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The Pre-Raphaelites Spring 2003 Pre-Raphaelite Images Women Pre-Raphaelite Artists Evelyn Pickering de Morgan Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale Elizabeth Siddal Kate Bunce Joanna Boyce Lucy Madox Brown Jane Benham Hay Marie Spartali Stillman Anna Blunden Barbara Bodichon Rebecca Solomon Emma Sandys Marianne Perindelsberger Stokes |
Women Pre-Raphaelite Artists
Here are a number of images by women artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. As you look at them, think about whether there are differences--in subject, style, treatment of subject--between the males and the females.The above work, The Uninvited Guest by Eleanor F. Brickdale (1906), shows a procession of richly-dressed people leaving a wedding ceremony, oblivious of the figure of Love, an "uninvited guest" at a marriage of rank, wealth and convenience. Note the nettles and prickles growing by the path from the church. What do you think of Brickdale's visual image of Love? If you try to imagine what Love looks like, do you come up with an image like this?
Rosa Brett
Rosa Brett, Bunny, pencil drawing, 1873. This study of the artist's cat is one of several animal and bird studies the aratist made. A later painting of a cat led a critic to say this: "There is an astonishing cat, dozing in tabby comfort. . . how hard she blinks her green eyes, and with what inward satisfaction she tucks up her forepaws upon her litter of hay. For minute picking out of every detail of fur, its softness and gloss, this little picture is quite a phenomenon."Rosa Brett, Old House at Farleigh, 1862. This depicts one of the medieval houses in Kent, near where the artist lived in 1862. The stone parts of the building probably date to late 13th or early 14th century.
Rosa Brett, From Bluebell Hill, watercolor, 1851. This was made on location on a painting expedition with her brother John; the painting sessions varied from whole-day sessions to a couple of hours, depending on Rosa's domestic duties.
Rosa Brett, In the Artist's Garden, 1859-60. Horse chestnut, lilac, and lawn appear here, though the work is unifinished. Critics have remarked on the "democratic" focus, in which nothing takes emphasis but all details are given the same amount of detail.
Evelyn de Morgan, Dawn (Aurora Triumphans), 1876. de Morgan is frequently allegoric and often based her work on the dichotomy of light and dark. Here the awakening of light--the drowsy figure on the right--signifies enlightenment, and the driving away of darkness--the fleeing figure at bottom left--signifies the dispelling of the ignorance, doubt, and bad faith that cloud the human spirit.
Evelyn de Morgan, Portrait of Jane Morris (Study for The Hourglass), colored chalks, c. 1904. Jane Morris (1839-1914) was a good friend of Evelyn de Morgan; at the time of the portrait, they were exceptionally close, most of her old associates having died. It is interesting to look at this portrait in connection with Rossetti's almost obsessive portraits of her.
Evelyn de Morgan, The Hourglass, 1905. The drawing above was a study for this oil painting, here described by De Morgan's sister: "In an ancient chair inlaid with ivory, a woman is seen seated. Behind her on the wall are glowing tapestries; a gold lamp of medival design is suspended above her head. Her draperies . . . are thickly sewn with pearls, the delineation of which in correct perspective constituted a tour de force. Jewels of barbaric design accentuate the richness of her attire and gleam again from her quaint head-dress, beneath which shows the first indication of age--her whitening locks. Meanwhile, with a brooding sorrow, her gaze is fixed upon an hourglass, clasped in her slender fingers, wherein the sands are swiftly running out; at her feet is a dying rose and close to her lies a book on which are visible the words Mors Janua Vitae (Death is the portal of life). So too, unheeded by her, outside the open doorway stands the figure of life the Immortal, piping, piping joyously in the sunlight in robes of azure amid the blossoming flowers of spring."
Evelyn de Morgan, Flora, 1894. This work derives from de Morgan's studies of Botticelli, particularly Primavera and The Birth of Venus, at the Uffizi gallery in Florence. In Roman mythology, the nymph Chloris is transformed into the goddess Flora, the Mother of Flowers.
Evelyn de Morgan, Earthbound, 1897. This is an allegorical composition, in which an aged king, in a desolate country, broods over his hoard of gold while the dark Angel of Death approaches. When the painting was first shown in 1907, de Morgan added these lines, which she wrote:
Who clutches at a heap of gold
Still clutches what he may not hold,
The soul that knows no second birth
Shall wane, fast held by Mother Earth.
Grim twins await his latest breath,
Oblivion, hand in hand with Death;
He sinks, the captive of his prize,
Nor ever knows that others rise.Joanna Boyce Joanna Boyce, Elgiva, 1855. Elgiva was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to David Hume's History of England, fell foul of the powerful Archbishop Odo. Her marriage was forcibly dissolved, she was branded on the face and exiled to Ireland. Ruskin praised the expression, "the dignity of all the treatment," and the way the lip seems to begin to quiver, the eyes to fill with sadness.
