Showing posts with label Christine Rossetti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christine Rossetti. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2014
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Christine Rossetti - Portrait of William Michael Rossetti
Price Realized
£8,125
signed and inscribed 'CGR William' (lower left)
pencil, on paper, unframed
7 1/8 x 5 in. (18.1 x 12.7 cm.)
Like her brother William Michael, the sitter here, Christina Rossetti, was an occasional amateur artist. Another example of her work, some sketches of animals (a wombat, squirrels and a fox) executed circa 1862 at the London Zoo, is illustrated in William Michael Rossetti (ed.), The Family Letters of Christina Georgina Rossetti, London, 1908, facing p. 45. These letters also include one from her brother Dante Gabriel, written on 4 August 1852, which specifically mentions her essays in portraiture. 'Maria [their sister] has just shown me a letter of yours by which I find that you have been perpetrating portraits of some kind. If you answer this note, will you enclose a specimen, as I should like to see some of your handiwork'.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
An Echo from Willowwood
This early example of Art Nouveau draughtsmanship was created to illustrate Christina Rossetti's poem An Echo from Willowwood, written in 1870, first published in The Magazine of Art in 1890.
Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
Pale and reluctant on the water's brink.
As on the brink of parting which must be.
Each eyed the other's aspect, she and he,
Each felt one hungering heart leap and sink,
Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,
Here on the brink of life's dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
Two wistful faces craving each for each,
Resolute and reluctant without speech:
A sudden ripple made the faces flow
One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:
So those hearts joined, and ah! were parted so.(1)
Christina Rossetti's sonnet is a response to Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s four-sonnet sequence titled simply Willowwood. William Michael Rossetti suggested that Christina was referring to Dante Gabriel’s first love; his tragic relationship with Lizzie Siddal. Jan Marsh, on the other hand, thinks that Christina is, in fact, commenting on the blossoming love between Dante Gabriel and Jane Morris, whom the poetess saw as yearning for each other, but doomed to be forever parted.(2) In the 1870's, the relationship between Dante Gabriel and Jane became notorious, which probably explains why Christina did not publish the poem with her 1881 collection.
Presumably, in 1890, either the Magazine of Art or Charles Ricketts requested an unpublished poem from Christina. Evidently, seven year's after her brother’s death, she felt able to offer this particularly personal poem for publication.
1. Christina G. Rossetti, An Echo from Willowwood, 1870
2. Jan Marsh, Christina Rossetti, London 1994, page 391
http://www.leicestergalleries.com/19th-20th-century-paintings/d/an-echo-from-willowwood/15046
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Christine Rossetti - Dreamland
Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmed sleep:
Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
Her pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
Upon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
Till time shall cease:
Sleep that no pain shall wake;
Night that no morn shall break
Till joy shall overtake
Her perfect peace.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Christine Rossetti - Uphill
[illus by Chiho Aoshima]
Uphill
by Christina Rossetti
Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day's journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Christine Rossetti - An Echo from Willowwood
"O ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood." (D.G. Rossetti)
Two gazed into a pool, he gazed and she,
Not hand in hand, yet heart in heart, I think,
Pale and reluctant on the water's brink,
As on the brink of parting which must be.
Each eyed the other's aspect, she and he,
Each felt one hungering heart leap up and sink,
Each tasted bitterness which both must drink,
There on the brink of life's dividing sea.
Lilies upon the surface, deep below
Two wistful faces craving each for each,
Resolute and reluctant without speech: —
A sudden ripple made the faces flow
One moment joined, to vanish out of reach:
So those hearts joined, and ah! were parted so.
illus by Charles Ricketts 1890
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
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