WORK FROM 1854 TO 1857
Rossetti's work, during the earlier part of the period we have been
glancing through, was of a particularly interesting, and towards the
latter end of a sufficiently varied character. In range of subject
it belongs to the category described in Chapter III, with the
important addition that now for the first time is added to his
sources of romantic inspiration the "Morte Darthur" of Sir Thomas
Malory. This cycle of old Celtic legends had been for many years
practically a sealed book in England, and its popularity to-day is
largely owing to the interest revived in it by Rossetti, and later by
the famous group of Oxford friends, including William Morris and
Edward Burne-Jones. Rossetti had become acquainted with Malory by
1854, which is the date of that strange, sad little water-colour,
_King Arthur's Tomb_, representing, in an imaginary scene, Launcelot
bidding a last farewell to Guenevere. Apart from this Rossetti had
in hand a number of drawings which were continually put on one side
as fresh ideas crowded into his restless brain, and were often not
finished until many years later. The statement could easily be
verified, that many, if not most, of Rossetti's later pictures were
planned during these early strenuous years of his life, so that it is
not to be wondered at that the actual finished work of these early
years was sparse in quantity and slight in quality--much slighter,
for instance, than the two religious paintings with which he had
begun his career. On the other hand, for many people these little
water-colours of Rossetti's second period have a charm that nothing
in his larger and more elaborated later work can recall.
In the early part of 1854 Rossetti wrote to Ruskin that he was
occupied with ideas for three subjects, _Found_, _Mary Magdalene at
the Door of Simon_, and another which is not named, but which from
the context one may infer to have been the water-colour diptych of
_Paolo and Francesco da Rimini_. In August of the same year he wrote
that he was at work on a _Hamlet and Ophelia_, "deeply symbolical of
course," and predestined for the folio which Millais had presented,
and which was still supposed to be in circulation among the members
of a select sketching club. About the same time he submitted to
Ruskin two designs for _The Passover_, one of which was chosen to be
begun at once, while Ruskin also commissioned seven drawings from the
"Purgatorio," of which one certainly, _Matilda gathering Flowers_,
was very shortly put in hand. None of these undertakings saw the
light for at least another year; the _Hamlet_ not for four or five.
The _Matilda_ was finished first and delivered in September 1855, and
on the 2nd December Madox Brown records in his diary, _apropos_ Miss
Siddal being stranded in Paris without money, "Gabriel, who saw that
none of the drawings on the easel could be completed before long,
began a fresh one, _Francesca da Rimini_, in _three compartments_;
worked day and night, finished it in a week, got thirty-five guineas
for it from Ruskin, and started off to relieve them." This was the
earliest version of a subject that Rossetti returned to more than
once, representing in one compartment the lover's kiss, and in the
second their two souls floating clasped together in Hell through a
rain of pale sulphurous flames. Between the compartments are two
figures meant for Dante and Virgil, with the words "O Lasso!" Within
the same period, viz., by October, 1855, another Dante subject, _The
Vision of Rachel and Leah_, was taken up and completed.
_The Passover_ drawing, just referred to, is a small, unfinished
water-colour, in which once more Rossetti has treated the domestic
life of the Holy Family with a reverent freedom from conventionality,
such as Millais used in _The Carpenter's Shop_ and Holman Hunt in the
_Finding of Christ in the Temple_. _The Passover_ was one of
Rossetti's very earliest designs, having been sketched out first as
far back as 1849; it was the one selected for a memorial window to
Rossetti in the church at Birchington-on-Sea, where he was buried.
Other drawings which are dated, or were finished by 1855, though they
may have been in hand considerably earlier, are _The Nativity_, _La
Belle Dame sans Mercy_, and the _Annunciation_, all water-colours.
In the last-named the Virgin (done from Miss Siddal) is represented
washing clothes in a stream, whilst the angel Gabriel stands by with
folded wings, between two trees: both are in white, and the picture
shows a strong effect of sunlight.