Joanna Boyce, Bird of God, 1861. This painting was inspired by Browning's poem "Guardian Angel; it became Boyce's last work before her unexpected death in 1861. "My Bird of God is finished or nearly so," wrote the artist, "but disappoints me sadly." It didn't disappoint the art critics, who called it "exquisite."
Joanna Boyce, Portrait of Sidney Wells, 1859. Sidney was the artist's first child, born at the end of 1858 and pictured here while less than a year old. "I am trying to make a likeness of that little gentleman," the artist wrote to a friend, "but one may as well try to make a faithful study of a flea." Boyce had two more children, both girls, but Sidney is the only one to have his portrait painted. He died in 1869.
Jane Benham Hay, England and Italy, 1859. In the exhibition catalogue, the picture was depicted as showing "Two boys, one of English type, the other an Italian boy of the people." The artist said "In one I have endeavored to express the pure happiness of our children; in the other the obstination of the oppressed and suffering poor of Italy." The subject of the relationship between Italy and England was topical, as Italian unification was soon to be achieved. Some critics, however, rejected the political allegory and wondered if the artist would soon depict an English guttersnipe and the child of a noble Italian lady.
Lucy Madox Brown, Margaret Roper Rescuing the Head of her Father Sir Thomas More, 1873. Lucy was the oldest of Ford Madox Brown's three surviving children of his first marriage. She later married William Rossetti. After becoming a mother, she painted only rarely; however, she was active politically in the cause of women's suffrage.
A label on the back of the painting describes this scene: "Margaret Roper by night stealthily removes the head of her father Sir Thomas More from London Bridge, A.D. 1534." Lord Chancellor More was executed for refusing to support Henry VIII's divorce, and so in accord with custom, his severed head was placed on a spike at the entrance to London Bridge. His daughter Margaret removed it for Christian burian, an act of courage and filial honor that, together with her reputation for learning, elevated her into histories of "famous women" popular in the 19th century. Had she been caught removing the head, she too could have been charged with treason.
Anna Blunden, 'For only one short hour' (Song of the Shirt), 1854. The title is taken from a poem by Thomas Hood, "The Song of the Shirt," on the plight of underpaid seamstresses; the following lines were quoted with the painting at its first exhibition: "For only one short hour/ to feel as I used to feel/ before I knew the woes of want/ and the walk that costs a meal."
Anna Blunden, View near the Lizard: Polpeor Beach, watercolor, 1862. Bluden began her career with "genre paintings" like "For only one short hour," above, but turned to landscape work in the mid 1860s.
Barbara Bodichon, Sisters Working in our Fields, c. 1858-60. In 1856 the artist made her first visit to North Africa, in hopes of finding "some wilder country to paint." Algerian landscapes quickly became her specialty; the scene here is from the "villa on the green heights of Mustapha Superieur, commanding a glorious view of sea, city and plain."
Barbara Bodichon, At Ventnor, Isle of Wight, watercolor, 1856. Bodichon was a friend of George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) and often corresponded with her about her works. Bodichon was one of the leading feminist campaigners of her time.
Rebecca Solomon, The Wounded Dove, watercolor, 1866. The subject is Solomon's own, but the juxtaposition of a female figure in a domestic setting with a bird was a common theme at the time.
Emma Sandys, Lady in Yellow Dress, c. 1870. The medievalising background uses a Flemish tapestry owned by the Norwich Castle Museum.
Emma Sandys, Elaine, c. 1862-5. Elaine is a heroine of Tennyson's Arthurian poem Idylls of the King; her love for Lancelot is unrequited. Elaine is the name given by some writers to the Lady of Shalott, who falls madly in love with Lancelot but can never have him.
Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, The Pale Complexion of True Love, 1899. The title is taken from Shakespeare's AS You Like It, Act III, when Corin speaks of Silvius' unrequired love for Phebe as a "pageant play'd Between the pale complexion of true love And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain." Brickdale's setting is closer to Renaissance Italy than Elizabethan England, and the people are not Shakespeare's shepherds but definitely nobility.
Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale,The Ugly Princess, c. 1902. The composition was inspired by a poem by Charles Kingsley, whose concluding lines were quoted in the catalogue when the picture was exhibited: "I was not good enough for man and so am given to God." The heroine is a princess forced to become a nun after being rejected by her intended husband.
Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale,The Little Foot Page, 1905. The work is based on the story of Burd Helen, a tragic heroine from Scottish balladry, who dressed as a boy page to follow her cruel lover on foot while he rode on horseback. After bearing him a child, she was finally acknowledged by him and they married. Here she is shown secretly doffing her female attire and cutting her long hair, in preparation for her journey. Within a few years of the exhibition, modern female art students were cutting their hair in "page boy" style.
Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, The Uninvited Guest, 1906.
Marie Spartali Stillman, Dante at Verona, 1888. This was accompanied when first exhibited, by a quotation from Rossetti's poem of the same name:
. . . . He comes upon
The women at their palm-playing.
The conduits round the gardens sing
And meet in scoops of milk-white stone,
Where wearied damsels rest and hold
Their hands in the wet spurt of gold.
