Editing Dante Gabriel Rossetti (section)

==Career==
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Girlhood of Mary Virgin.jpg|thumb|''[[The Girlhood of Mary Virgin]]'' (1849). The models were the artist's mother for [[Saint Anne]] and his sister [[Christina Rossetti|Christina]] for [[Mary (mother of Jesus)|the Virgin]].<ref name="Marsh16">Marsh (1996), p. 16.</ref>]]

===Beginnings===
Rossetti's first major paintings in oil display the realist qualities of the early Pre-Raphaelite movement. His ''[[The Girlhood of Mary Virgin|Girlhood of Mary Virgin]]'' (1849) and ''[[Ecce Ancilla Domini]]'' (1850) portray Mary as a teenage girl. [[William Bell Scott]] saw ''Girlhood'' in progress in Hunt's studio and remarked on young Rossetti's technique:

{{blockquote|He was painting in oils with water-colour brushes, as thinly as in water-colour, on canvas which he had primed with white till the surface was a smooth as cardboard, and every tint remained transparent.  I saw at once that he was not an orthodox boy, but acting purely from the aesthetic motive.  The mixture of genius and dilettantism of both men [Rossetti and Hunt] shut me up for the moment, and whetted my curiosity.<ref>Marsh (1996), p. 17.</ref>}}

Stung by criticism of his second major painting, ''Ecce Ancilla Domini'', exhibited in 1850, and the "increasingly hysterical critical reaction that greeted Pre-Raphaelitism" that year, Rossetti turned to watercolours, which could be sold privately. Although his work subsequently won support from John Ruskin, Rossetti only rarely exhibited thereafter.<ref name="Treuherz et al. 2003, p. 19"/>

===Dante and Medievalism===
In 1850, Rossetti met [[Elizabeth Siddal]], an important model for the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Over the next decade, she became his muse, his pupil, and his passion. They were married in 1860.<ref name="Treuherz33">Treuherz et al. (2003), p. 33.</ref> Rossetti's incomplete picture ''[[Found (Rossetti)|Found]]'', begun in 1853 and unfinished at his death, was his only major modern-life subject. It depicted a prostitute, lifted from the street by a country drover who recognises his old sweetheart. However, Rossetti increasingly preferred symbolic and mythological images to realistic ones.<ref name="Treuherz19">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 19, 24–25.</ref>

For many years, Rossetti worked on English translations of Italian poetry including [[Dante Alighieri]]'s ''[[La Vita Nuova]]'' (published as ''The Early Italian Poets'' in 1861). These and [[Sir Thomas Malory]]'s ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'' inspired his art of the 1850s. He created a method of painting in watercolours, using thick pigments mixed with gum to give rich effects similar to medieval [[illuminated manuscript|illuminations]]. He also developed a novel drawing technique in pen-and-ink. His first published illustration was "The Maids of Elfen-Mere" (1855), for a poem by his friend [[William Allingham]], and he contributed two illustrations to Edward Moxon's 1857 edition of [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s ''Poems'' and illustrations for works by his sister [[Christina Rossetti]].<ref name="Treuherz175">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 175–76.</ref>

His visions of Arthurian romance and medieval design also inspired [[William Morris]] and [[Edward Burne-Jones]].<ref name="Treuherz39">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 39–41.</ref> Neither Burne-Jones nor Morris knew Rossetti, but were much influenced by his works, and met him by recruiting him as a contributor to their ''Oxford and Cambridge Magazine'' which Morris founded in 1856 to promote his ideas about art and poetry.<ref name="DNB1909">{{cite DNBSupp|wstitle=Burne-Jones, Edward Coley|volume=3}}</ref><ref name="DNB">{{cite DNBSupp|wstitle=Morris, William (1834-1896) <!--NB dash not ndash on wikisource--> |display=Morris, William (1834–1896)|volume=3}}</ref>

[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Ecce Ancilla Domini! - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Ecce Ancilla Domini!]]'', 1850, a depiction of the [[Annunciation]]]]

In February 1857, Rossetti wrote to [[William Bell Scott]]:

{{blockquote|Two young men, projectors of the ''Oxford and Cambridge Magazine,'' have recently come up to town from Oxford, and are now very intimate friends of mine. Their names are Morris and Jones. They have turned artists instead of taking up any other career to which the university generally leads, and both are men of real genius. Jones's designs are marvels of finish and imaginative detail, unequalled by anything unless perhaps [[Albert Dürer]]'s finest works.<ref name="DNB1909" />}}

