English Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti became famous for his paintings depicting beautiful red-haired women, which were characterized by excellent decorativeness and deep meaning hidden behind all sorts of allegories. So to better understand these paintings, you should at the same time familiarize yourself with the personality of the model and the artist himself, the more so because their lives were not like a measured and boring existence, more like a fire of passion and suicidal tendency to use not the most innocuous drugs.
Veronica Veronese
They ended up killing her. The artist's wife Elizabeth Sandal died at the age of 33 from laudanum poisoning - a mixture of opium and alcohol, which in Victorian England was considered a miracle remedy to cure any ailment. However, laudanum Elizabeth had been taking for several years and could not do without it, so it may be simply not calculated the dose, although it is possible that deliberately committed suicide.
Rossetti grieved, and the painting "Blessed Beatrice" became a kind of tribute to the memory of his longtime friend, model, muse and wife. It was painted from drawings, existing portraits and sketches of Elizabeth Sandal, favor them Rossetti had accumulated several hundred.
Blessed Beatrice
They had a beautiful and tragic love story. Elizabeth was a simple clerk in a ladies' hat store, where the painter Walter Deverell saw her and told his artist pals Rossetti and Holman Hunt about her. "She is beautiful - tall, with a perfect figure, fiery red hair shining copper, with a pleasant face and a long neck, as if the ancient Greek goddess herself had descended on our sinful London." The artists were sincerely interested - there was a male interest in it and purely creative - they needed a really beautiful model, with which you can write new masterpieces.
Lady Lilith
And it turned out that the model Elizabeth was wonderful - steadfastly withstood many hours of posing, it was from her Millet wrote his famous painting "Ophelia".
John Everett Millais. Ophelia
By the way, then she had a very hard time - Ophelia had to lie in a bathtub, the water in which heated oil lamps. But one day the lamps went out, and Millais insistently asked Elizabeth to be patient a little longer. She agreed, and eventually got pneumonia. The artist had to deal with the father of the girl and pay all the considerable medical bills.
And soon Elizabeth met Rossetti and fell in love with him - among the Pre-Raphaelites he was the most prominent and temperamental. She became his model, lover, student and cohabitant. They did not marry legally, although in Victorian England such a violation of morality was looked upon with indignation, but they lived and created together, and their ties were much stronger than those of marriage.
the Holy Grail
Dante frantically painted dozens of portraits of her, and Elizabeth posed for him, but unfortunately she began to suffer increasingly from tuberculosis, a common ailment at the time, especially in the cold and damp London climate. Soon she developed spinal problems, accompanied by pain, which Elizabeth tried to treat with the miracle remedy laudanum. The pain subsided briefly, but more and more of the drug was needed. Feeling that Elizabeth is getting worse Rossetti marries her - there were in this and the reproach of conscience, after all, perfect fidelity to his old friend, he was not distinguished and more than once had relationships with pretty model and other interesting ladies.
Venus Verticordia
But in marriage they lived only two years and it was by no means the most serene time - the constant intake of laudanum and tuberculosis made itself felt. Six years Rossetti wrote "Blessed Beatrice" - one of the most poignant and memorable paintings of this artist, a lament for the untimely departure of the beautiful and unfortunate Elizabeth Sandal.
Buy handmade goods or modern art you can on artAlebrio - is an international marketplace for people who want to create, sell, buy and collect unique items and art - buy the best with us artAlebrio.com.
By confirming your order you unconditionally accept these General Conditions of Sale
