Discuss the depiction of women in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s images. In what ways does he engage with the notion of ideal women and the cult of feminine beauty in these works?
In pre-Raphaelite paintings, a famously known model, Elizabeth Siddal appears as an idealised form of the female body. In the 19th century, she was the central figure of the muse that often combined with man’s fantasy and sensuality with poetic idealism. Although Rossetti and Siddal’s marriage was not so idealised rather a tragedy, but they formed a relationship of an artist and the muse. After the death of Siddal, Rossetti departed from the notion of ideal women and he was preoccupied with the interlinked theme of “Lilith’ in both his paintings and poetry. Rossetti …show more content…
His wife’s death certainly triggered him to produce a kind of threatening, mysterious, frightening, but fascinating “Femme Fatale” imagery. However, before discussing that, the paper will briefly explore the relationship between Siddal and Rossetti. Elizabeth Siddal was the muse figure of the pre-Raphaelite in the 19th century and her sister-in-law, Christina Rossetti depicted the artist and a muse relationship in an idealistic approach in her poem “In an Artist’s Studio.” However, their marriage was not very successful unlike Christina’s beautiful poetry but there were lots of misunderstandings and tensions caused by Rossetti’s love affairs with other women. While some say that Siddal had a problematic personal characteristic of self-pitying obsession and her intake of opium what led to her death. With emotionally detailed sentences, Lucinda Hawksley describes Siddal’s grief after losing her baby by stating, “Elizabeth Siddal, in her grief, became a pathetic figure, sitting in the drawing room for hours without moving her position, just staring silently into the fire.” Furthermore, she states that Georgiana, a wife of E. Burne-Jones, heard that Siddal asking to stay quiet not to wake up the baby. Early in 1862, Siddal was found dead in Rossetti’s home. Rossetti felt great guilt over his wronged wife. The death of his wife, …show more content…
Furthermore, he deliberately gave a title of “Lady Lilith”, while he was fully aware of that Lilith from the Apocryphal couldn’t be accepted as a lady in the Victorian Age. In addition, it was not a right term for someone like the mistress Fanny Cornforth-a model of this painting. Apart from the elegiac ironical title, Rossetti invites the audience to appreciate her physical beauty through highlighting her sensuality and power of virginal body, which often associates with the fatal seduction of men. Cornforth’s matured sexuality illustrates the empowerment of her own body and later the figure Lilith became a symbol of a threat to manhood that are often described as “the mother of phallic” in the
In pre-Raphaelite paintings, a famously known model, Elizabeth Siddal appears as an idealised form of the female body. In the 19th century, she was the central figure of the muse that often combined with man’s fantasy and sensuality with poetic idealism. Although Rossetti and Siddal’s marriage was not so idealised rather a tragedy, but they formed a relationship of an artist and the muse. After the death of Siddal, Rossetti departed from the notion of ideal women and he was preoccupied with the interlinked theme of “Lilith’ in both his paintings and poetry. Rossetti …show more content…
His wife’s death certainly triggered him to produce a kind of threatening, mysterious, frightening, but fascinating “Femme Fatale” imagery. However, before discussing that, the paper will briefly explore the relationship between Siddal and Rossetti. Elizabeth Siddal was the muse figure of the pre-Raphaelite in the 19th century and her sister-in-law, Christina Rossetti depicted the artist and a muse relationship in an idealistic approach in her poem “In an Artist’s Studio.” However, their marriage was not very successful unlike Christina’s beautiful poetry but there were lots of misunderstandings and tensions caused by Rossetti’s love affairs with other women. While some say that Siddal had a problematic personal characteristic of self-pitying obsession and her intake of opium what led to her death. With emotionally detailed sentences, Lucinda Hawksley describes Siddal’s grief after losing her baby by stating, “Elizabeth Siddal, in her grief, became a pathetic figure, sitting in the drawing room for hours without moving her position, just staring silently into the fire.” Furthermore, she states that Georgiana, a wife of E. Burne-Jones, heard that Siddal asking to stay quiet not to wake up the baby. Early in 1862, Siddal was found dead in Rossetti’s home. Rossetti felt great guilt over his wronged wife. The death of his wife, …show more content…
Furthermore, he deliberately gave a title of “Lady Lilith”, while he was fully aware of that Lilith from the Apocryphal couldn’t be accepted as a lady in the Victorian Age. In addition, it was not a right term for someone like the mistress Fanny Cornforth-a model of this painting. Apart from the elegiac ironical title, Rossetti invites the audience to appreciate her physical beauty through highlighting her sensuality and power of virginal body, which often associates with the fatal seduction of men. Cornforth’s matured sexuality illustrates the empowerment of her own body and later the figure Lilith became a symbol of a threat to manhood that are often described as “the mother of phallic” in the