Rossetti's 'For Our Lady of the Rocks": An Examination of Pre-Raphaelite Beliefs
Vilayath and Lance
1327
The shadows, gloom, and underworld aspect that Rossetti
illustrates are a direct attempt at changing meaning. The ekphrastic was a way
of accomplishing this task, of making the meaning of something change. That
which already exists, for Rossetti, can still be revisited, and perhaps
altered. This is what Rossetti’s sonnet is addressing, the need for the
audience, the optimistic and unemotional cultish mass, to congregate in the
harsh gloom of life, with all of its unattractive aspects. Those who would see
something in only one holy light are at risk of creating a false, faulty image
of the content. It is this lack of sincerity, of honesty, that is so damaging
for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
It was this process of bonding the breathing together
with the dying, the beautiful and the morbid, which reflected the main
obsession of these great painters and writers. The paradigm that they saw was
no longer at odds; under their brushwork and poetry, it was united as an
inescapable concept of life itself. It was, for them, something that needed to
be celebrated, and humbly accepted as well. This was the purpose of the
Pre-Raphaelites, one that can be seen in their final works. More importantly,
this essay has shown how these concepts are in their germination period in the
poetry that Rossetti wrote for the painting of the Madonna. Furthermore, this
enables the scholar a window into the process of the pursuit of the
beauty/morbidity paradigm and how Rossetti embarked on that path.
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In conclusion, this
exhibit has highlighted the various processes in which Dante Gabriel
Rossetti exercised his artistic views and passions. His method, the
use of ekphrastic poetry coupled with constant discussions of the
paradigm of beauty and morbidity, illustrate his own inner questioning
of the divine and mortality, a struggle that was greatly portrayed
within the tensions of his work. These tensions sprung from his public
effort to reject the academic perspective of art and recreate an
understanding of art that explored and broke free of the boundaries the
Victorian artistic society considered of good artistic taste. Paying
great respect and reverence to the celebrated artist before Raphael,
Rossetti was also motivated by the shared perspective of prominent
artists of his own time, namely William Blake, a point that would
reaffirm his position and encourage him to continue his cause. In his
association with a brotherhood of likeminded artists and poets,
Rossetti developed a perspective which fulfilled his goals of
changing the established understanding of art to make way for a
community unafraid to view, create, and redefine beauty and art. |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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