In addition to the foregoing there must be chronicled under 1855 the
first of the important and beautiful designs for woodcuts, which in
the absence of his pictures were almost the only means afforded to
the public for many years of judging of Rossetti's work. This is a
drawing for a poem in William Allingham's "Day and Night Songs,"
called _The Maids of Elfen-Mere_. Allingham was employed in the
Customs in Ireland, and at the period in question, and for some years
after, Rossetti and he were very intimate, corresponding freely and
vivaciously on all topics concerning their circle.
In 1856 were completed the water-colours of _Dante's Dream_ and _Fra
Pace_. Mr. William Morris, who acquired several early water-colours
by Rossetti, was apparently the first purchaser of _Fra Pace_. The
picture represents a kneeling monk busy illuminating at a desk. He
has worked so long that the cat has coiled itself up asleep upon his
trailing robe. A youthful acolyte is tickling it with a straw in
order to beguile the tedium of the long silence. The drawing is
somewhat archaic in character and stiff in design, but it is
eminently characteristic of Rossetti, full of quaint conceits and
humour, from the row of little bottles that hold the good man's
pigments to the dead mouse he is copying and the split pomegranate
that lies uneaten by his side.
The _Dante's Dream_ above mentioned is the first, and in certain
points most beautiful, version of the subject which afterwards served
for Rossetti's largest picture, the one in the Walker Art Gallery at
Liverpool. The water-colour is somewhat squarer in shape, but the
composition and pose of the five figures are very much the same as in
the large Liverpool picture.
In March, 1856, Rossetti secured an important commission--judged by
the standard of his current work and prices--to paint a reredos in
three compartments for the cathedral of Llandaff, which John P.
Seddon was engaged in restoring. The subject he chose for this
undertaking was _The Seed of David_, showing in the centre-piece the
infant Christ on his mother's knee being adored by a shepherd and a
king, and on either side a single figure of David, first as a
shepherd-boy slinging the stone for Goliath, and secondly as a king
harping to the glory of God. The triptych was not completely
finished until 1864, and after that was considerably retouched in
1869, when Rossetti went down to Llandaff for the purpose.
The year 1856 (or, if we take the date of publication, 1857) deserves
commemoration as the year of the famous Moxon "Tennyson," for which
Rossetti designed no fewer than five illustrations.
Separate pen-and-ink drawings exist for most, if not for all, of
these Tennyson designs, and water-colours were afterwards painted
from three of them.
In point of number and interest the productions of 1857 are
remarkable. It was the year of the Oxford frescoes, for one thing,
though these dragged on till 1859; and it was the year of a charming
little series of water-colours, which were acquired one after the
other by Rossetti's newly-made acquaintance, William Morris, who,
some time later, being in want of capital for his own business, sold
them in a batch to their late possessor, Mr. George Rae. These
comprise:
(1) The _Damsel of the Sanc Grael_, robed in green, holding a
long-stemmed cup in her hand.
(2) _The Death of Breuse sans Pitié_, one of the crudest and least
successful of Rossetti's water-colours.
(3) _The Chapel before the Lists_, a scene suggested by Malory of a
lady helping to arm a kneeling knight, her long white head-dress, as
she stoops to kiss him, falling like a mantle down her blue dress.
Upon the pointed shield of the knight is a figure of a maiden in
distress. Beyond the chapel is a tented field, and knights going
forth to joust.
(4) _The Tune of Seven Towers_, a quaint little scene, very
characteristic of Rossetti's fertility and originality of invention.
A lady in red with mediaeval head-dress is sitting in a high oaken
chair, which above towers up into a sort of belfry, and is playing
upon a musical instrument which also forms part of the chair. A man
in green doublet, with long boots, sits sideways on a stool close by
watching her, and a second lady stands mournfully behind. A banner
hangs down at the right from a pole which cuts the picture diagonally
in half.
(5) _The Blue Closet_, illustrated and described elsewhere.
[Illustration: THE BLUE CLOSET.]
_The Wedding of St. George_, in the same collection, belongs to this
year, but was not acquired from Mr. Morris. The old story of St.
