Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Biography and Creativity

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - English poet, painter and illustrator, who became one of the founders of the "Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites." In his works - paintings, poems and sonnets - he maintained the purity of art, free from academicism, praised the romance of the Early Renaissance. One of the favorite themes of Pre-Raphaelites was unhappy love. And all life Rossetti, one way or another, swirled around her. Women inspired him, became the heroines of his canvases. However, the relationship of the artist with his beloved can not be called simple, as, indeed, his whole life.

A family

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born on May 12, 1828. His father, Gabriele Rossetti, was an Italian, who for political reasons emigrated to England. He taught native language and literature at King's College. Father instilled in his son a love for Italian art, in particular for the works of Dante Alighieri, which affected not only the name of the boy, but also the interests and aspirations that he will carry through his whole life.

Mother Rossetti - Francis Mary Lavinia Polidori - came from the family of Gaetano Polidori, a scientist and an expatriate from Italy. Since childhood, Dante Gabriel grew up in an atmosphere of art and was early imbued with his father's fascination with the works of the great poet and theologian, in honor of which he received the name. His sisters and his brother also had literary talent. Maria Francesca became the author of the book "Shadow of Dante". The younger sister, Christina, became famous as a poet. And Brother William became a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite society and a literary critic.

Training

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose works began to be published when he was 15, studied at London's Kings College from the age of 9. The first creative steps of the young author were done in the literature. In 5 years, Rossetti composed a drama, in 13 - a story. The artistic education of the boy was sketchy. It began with the drawing school, where Rossetti entered at the age of 16 and where he studied under the direction of DS Kotmen. Then, from 1841, was the Academy of Painting Henry Sass. Five years later he became a student of the class of antique painting, which functioned at the Royal Academy.

Later, for a time, Dante's teacher is Medox Brown, a romantic artist, no less than Rossetti enthusiastic about literature. In 1848, he met with Holman Hunt, who would help him sharpen the technique of working with oil paints during the creation of the first pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Education of the brotherhood

The secret society, which gave rise to a new trend in poetry and painting, was formed in the 50s of the XIX century. Rossetti was then 18 years old. But thanks to his temperament and a formal look at art, he was able to become the leader of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Together with Holman Hunt and young John Everett Milles, they come to the conclusion that academicism, which dominated the painting of that period, is full of conventions and blind imitation. He strangles art, rejecting almost any innovation. According to the participants of the brotherhood, the revival of English painting could only return to the traditions of Italian art of the Early Renaissance.

Return to simplicity and purity

The ideal for pre-Raphaelites was the manner of writing great artists who created before Raphael: Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini. The English admired the simplicity and sincerity of the paintings of the Italian masters of the Early Renaissance. Purity and truth, reverence for the past and romanticism, rejection of the present and hostility to academism were combined in the works of the Pre-Raphaelites with a bold reading of the established themes, innovation in the technique of painting. They were guided by the masters of the past eras, but they themselves gave birth to the current, which later led to the development of modernity and gave rise to symbolism. The Manifesto of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was published in the magazine Rostok, which was published from January to April 1850 by members of the society.

A new look at the usual plot

For the first time the letters PRB, meaning the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ("Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites"), appear in Rossetti's painting "The Youth of the Virgin Mary" (1848-1849). Models for the canvas were the mother and sister of the artist. And this is one of the differences between the Pre-Raphaelites and academicism: the members of the brotherhood in the pursuit of naturalness deliberately refused the services of professional models, preferring friends and relatives.

In the work of Pre-Raphaelites often turned to biblical subjects. However, their reading differed significantly from the images that had settled in the art. An example of this - one of the paintings that Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote, - "The Annunciation". In academic painting, the Virgin Mary was always portrayed as an unearthly being, receiving with reverence God's gift and associated responsibility. In Rossetti's painting, we see the most common girl, frightened by an angel and brought by them a message. Such an interpretation met the pre-Raphaelite aspiration to truthfulness and, naturally, caused a storm of indignation.

Rossetti is an artist

The best works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti created in the period from the 1850's to 1860's. His style is well recognized: externally static heroes, whose face reflects a boiling inner work, a composition with several large figures in the foreground and a minute elaboration of background elements. His paintings are full of symbols, born from the combination of real details and fantastic images. Rossetti did not apply dark tones, minimized chiaroscuro - his canvases seemed to glow, the colors clean and bright. The artist skillfully used the line in his works, giving expressiveness or tenderness to images with the help of clear or quivering contours.

Art critics define Rossetti's painting as both decorative and monumental. The last property was best expressed in the process of painting the walls, located in one of the buildings of Oxford University. The selected plot is an illustration to the novel by Thomas Malory "The Death of King Arthur".

Rossetti is a poet

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose verses in importance are often put on a par with Shakespeare's works, often used the same subjects for sonnets and canvases. Painting and poetry in his work are inseparable. He scooped up themes for paintings in verse and filled with special imagery poems and sonnets. Ideas pre-Raphaelites Rossetti observed in poetry. He almost never spoke on topical topics, filling the verses with medieval color. The sonnets and poems of Dante Gabriel are full of symbols and are distinguished by a fine elaboration of details, like his canvases. He used archaic turns, intentionally rearranged the stress in words, put the usual expressions in an unexpected context and thereby achieved special expressiveness.

The main poetic work, created by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is "House of Life". This is a collection of 101 sonnets. Each of them describes a certain moment in the poet's life: a certain hour or a passing mood, a picture seen or written. Often, Rossetti turned to ballads. He skillfully used the old stories and techniques, combining them with modern techniques and creating impressive works of expressiveness.

Muses

The future wife Rossetti met in 1850. Elizabeth Siddol embodied the ideal of pre-Raphaelite beauty and posed for many artists of the brotherhood. One of the most impressive paintings that perpetuated her image belongs to Rossetti's brush. "Beatrice blessed" depicts beloved Dante Alighieri in a sleepy state at a time when a bird symbolizing a near death puts a poppy flower in her hand. Elizabeth, a tuberculosis patient, died two years after the wedding, in 1862, from an opium overdose (according to one version, it was suicide). The inconsolable widower put his beloved "House of Life" in the coffin. However, a few years later, Rossetti agreed to exhumation of the body and the subsequent publication of poetry.

Another artist's muse was Fanny Cornforth, depicted in the picture "Lady Lilith" (Lady Lilith). Dante Gabriel Rossetti met a beautiful, but uneducated girl in 1858, and their relationship lasted almost the entire life, despite the artist's marriage and his relationship with Jane Morris. Fanny often posed for Rossetti. It is easy to recognize in the pictures "After the Kiss", "Lucrezia Borgia" and already called "Lady Lilith". Dante Gabriel Rossetti broke up with Fanny in 1877, when the physical and mental health of the artist became very weak.

Last years

After the death of Elizabeth Rossetti became a recluse. At this time, along with Fanny, the paramount importance for him is acquired by Jane Morris, the wife of his friend William. Her image appears in the pictures of Proserpine, Mariana, Veronica Veronese and many others. The artist's health begins to weaken. He refuses to participate in exhibitions, increases his dependence on chloral hydrate. For a long time Jane lived with Rossetti with the tacit consent of her husband, who left for Iceland in 1871. However, noticing the increasing deterioration of the lover's mental state and his drug addiction, she moves away from Rossetti, and their relationship is reduced to correspondence.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti died on April 9, 1882. And two months later an exhibition of all his works took place, which was a great success in England. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose biography is full of bright ups and tragic events, left an impressive mark in art. His work was imitated, the master of the late XIX - early XX century studied them. Today in art there is the term "rossetism", uniting the masters who created in the manner of the great Pre-Raphaelite.