoon searching for the ideal in painting. Lizi also learned to paint. And she painted so well that she received a personal scholarship from John Reskin. Dante discovered his talent as a teacher and began to give lessons.
All acquaintances were interested in only one question: why the artist is not in a hurry to marry his beautiful muse. Many hours lying in a cold bath for the painting “Ophelia” damaged the health of the girl. Lizzie began to have lung problems. Only after ten years of life, Dante decided to marry. He realized that another attack could be the last.
A year passed, Elizabeth lost a child, and her health began to deteriorate. Nervous disorders and severe pain in those distant years were treated unconventionally - recommended tincture of opium. Twelve months later, Lizzie took such a large dose of the drug that she never recovered.
The gardener's daughter
When Dante returned home from college, he found his wife unconscious. Overnight, four doctors had been to their house. All of them said it was impossible to help the artist's wife. She didn't live to see the morning.
His notebook with poems written over ten years, Dante put in the coffin of his beloved. He was sure that without her, his work in these years was completely different, and no longer makes sense. However, he would soon change his opinion.
Becoming a widower, the artist moved to another neighborhood. He rarely went out on the street, but in his house gathered artists, collectors and representatives of bohemia. In the garden behind the house appeared Rossetti's menagerie. There was room for marmots, raccoons, salamanders, peacocks, armadillos, kangaroos and wombats. In the daytime, the house was filled with sitters, and in the evenings the smoke of cigars and whiskey wafted through the air and conversations were held. American art dealers were ready to buy up everything the artist had time to create. Life in these days was replaced by a succession of depressions, found illnesses, instructions from the best doctors, insomnia, temporary loss of vision. Also the ingestion of chloral, which was then considered a sleeping pill. At the same time, the artist had a new and passionate passion.
Proserpine 1874
Dante was not even stopped by the fact that Jane Morris was the spouse of her longtime friend. Surprisingly, her husband knew about the affair between his wife and friend, but he didn't mind. He even allowed Dante and his wife to live together for a few months at a time. The relationship lasted more than a dozen years, and Jane posed Rossetti for his best artwork. She is depicted on the canvas of “Dreaming Alive,” “Pandora,” and “Proserpina.” But sometimes he missed his deceased spouse so much that the brunette Jane's fiery Lizzie hair appears in the paintings.
At one point, the artist would ask to open his wife's coffin and pull out his notebook of poems. He dares to publish the artwork. Critics trashed the poems. Dante did not accept the criticism, even tried to take his own life.
Ligeia Siren (1873)
He survived. He began working hard and making a fortune, making replicas of paintings, creating new and original ones, taking up translations and publishing his poems. His royalties skyrocketed, his bouts of insomnia grew worse, as did the pain and the doses of medication. Jane would not tolerate this endless drug gorging and self-destruction of the lover and put a stop to the relationship.
“The drugs didn't help with the heartache, but they destroyed the body. Dante was only fifty-four years old when he went to the sanitarium. Half-blind, paralyzed artist died. Only a month before he passed away, he managed to complete three paintings, because his imagination always lived a separate life.
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