One of whom, knowing well that he,
By some found stern, was mild with them,
Would run and pluck his garment's hem,
Saying, 'Messer Dante, pardon me,'
Praying that they might hear the song
Which first of all he made, when young.The song Dante made "when young" is the Vita Nuova, which induces a pensive mood in both poet and listeners. The scene is an imagined re-creation of a public garden in medieval Verona, to which Dante was exiled.
Marie Spartali Stillman, A Florentine Lily, gouache and watercolor, c. 1885-90. The title may be interpreted simultaneously as a young woman from Florence and the spirit of the city, whose fleur-de-lys emblem she holds and whose Palazzo Vecchio is seen through the window. Stillman is the model for the figure on the left in Rossetti's Bower Meadow.
Marie Spartali Stillman, St. George, watercolor and pencil, 1892. St. George, patron saint of England and Greece, was popular with Victorian artists because of his patriotic and religious-chivalric appeal. The hero is depicted here in youth, as an ideal of masculinity--at least from this woman artist's point of view. What traits do you find here?
Marie Spartali Stillman, The Enchanted Garden of Messer Ansaldo, 1889. The subject is from Boccaccio's Decameron, which tells the story of Messer Ansaldo's love for Madonna Dianora, the virtuous wife of another man. With the aid of sorcery, he makes the garden blossom in mid-winter in order to win her (she pledges that if he can do this she will be his). The scene shows him at his moment of triumph, but she seems less than delighted, having no wish to see him achieve his task. Boccaccio was widely regarded in the 19th century as too bawdy for refined tastes, but the artist has downplayed the sexual drama in favor of color and natural setting.
Marianne Perindelsberger Stokes, Madonna and Child, tempera on panel, c. 1907-08. Between 1905-10, the artist made several journeys with her husband to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which resulted in a large number of paintings. (See also St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spinning for the Poor, on the Arthurian 2 page.) The original study for the work showed only a mother and child; the haloes and briars arching behind were a later addition. Critics responded positively to the "daylight honesty and clarity," as well as the "learned simplicity and straightforwardness" of the picture.
Marianne Perindelsberger Stokes, St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spinning for the Poor, 1895. St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a medieval noblewoman canonised in 1235. Married at 14 to the landgrave of Thuringia, she was renowned for her good works and self-mortification. After her husband's death, she refused to remarry, renounced her crown, and became a nun. Here she is depicted as a pious young girl.
Kate Elizabeth Bunce (1890), The Minstrel. Here is the catalog description: "Through the narrow streets of a medieval town, the glee-maiden pursues her way, touching her mandolin as she goes, self-absorbed and heedless of the gossiping remarks and wondering glances of those who have clustered at their doors to see her pass." This image also appears at the top of the 2777 home page.
Kate Bunce, The Keepsake, tempera on canvas, 1898-1901. This was chosen as "Picture of the Year" by the Pall Mall Gazette in 1901. It illustrates Rossetti's poem "The Staff and Scrip," a passage after the death of the pilgrim: "Then stepped a damsel to her side/ And spoke and needs must weep:/ For his sake, lady, if he died/ He prayed of thee to keep/ This staff and scrip."
Elizabeth Siddal, Lady Clare, 1857. This drawing illustrates Tennyson's Lady Clare, in which the heroine's natural mother begs her to conceal her humble origin, lest Lord Ronald withdraw his offer of marriage. Lady Clare refuses:
'I'm a beggar born,' she said,
'I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold
And fling the diamond necklace by.''Nay now, my child,' said Alice the nurse,
'But keep the secret all ye can.'
She said, 'Not so; but I will know
If there be any faith in man."Elizabeth Siddal, The Lady of Shalott, pencil, pen, black ink, and sepia, 1853. This is the 4th version of the Lady of Shalott, and the only one done by a woman. It's interesting to note what point in the story the artist chooses to depict. Here, Siddal shows her at the moment she looks out the window, echoing these lines by Tennyson:
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott.Still, some critics have noted that this is the one moment in the story and poem in which the lady is in control of her own destiny; others have remarked that while most Pre-Raphaelite paintings allow us to look at women, in this drawing it is the woman who is allowed to look at the world.
Elizabeth Siddal, Clerk Saunders, watercolor, 1857. This work traveled to the USA in 1858 in an exhibit organized by Rossetti. It was among those singled out for harsh criticism, being called a minor and unimportant Pre-Raphaelite work. Did the artist's gender play a part in that judgment?
The subject is taken from a ballad by Sir Walter Scott by the same name. The story is one of love between social unequals; objects in the room such as the prie-dieu suggest the medieval era and a female sphere of religious devotion. May Margaret is kneeling on her alcove bed raising a wand to her lips as the ghost of her murdered lover Clerk Saunders enters through the wall, asking her to renew her vows.
Elizabeth Siddal, Lady Affixing Pennant to a Knight's Spear, watercolor, 1861. Siddal was encouraged in her artistic works by both Rossetti and Ruskin, who believed she had extraordinary talent. Here, a medieval lady helps a knight fix a pennant to his lance before he rides out to combat.
