William Holman Hunt is one of the "greatest single influence[s] in what is now coming to be known as the artistic Renaissance of the Victorian age," as he played a huge role in developing the Pre-Raphaelite movement in England. Or in other words, Hunt helped establish a new artistic movement to challenge the ideas and motivations of the Renaissance. When he was young, he participated as a student at the prestigious Royal Academy of Art in London where he perfected the skill of oil painting. He was taught alongside other famous artists including J.M.W Turner and William Blake. In 1848, he...
'You cannot take this girl against Queen Ceres' will! She ought to have been wooed, not whirled away.
This is the first chronological oil painting of Proserpine by Rossetti. Eight oil paintings were made and all were destroyed one way or another, this is the seventh of the eight. This was painted for a shipping magnate from Liverpool. This painting has the sonnet that Rossetti wrote in Italian in the upper right corner. It is a much darker painting that accentuates the model, her red lips, and the red of the pomegranate.
The land quakes and Haides leaves his dark domain.
This is the earliest sketch that Rossetti did of Jane Morris as Proserpine. The Proserpine series of drawings and paintings were said to hold the deepest meanings for the couple who could only spend their summers together and winters apart. This drawing was completed while the couple were together at Kelmscott Manor. The composition of this drawing differs from later works: the model's hand that holds the pomegranate is lower yet still relaxed and the incense burner is in the opposite corner.
‘Now Proserpine, of two empires alike great deity, spends with her mother half the year's twelve months and with her husband half. Straightway her heart and features are transformed.’
The red of the pomegranate and of the lips resound in the auburn hair that Rossetti chose for the last version, perhaps a reminiscence of his late wife Elizabeth Siddal. Rossetti depicts Proserpine in her full power, allowing more light on the wall behind her and on the many green folds of her majestic dress.
‘Venus told Cupido to shoot his arrow to the heart of the great god Hades, the emperor of the underworld’.
In this study for the painting, Rossetti did not use the ivy-branch in the background or the incense-burner, as the attribute of a goddess. The hands holding the pomegranate were still relaxed, not as tense as in the later versions; and the eyes, though contemplative, seem to hope that she is only visiting the underworld. Perhaps Proserpine still kept too much of human in Rossetti’s mind.
‘here is no harm, no crime, but love and passion’ Something of an outlier in the series of Rossetti’s ‘most favourite’ composition, this Proserpine, completed in 1878 - shown by the scroll detail in the bottom left-hand corner, is painted in watercolour rather than oil. Rossetti’s love affairs with ‘The Stunners’, including his wife Elizabeth Siddal and mistresses Jane Morris and Fanny Cornforth were famously turbulent, built on passionate and unlawful relationships. Though possessing a strength of colour unseen in many nineteenth-century watercolours, the softer...
‘Here Proserpina was playing in a glade and picking flowers, […] when, in a trice, Haides saw her, loved her, carried her away’ Mrs Morris (1873), or Study for Proserpine, in pencil on paper shows Jane Morris in idle contemplation. The sketch is dated from Kelmscott Manor (the house co-rented by the Morrises and Rossetti), the primary location in which Rossetti and Morris conducted their affair away from the gaze of London society. Like the myth, Rossetti carried away his Proserpine through flowers, fields and lakes just as Hades had – but instead of to the...
First published in 1894, with the English translation of the play, ‘The Peacock Skirt’ is one of sixteen black and white ink framed inset illustrations drawn by Aubrey Beardsley for Oscar Wilde’s play, Salome: A Tragedy in One Act. The illustration depicts the princess Salome, regaled in an elaborate skirt and headdress that are reminiscent of a peacock, conversing with the character known as ‘the young Syrian’. Aubrey Beardsley’s artistic style is a nod to the aesthetic style that emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century known as art nouveau, as well as the movement of...
