Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti or Dante Gabriel Rossetti was known as a British poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He was considered the most successful member of his family, the Rossetti family. Moreover, he was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and he then became the main inspiration for the second generation of artists and writer influenced by the movement.
In the beginning, Rossetti gained his popularity from his two portrait pieces of Maria as a young girl. These two art pieces were named ”Girlhood of Mary Virgin(1849)” and” Ecce Ancilla Domini( 1950)”. He highly inspired by the work of early Renaissance artists such as Botticelli and Fra Angelico, so he deiced to work with the Annunciation theme with his unique interpretation. As Gombrich said in ” the story of art”, in the piece ” Ecce Ancilla Domini ” Rossetti want the audience to see the ancient story with a fresh mind. The piece illustrates the scene when Gabriel came to the Virgin and gave her a white lily. Rossetti successful painted the expression on the Virgin and her pose. The Virgin here look surprises and awkward since she was waking up from her sleep by an angel. Also, he also chose to paint this piece almost white and the three primary colours. Blue represents for heaven and it often associated with the Virgin. Red symbolized the blood of Christ.
Rossetti’s relationships with his models and muses including Elizabeth Siddal, Fanny Cornforth and Jane Morris had a significant effect on his works.
In 1850,he met Elizabeth, she became his muse, his pupil and his passion and they then married in 1860. We got to see a handful of Elizabeth portrait and one of the most well known portrait piece of her is the ‘‘ Venus Verticordia ”.
Venus Verticordia – I love the colour palette in this piece. He depicts her as the Venus Goddess which look tremendously breathtaking. The colour of the skin look really realistic and I love her face expression.
During 1860, he got influence on the development of the European Symbolic movement. He started to stylize women in his artworks. He would portray his new lover Fanny Cornforth as the epitome of physical eroticism, and he would also illustrate Jane Burden, the wife of William Morris as glamorous as an ethereal goddess.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti
The story of art by E.H.Gombrich