That summer Morris and Rossetti visited Oxford and finding the [[Oxford Union murals|Oxford Union]] debating-hall under construction, pursued a commission to paint the upper walls with scenes from ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' and to decorate the roof between the open timbers. Seven artists were recruited, among them [[Valentine Prinsep]] and [[Arthur Hughes (artist)|Arthur Hughes]],<ref>Watkinson, Ray, "Painting" in Parry (1996), p. 93.</ref> and the work was hastily begun. The [[fresco]]es, done too soon and too fast, began to fade at once and now are barely decipherable.  Rossetti recruited two sisters, Bessie and [[Jane Morris|Jane Burden]], as models for the [[Oxford Union murals]], and Jane became Morris's wife in 1859.<ref name="Parry">Parry, ''William Morris'', pp. 14–16.</ref>

=== Book arts ===
Literature was integrated into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's artistic practice from the beginning (including that of Rossetti), with many paintings making direct literary references. For example, [[John Everett Millais]]' early work, ''[[Isabella (Millais painting)|Isabella]]'' (1849), depicts an episode from [[John Keats]]' ''[[Isabella, or the Pot of Basil|Isabella, or, the Pot of Basil]]'' (1818). Rossetti was particularly critical of the gaudy ornamentation of Victorian [[gift book]]s and sought to refine bindings and illustrations to align with the principles of the [[Aestheticism|Aesthetic Movement]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://delartlibrary.omeka.net/exhibits/show/-the-cover-sells-the-book---tr/dante-gabriel-rossetti|title=The Cover Sells the Book|website=Delaware Art Museum}}</ref> Rossetti's key bindings were designed between 1861 and 1871.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/racs/binding.rac.html|title=Dante Gabriel Rossetti Material Design|website=Rossetti Archive}}</ref> He collaborated as a designer/illustrator with his sister, poet [[Christina Rossetti]], on the first edition of ''[[Goblin Market]]'' (1862) and ''The Prince's Progress'' (1866). 
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Sir Galahad at the ruined Chapel - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''Sir Galahad at the ruined Chapel'', watercolour and bodycolour, 1857–1859]]

One of Rossetti's most prominent contributions to illustration was the collaborative book, ''Poems'' by [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]] (published by [[Edward Moxon]] in 1857 and known colloquially as the 'Moxon Tennyson'). Moxon envisioned Royal Academicians as the illustrators for the ambitious project, but this vision was quickly disrupted once Millais, a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, became involved in the project.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture 1855–1875|last=Janzen Kooistra|first=Lorraine|author-link1=Lorraine Janzen Kooistra|publisher=Ohio University Press|year=2011|location=Athens, Ohio|pages=43}}</ref> Millais recruited [[William Holman Hunt]] and Rossetti for the project, and the involvement of these artists reshaped the entire production of the book. In reference to the Pre-Raphaelite illustrations, Laurence Housman wrote "[...] The illustrations of the Pre-Raphaelites were personal and intellectual readings of the poems to which they belonged, not merely echoes in line of the words of the text."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Arthur Boyd Houghton: A Selection from his Work in Black and White|last=Housman|first=Laurence|publisher=Trubner and Co.|year=1896|location=London, England|pages=13}}</ref> The Pre-Raphaelites' visualization of Tennyson's poems indicated the range of possibilities in interpreting written works, as did their unique approach to visualizing narrative on the canvas.<ref name=":0" />

Pre-Raphaelite illustrations do not simply refer to the text in which they appear; rather, they are part of a bigger program of art: the book as a whole. Rossetti's philosophy about the role of illustration was revealed in an 1855 letter to poet [[William Allingham]], when he wrote, in reference to his work on the Moxon Tennyson:

"I have not begun even designing for them yet, but fancy I shall try the ''Vision of Sin'', and ''Palace of Art'' etc.—those where one can allegorize on one's own hook, without killing for oneself and everyone a distinct idea of the poet's."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art|last=Welland|first=Dennis|publisher=George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd.|year=1953|location=London|page=17}}</ref>

This passage makes apparent Rossetti's desire not to just support the poet's narrative, but to create an allegorical illustration that functions separately from the text as well. In this respect, Pre-Raphaelite illustrations go beyond depicting an episode from a poem, but rather function like subject paintings within a text. Illustration is not subservient to text and vice versa. Careful and conscientious craftsmanship is practiced in every aspect of production, and each element, though qualifiedly artistic in its own right, contributes to a unified art object (the book).

