How one artistic family took on Victorian society
The Rossettis revolutionised art and poetry in nineteenth century England. Or did they? At Tate Britain’s vivid exhibition you can decide for yourself.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith, 1866-1868 (altered 1872-1873), Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935
Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll – or love, opium and paintings, to be more precise. This was the way to live and to die for the Pre-Raphaelites. And the Rossettis were a prime example. Poets and artists in one family: Christina, her brother Dante Gabriel and his wife Elizabeth (neé Siddal).
Medieval settings, rich costumes, lush hair – all painted in minute detail and opulent colours – characterize the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. They are seen as the first British avant-garde movement, as much due to their lifestyles as the subject or technique of their art.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Lady Affixing Pennant to a Knight's Spear 1856 © Tate
The Rossettis exhibition at Tate wants us to see them as Radical Romantics. The description of the show includes words such as revolutionary, trailblazing, progressive and counterculture. The texts on the walls encourage us to see more than just pretty pictures.
We read that in Lady Lilith, painted in 1866, Dante Gabriel ‘relates the figure of Lilith to feminine power’. Sure, depicting Lilith at all – and other strong historical and mythological women – must have been an act of defiance in Victorian society. After all she is a female demonic figure of Jewish folklore – an alternative femininity to even that of the devious Eve.
The Rossettis Installation View at Tate Britain 2023 © Tate (Madeleine Buddo)
However much meaning we want to assign to this painting, it remains an image of a beautiful woman, admiring herself in a mirror, surrounded by flowers. It didn’t have the shock value of Edouard Manet’s Olympia, painted three years earlier in 1863. That is an image that mocks academic art face on – it depicts a prostitute receiving flowers sent by one of her clients, while reclining in a position typical of portrayal of goddesses. The body is not sexualised by depth or detail but flattened and exposed as a business tool of that woman.
The Pre-Raphaelites are considered a thoroughly British movement, even though the Rossettis were from a family of Italian immigrants. But Britishness could possibly explain the desire for metaphor and allusions rather than a straightforward depiction. We are told that Elizabeth Siddal’s Lady Affixing Pennant to a Knight’s Spear – depicting a medieval knight and his love interest – coincided with the Crimean War, which was widely reported in Britain. We are encouraged to read this painting as a commentary on the current affairs at the time.
The Rossettis Installation View at Tate Britain 2023 © Tate (Madeleine Buddo)
The exhibition really wants us to explore the context in which these art works were created. A lot of attention is dedicated to poetry – both by Dante Gabriel and Christina. We read it written across the walls and hear it flowing from the speakers hidden in the ceiling. The exhibition is trying to be ‘immersive’ – as is the vogue. Thankfully, they stay clear of any other new technology. Richly painted walls in every room seem to enhance the HD effect of the paintings in their shining golden frames. In one room the walls are further decorated with large-scale tree motifs – these provide a background for furniture with designs based on Rossettis’ work.
The paintings of the two artists in the family – Dante Gabriel and Elizabeth are interspersed with those of other artists who had Christina or Elisabeth as models. It’s also shown how close were the styles of husband and wife – they were clearly borrowing from each other. Dante Gabriel’s carefully worked paintings are possibly more familiar, but Elisabeth’s watercolours seem freer and somewhat darker both visually and metaphorically. In Annunciation she places Virgin Mary and the Angel in a dark wood – their meeting taking place in-between tightly placed tree trunks. Here we can be grateful for the use of technology as several of the works aren’t originals – which were lost – but reproductions from glass negatives made shortly after Elisabeth’s death.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix 1864 © Tate
Presented by Georgiana, Baroness Mount-Temple in memory of her husband, Francis, Baron Mount-Temple 1889
Her passing – and the suspicious circumstances surrounding it – also features in the exhibition, which is as much about the artists’ lives as it is about their art. Was it an overdose, or suicide? We will never know. It may have been a case of life imitating art – as Elizabeth was the model for Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais – possibly one of the most famous depictions of literary suicide at Tate. It is currently on display in the main halls of the gallery. In the exhibition we see another popular Tate work Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel. It is a dedication to his late wife – and the flower brought to Elizabeth/Beatrice by a bird is an opium poppy.
With all the drama and theatricality, I found some of the less colourful pictures even more compelling. The early ink sketches by Dante Gabriel – when he visited France and paid attention to performers and labourers – show freedom and excitement in the new. His pencil portraits of both his sister and wife seem full of admiration for these women beyond their physical appearance.
The Rossettis Installation View at Tate Britain 2023 © Tate (Madeleine Buddo)
It isn’t immediately obvious why these works are considered revolutionary. And yet, they have been. To me they look like fancy book illustrations. But to their contemporaries they were both strangely realistic and bizarrely detailed. They were about feelings and mental state. They depicted female heroines who would have been seen as scandalous. They were not as radical as the nascent impressionists in France, but they did lay a foundation for the development of art that brought us artists as diverse as Gustav Klimt, with his passionate golden The Kiss, and Egon Schiele with his tortured and intimate subjects.
The last room of the exhibition explores the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on radical art and culture to this day. There is more to the Rossettis than meets the eye, even if what meets the eye is quite striking on its own.