Frederic George Stephens andWalter Theodore Watts-Dunton

“ There is unprecedented energy in the group of the lovers embracing in the garden-house just as they have paused in reading the fatal romance. The composition of this group, with the circular window behind their figures, is as fine as it was comparatively novel in Rossetti's. practice. Its lurid coloration was so thoroughly in harmony with the pathos of the subject that in this respect the work excelled all the painter had previously produced. ”

“ In poetry no less than in art what makes Rossetti so important a figure is the position he took up with regard to the modern revival of the “ romantic ” spirit. The Renascence of Wonder culminates in Rossetti's poetry as it culminates in his painting. The poet who should go beyond Rossetti would pass out of the realm of poetry into pure mysticism, as certain of his sonnets show. ”

“ For if there is any permanent vitality in the Renascence of Wonder in modern Europe, if it is really the inevitable expression of the soul of man in a certain stage of civilization (when the sanctions which have made and moulded society are found to be not absolute and eternal, but relative, mundane, ephemeral and subject to the higher sanctions of unseen powers that work behind “ the shows of things ”) , then perhaps one of the first questions to ask in regard to any imaginative painter of the 19th century is, In what relation did he stand to the newly awakened spirit of romance? ”

“ Although his apparent lack of rhythmic spontaneity places him below the great master as a singer (for in these miracles of Coleridge's genius poetry ceases to appear as a fine art at all -it is the inspired song of the changeling child “ singing, dancing to itself ”) , in permanence of the romantic feeling, in vitality of belief in the power of the unseen, Rossetti stands alone. Even the finest portions of his historical ballad “ The King's Tragedy ” are those which deal with the supernatural. The events of Rossetti's life may be briefly summarized. ”

“ This wonderful gem of colour, glowing in lurid and wicked passion and voluptuous suggestion, marked the opening of the artist's second period and signalized his departure from that phase of Pre-Raphaelitism of which “ Ecce Ancilla Domini!" was the crowning achievement, and, so far as he was concerned, the artistic ne plus ultra. Millais and the other Brothers remained faithful during several years yet to come. ”

“ The reader, owing to the atmosphere surrounding the dramatic action being entirely classic, does not believe for a moment in the serpent woman. The classic accessories suggested by Burton's brief narrative hampered Keats where to Rossetti (as we see in “ Pandora, ” “ Cassandra” and “ Troy Town ”) they would simply have given birth to romantic ideas. It is perhaps with Coleridge alone that Rossetti can be compared as a worker in the Renascence of Wonder. ”

“ The point of Pre-Raphaelite crystallization which had so great though brief an influence upon Rossetti’s life and art was found at a chance meeting of Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt in Millais’s house in Gower Street, where certain prints from early Italian frescoes were studied. The enthusiasm of Rossetti led him to propose the formation of a “Brotherhood” with more or less definite views and much loftier aims than artists generally venture to announce. ”

“ Two lovers are walking in twilight Wood, where they are confronted suddenly by their apparitions, portending death. The year 1852 produced “ Giotto painting Dante's Portrait, ” and saw a new development of the painter's mind and mood, dashed with a humour not often to be seen in him. In its somewhat dry coloration it differed from the ardent jewel-like glow and deeper gloom of “ Borgia ” and its successor and the sumptuous visions of womanhood in later pictures. “ Found, ” Rossetti's sole contribution of the sort which Mr Holman Hunt affected, was begun somewhere about this period ”

“ As to the other 19th-century poets, though the Ettrick Shepherd in “ The Queen's Wake ” shows plenty of the true feeling, Hogg's verbosity is too great to allow of really successful work in the field of romantic ballad, where concentrated energy is one of the first requisites. ”

“ Mrs Rossetti, whose health was delicate, had one still-born child in 1861, and she died from an overdose of laudanum in February 1862. Rossetti then moved from Blackfriars to 16 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, where for a short time George Meredith, A. C. Swinburne and W. M. Rossetti Lived with him. Mrs Rossetti's own water-colour designs show an extraordinary genius for invention and a rare instinct for colour. Rossetti felt her death so acutely that in the first paroxysm of his grief he insisted upon his poems (then in manuscript) being buried in her coffin. ”