===Religious influence on works===
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti by George Wylie Hutchinson.png|thumb|''Dante Gabriel Rossetti'' by [[George Wylie Hutchinson]]]]

England began to see a revival of religious beliefs and practices starting in 1833 and moving onward to about 1845.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Barry|first1=William|title=The Oxford Movement (1833–1845)|url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11370a.htm|website=New Advent|publisher=Robert Appleton Company|access-date=15 June 2014}}</ref> The [[Oxford Movement]], also known as the Tractarian Movement, had recently begun a push toward the restoration of [[Christianity|Christian]] traditions that had been lost in the Church of England.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} Rossetti and his family had been attending [[Christ Church, Albany Street]] since 1843. His brother, [[William Michael Rossetti]] recorded that services had begun changing in the church since the start of the "High Anglican movement". Rev. William Dodsworth was responsible for these changes, including the addition of the [[Catholic]] practice of placing flowers and candles by the altar. Rossetti and his family, along with two of his colleagues (one of which cofounded the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]]) had also attended St. Andrew's on Wells Street, a [[High Anglican]] church. It is noted that the Anglo-Catholic revival very much affected Rossetti in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The spiritual expressions of his painting ''The Girlhood of Mary Virgin'', finished in 1849, are evident of this claim. The painting's altar is decorated very similarly to that of a Catholic altar, proving his familiarity with the Anglo-Catholic revival. The subject of the painting, the Blessed Virgin, is sewing a red cloth, a significant part of the Oxford Movement that emphasized the embroidering of altar cloths by women.<ref name="West Virginia University Press">{{cite book|last1=Bentley|first1=D.M.R.|title=Rossetti's "Ave" and Related Pictures|year=1977|publisher=West Virginia University Press|pages=21–35|volume=15 }}</ref> Oxford Reformers identified two major aspects to their movement, that "the end of all religion must be communion with God," and "that the Church was divinely instituted for the very purpose of bringing about this consummation."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Taylor|first1=G.W.|title=John Wesley and the Anglo-Catholic Revival|url=http://anglicanhistory.org/misc/taylor_wesley.html|website=Project Canterbury|publisher=SPCK}}</ref>

From the beginning of the Brotherhood's formation in 1848, their pieces of art included subjects of noble or religious disposition. Their aim was to communicate a message of "moral reform" through the style of their works, exhibiting a "truth to nature".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Meagher|first1=Jennifer|title=The Pre-Raphelites|url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/praf/hd_praf.htm|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|date=October 2004 |access-date=15 June 2014}}</ref> Specifically in Rossetti's "Hand and Soul", written in 1849, he displays his main character Chiaro as an artist with spiritual inclinations. In the text, Chiaro's spirit appears before him in the form of a woman who instructs him to "set thine hand and thy soul to serve man with God."<ref>{{cite web|title=Hand and Soul|url=http://vsfp.byu.edu/index.php/Hand_and_Soul|website=Victorian Short Fiction Project|access-date=6 June 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714163920/http://vsfp.byu.edu/index.php/Hand_and_Soul|archive-date=14 July 2014}}</ref> The Rossetti Archive defines this text as "Rossetti's way of constellating his commitments to art, religious devotion, and a thoroughly secular historicism."<ref>{{cite web|title=Hand and Soul|url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/46p-1849.sa76.raw.html|website=The Rossetti Archive|access-date=15 June 2014}}</ref> Likewise, in "The Blessed Damozel", written between 1847 and 1870, Rossetti uses biblical language such as "From the gold bar of Heaven" to describe the Damozel looking down to Earth from Heaven.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Blessed Damozel|url=http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1881.1stedn.rad.html#p3|website=Rossetti Archive|access-date=15 June 2014}}</ref> Here we see a connection between body and soul, mortal and supernatural, a common theme in Rossetti's works. In "Ave" (1847), Mary awaits the day that she will meet her son in Heaven, uniting the earthly with the heavenly. The text highlights a strong element in [[Anglican Marian theology]] that describes Mary's body and soul having been assumed into Heaven.<ref name="West Virginia University Press"/> [[William Michael Rossetti]], his brother, wrote in 1895: "He was never confirmed, professed no religious faith, and practised no regular religious observances; but he had ... sufficient sympathy with the abstract ideas and the venerable forms of Christianity to go occasionally to an Anglican church — very occasionally, and only as the inclination ruled him."