George and the Dragon had a powerful influence upon the romantic
school to which Rossetti belonged. Burne-Jones's variations upon it
are well known, and Rossetti also, besides treating it as a whole in
a series of designs for stained glass windows, painted St. George
more than once at typical stages of the adventure. In this earliest
version he is resting from his feat, clad in armour, with a gorgeous
surcoat, whilst the princess kneels and leans her head upon his
breast, cutting off a long dark lock of hair which she has bound upon
the crest of his helmet. The dragon's head, a monstrous object,
stands grotesquely in one corner in a box with ropes attached for
drawing it along. In the background is a hedge of flowers and
attendant angels playing on bells.
The artistic and romantic impulses stirring in England at the
midpoint of the century had, as we have seen, produced one notable
movement in the shape of the "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood." Five or
six years later they gave rise to another, not less important, and
shortly afterwards a fusion of the two took place. The second of
these "Brotherhoods"--the word was actually adopted for a time--had
its origin at Exeter College, Oxford, in the personalities of William
Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and resolved itself at first, like its
forerunner, into a "crusade and holy warfare against the age," with
an added religious tinge which was hardly visible in the other. The
Oxford group, like the "P.R.B.," published a magazine to illustrate,
not to preach, their principles, and had as a tangible link with
Rossetti the same warm appreciation of the beauties of the Arthurian
legend first introduced to their notice by Burne-Jones.
In the Christmas vacation of 1855 Burne-Jones came up to London, and
after attending a meeting of the Working Men's College in order to
see Rossetti, whom he and Morris had already begun to worship, he was
introduced to him at Vernon Lushington's rooms in Doctors' Commons.
The next day he visited Rossetti in his studio at Blackfriars, and
saw him working on _Fra Pace_. Thus was laid the foundation of an
alliance which even more potently than the "P.R.B." has changed the
face of art in England, and which resulted in the formation of a
group that for combined poetic, literary, and artistic power is
unapproached in the history of the nation. Incidentally, it was this
visit that determined Burne-Jones--hankering after art, but
predestined for the Church--to become a painter; and no one can fail
to be struck with the evidence of Rossetti's influence upon his early
work.
To the "Oxford and Cambridge Magazine," William Morris's organ, which
ran for the twelve months of 1856, Rossetti contributed "The Burden
of Nineveh," "The Blessed Damozel" (a little altered from the "Germ"
version), and "The Staff and Scrip."
By the end of 1856 Burne-Jones and Morris had left Oxford and were
settled in London, occupying the rooms at 17, Red Lion Square, which
had formerly served as a studio for Rossetti and Deverell. Both were
under the spell of Rossetti's influence. The _ménage_ at Red Lion
Square lasted till 1859, and was a rallying point for all members of
the circle. "From the incidents that occurred or were invented
there," says Mr. Mackail, "a sort of Book of the Hundred Merry Tales
gradually was formed, of which Morris was the central figure." The
rooms were "the quaintest in all London," as Burne-Jones wrote, "hung
with brasses of old knights and drawings of Albert Dürer"; and in
order to furnish them recourse had to be had to invention. A local
joiner was engaged to manufacture furniture from Morris's own
designs: "intensely mediaeval" was Rossetti's description of it to a
friend, "tables and chairs like incubi and succubi." Next came the
idea of painting pictures on walls, cupboards, and doors, about the
time that Morris was planning to build himself at Upton, in the
neighbourhood of Bexley Heath, a "palace of art" the like of which
should never have been seen. In the general enthusiasm Rossetti set
to and designed a pair of panels for a cabinet--the subject of his
early pen-and-ink drawing, _The Salutation of Beatrice_, representing
in two compartments Dante meeting Beatrice in Florence, and again in
Paradise.
At the risk of repetition, one may mention once more a side of the
movement which is apt to be overshadowed by its far-reaching results;
namely, the light-heartedness and sense of fun which prevailed
amongst this band of artistic pioneers. There was nothing of the
mawkish affectation which discredited the aesthetes who came after.