===A new direction===
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti Bocca Baciata 1859.png|right|thumb|''[[Bocca Baciata]]'' (1859), modelled by [[Fanny Cornforth]], signalled a new direction in Rossetti's work. ([[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]])]]
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti 001.jpg|thumb|[[Albumen print]] of ''Dante Gabriel Rossetti'' by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ([[Lewis Carroll]]; 1863)]]

Around 1860, Rossetti returned to oil painting, abandoning the dense medieval compositions of the 1850s in favour of powerful close-up images of women in flat pictorial spaces characterised by dense colour. These paintings became a major influence on the development of the European [[symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] movement.<ref name="Treuherz52">Treuherz et al. (2003), pp. 52–54.</ref> In them, Rossetti's depiction of women became almost obsessively stylised. He portrayed his new lover [[Fanny Cornforth]] as the epitome of physical eroticism, while Jane Burden, the wife of his business partner William Morris, was glamorised as an ethereal goddess. "As in Rossetti's previous reforms, the new kind of subject appeared in the context of a wholesale reconfiguration of the practice of painting, from the most basic level of materials and techniques up to the most abstract or conceptual level of the meanings and ideas that can be embodied in visual form."<ref name="Treuherz52" />  These new works were based not on medievalism, but on the Italian High [[Renaissance]] artists of [[Venice]], [[Titian]] and [[Paolo Veronese|Veronese]].<ref name="Treuherz52" /><ref name="Treuherz64">Treuherz et al. (2003), p. 64.</ref>

In 1861, Rossetti became a founding partner in the [[decorative arts]] firm, [[Morris & Co.|Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.]] with Morris, Burne-Jones, [[Ford Madox Brown]], [[Philip Webb]], [[Charles Joseph Faulkner|Charles Faulkner]] and [[Peter Paul Marshall]].<ref name="DNB" /> Rossetti contributed designs for stained glass and other decorative objects.

Rossetti's wife, Elizabeth, died of an overdose of [[laudanum]] in 1862, possibly a suicide, shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Jan |last=Marsh |date=15 February 2012 |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/did-rossetti-really-need-to-exhume-his-wife/|title=Did Rossetti really need to exhume his wife?|website=TheTLS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120219053039/https://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article872671.ece|archive-date=19 February 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzBZAAAAIAAJ|title=Artists and Writers in Revolt: The Pre-Raphaelites|first=Audrey|last=Williamson|author-link=Audrey Williamson (critic) |year=1976|publisher=David & Charles|via=Google Books |page=46 |isbn=978-0-7153-72-623}}</ref> Rossetti became increasingly depressed, and when Elizabeth was buried at [[Highgate Cemetery]], he interred the bulk of his unpublished poems with her, though he later had them dug up. He idealised her image as [[Dante]]'s Beatrice in a number of paintings, such as ''[[Beata Beatrix]]''.<ref name="Treuherz80">Treuherz et al. (2003), p. 80.</ref>

===Cheyne Walk years===
{{More citations needed|section|date=May 2017}}
[[File:16 Cheyne Walk 04.JPG|thumb|His home at 16 [[Cheyne Walk]], London]]
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - La viuda romana (Dîs Manibus).jpg|thumb|''[[Roman Widow (Rossetti)|The Roman Widow]]'' (1874), [[Museo de Arte de Ponce]], Puerto Rico]]
[[File:Henry Treffry Dunn Rossetti and Dunton at 16 Cheyne Walk.jpg|thumb|Rossetti reading proofs of ''Ballads and Sonnets'' at 16 [[Cheyne Walk]], by [[Henry Treffry Dunn]] (1882)]]
[[File:Dante Gabriel Rossetti - The Day Dream - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[The Day Dream (painting)|The Day Dream]]'' (1880). The sitter is Jane Morris.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=6197|title=The Day Dream|publisher=www.artmagick.com|access-date=15 August 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141218104125/http://www.artmagick.com/pictures/picture.aspx?id=6197|archive-date=18 December 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.vam.ac.uk/users/node/1981|title=Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 'The Day Dream'|publisher=www.vam.ac.uk|access-date=15 August 2016}}</ref>]]
[[File:Alexa Wilding (1879) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.jpg|thumb|[[Alexa Wilding]] (1879)]]

After the death of his wife, Rossetti leased a Tudor House at 16, [[Cheyne Walk]], in Chelsea,<ref name="vch">{{cite web |title=Settlement and building: Artists and Chelsea Pages 102-106 A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12, Chelsea. |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol12/pp102-106 |website=British History Online |publisher=Victoria County History, 2004 |access-date=21 December 2022}}</ref> where he lived for 20 years surrounded by extravagant furnishings and a parade of exotic birds and animals.<ref>Todd (2001), p. 107.</ref> Rossetti was fascinated with [[wombat]]s, asking friends to meet him at the "Wombat's Lair" at the [[London Zoo]] in [[Regent's Park]], and spending hours there. In September 1869, he acquired the first of two pet wombats, which he named "Top". It was brought to the dinner table and allowed to sleep in the large centrepiece during meals. Rossetti's fascination with exotic animals continued throughout his life, culminating in the purchase of a [[llama]] and a [[toucan]], which he dressed in a cowboy hat and trained to ride the llama round the dining-table for his amusement.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite/papers/atrumble.html |title=National Library of Australia. |access-date=25 March 2009 |archive-date=6 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606012521/http://www.nla.gov.au/grants/haroldwhite/papers/atrumble.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Rossetti maintained [[Fanny Cornforth]] (described delicately by William Allington as Rossetti's "housekeeper")<ref>Todd (2001), p. 109.</ref> in her own establishment nearby in Chelsea, and painted many voluptuous images of her between 1863 and 1865.<ref>Todd (2001), p. 113.</ref>

In 1865, he discovered auburn-haired [[Alexa Wilding]], a dressmaker and would-be actress who was engaged to model for him on a full-time basis and sat for ''[[Veronica Veronese]]'', ''[[The Blessed Damozel]]'', ''[[A Sea–Spell]]'', and other paintings.<ref name="Todd116">Todd (2001), p. 116.</ref><ref name="Pedrick130">Pedrick (1964), p. 130</ref> She sat for more of his finished works than any other model, but comparatively little is known about her due to the lack of any romantic connection with Rossetti. He spotted her one evening in the [[Strand, London|Strand]] in 1865 and was immediately struck by her beauty. She agreed to sit for him the following day, but failed to arrive. He spotted her again weeks later, jumped from the cab he was in and persuaded her to go straight to his studio. He paid her a weekly fee to sit for him exclusively, afraid that other artists might employ her.<ref>Dunn, ''Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and his circle'', ed. Mander, (1984) p. 46.</ref> They shared a lasting bond; after Rossetti's death Wilding was said to have travelled regularly to place a wreath on his grave.<ref>Spencer-Longhurst, ''The Blue Bower: Rossetti in the 1860s'' (2006).</ref>

Jane Morris, whom Rossetti had used as a model for the Oxford Union murals he painted with William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in 1857, also sat for him during these years, she "consumed and obsessed him in paint, poetry, and life".<ref name="Todd116" /> Jane Morris was also photographed by [[John Robert Parsons]], whose photographs were painted by Rossetti.  In 1869, Morris and Rossetti rented a country house, [[Kelmscott Manor]] at [[Kelmscott]], Oxfordshire, as a summer home, but it became a retreat for Rossetti and Jane Morris to have a long-lasting and complicated liaison. They spent summers there with the Morrises' children, while William Morris travelled to [[Iceland]] in 1871 and 1873.<ref>Todd (2001), pp. 123–30.</ref>

During these years, Rossetti was prevailed upon by friends, in particular [[Charles Augustus Howell]], to exhume his poems from his wife's grave which he did, collating and publishing them in 1870 in the volume ''Poems by D. G. Rossetti''. They created controversy when they were attacked as the epitome of the [[Fleshly school|"fleshly school of poetry"]]. Their eroticism and sensuality caused offence. One poem, "Nuptial Sleep", described a couple falling asleep after sex. It was part of Rossetti's [[sonnet sequence]] ''The House of Life'', a complex series of poems tracing the physical and spiritual development of an intimate relationship. Rossetti described the sonnet form as a "moment's monument", implying that it sought to contain the feelings of a fleeting moment, and reflect on their meaning. ''The House of Life'' was a series of interacting monuments to these moments – an elaborate whole made from a [[mosaic]] of intensely described fragments. It was Rossetti's most substantial literary achievement.

The 1870 collection ''Poems'' included some translations, such as his "Ballad Of Dead Ladies",<!-- http://www.bartleby.com/246/735.html, http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1881.1stedn.rad.html#p279 --> an 1869 translation of [[François Villon]]'s poem "[[Ballade des dames du temps jadis]]".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rossetti |first=Dante Gabriel |title=Poems |publisher=[[Frederick Startridge Ellis|F. S. Ellis]] |year=1870 |edition=1st |location=London |pages=177–8}}</ref>  (The word "[[wikt:yesteryear|yesteryear]]" is credited to Rossetti as a neologism used for the first time in this translation.)

In 1881, Rossetti published a second volume of poems, ''Ballads and Sonnets'', which included the remaining sonnets from ''The House of Life'' sequence.