When Burne-Jones was down at Upton, helping to decorate the Red House
in 1860, Rossetti wrote to a mutual friend: "I wish you were in town,
to see you sometimes, for I literally see no one now except Madox
Brown pretty often, and even he is gone to join Morris, who is out of
reach at Upton, and with them is married Jones painting the inner
walls of the house that Top built (Morris was always called 'Topsy'
by his friends). But as for the neighbours, when they see men
pourtrayed by Jones upon the walls, the images of the Chaldeans
pourtrayed (by _him!_) in Extract Vermilion, exceeding all
probability in dyed attire upon their heads, after the manner of no
Babylonians of any Chaldea, the land of anyone's nativity--as soon as
they see them with their eyes, shall they not account him doting and
send messengers into Colney Hatch?"
During the long vacation of 1857 Rossetti went up to Oxford with
Morris on a visit to the architect, Benjamin Woodward, who was at
work upon a debating hall for the Union Society, and seeing an
opportunity for mural decoration of a kind never previously attempted
in England in the new hall of the Union, he became fired with an idea
for carrying it out. The hall was a long building, with an apse at
each end, and a gallery running all the way round. In this gallery
were bookcases, and above the cases were ten semi-circular bays, each
pierced with a pair of circular windows. These bays, it was
suggested, should be painted with scenes from the Arthurian legend,
and the roof, as part of the general scheme, was to be decorated in a
harmonious manner. A building committee was in charge of the
operations, and without any clear idea of its responsibilities or
restrictions it fell in with Rossetti's proposal that he and a select
band of artists should execute the work gratuitously, but that the
Union should defray their expenses at Oxford and should provide all
necessary materials. The time estimated for completing the work was
six weeks. Seven artists, including Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and
Morris, were enlisted without much trouble, the remaining four being
Arthur Hughes, Spencer Stanhope, Val Prinsep, and J. Hungerford
Pollen, who had already won much credit from his painting of the roof
in Merton College Chapel. Rossetti took as subjects for two bays
_Launcelot asleep before the Chapel of the Sanc Grael_ and _Sir
Galahad, Sir Bors and Sir Percival receiving the Sanc Grael_. The
others chose similar themes, but in a short time it was found that
the work in hand was considerably more than had been anticipated,
though abundant evidence remains of the enthusiasm which was put into
it.
Unfortunately the delight was not to be of long duration. Almost
before the pictures were finished they had begun to decay, the effect
of tempera laid direct upon a new brick wall, with no preparation but
a layer of whitewash, being quite inadequate to resist the English
climate. Several of the designs were never completed. In 1859 some
arrangement was entered into by the Union with a Mr. Riviere to fill
the three blank compartments; and after that the ill-fated
undertaking, on which so much pains and so much skill had been spent,
gradually faded away and resolved itself into what it is to-day, a
dingy blur of colours in which may be distinguished the occasional
vague form of an armoured limb or a patch of flowery background.
Rossetti's connection with Oxford, and its intercalation in his work,
does not end with the Union paintings. It was destined to furnish
him with a more lasting influence--a face that to the end of his life
haunted his pictures with an austere and solemn beauty, dominating
and transforming all other kinds, so as even to give rise to the
suggestion--a shallow and ignorant one, it is true--that he painted
but one type of face. It was at the theatre, one night in the summer
of 1857, that Rossetti and Burne-Jones found themselves sitting near
two youthful Misses Burden, daughters of an Oxford resident, the
elder of whom, by her striking features and wealth of dark wavy hair,
appealed so forcibly to Rossetti's painter eye that he obtained an
introduction in order to ask for sittings. A pen-and-ink head called
_Queen Guenevere_, now in the National Gallery at Dublin, and
evidently intended to replace the earlier studies done for _Launcelot
at the Shrine_, was one of the first fruits of this acquaintance,
which, for the rest, does not seem to have become really prolific of
results until several years later, when Rossetti's wife was dead. In
the meantime William Morris, whose admiration went even further, had
married Miss Burden, and the casual relationship of painter and
sitter which existed between her and Rossetti deepened into a
friendship, in which Miss Siddal participated, both up to and after
her marriage.