ROSSETTI, DANTE GABRIEL
English poet and painter, was born on May 12, 1828, at 38 Charlotte Street, London. He was the second of the f our children of Gabriele Rossetti (1783-1854), Italian poet and liberal, a po litical refugee from Naples, who came to England about 1824, and married in 1826 Frances Mary (d. 1886), sister of Byron's physician, Dr. John Polidori. The elder Rossetti became pro fessor of Italian at King's College, London, and was a subtle and original, if eccentric, commentator on Dante. His other children were Maria Francesca (1827-76), who eventually entered an Anglican sisterhood, and is known to scholars by her valuable Shadow of Dante; William Michael (q.v.) ; and Christina (q.v.) the poet.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was educated at King's College School, London. On leaving school he went (1843) to Cary's Art academy (known as Sass's), near Bedford Square, and then (about 1846) to the Royal Academy Antique school. He did not find the instruc tion he desired in the Royal Academy schools, and asked Ford Madox Brown to take him as a pupil. Brown remained his friend even after Rossetti had transferred his admiration to Holman Hunt.
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, in 1848, between Rossetti, Millais and Holman Hunt in Millais's house in Gower Street, where certain prints from early Italian frescoes were studied. Rossetti proposed the formation of a "Brotherhood" with lofty aims, and they were joined by J. Collinson, F. G. Stephens, T. Woolner and W. M. Rossetti. Brown, though invited, declined to become a P-R.B. Rossetti's first effort was "The Girl hood of Mary, Virgin," which in March 1849 was exhibited at the "Free Exhibition," at Hyde Park Corner. The style of this famous picture was jejune, its handling was timid, while its coloration and tonality were dry, not to say thin. Its technique owed something to Brown, but its mysticism was Rossetti's own. Such was his advent in art under the Pre-Raphaelite banner. "Ecce Ancilla Domini!" the smaller picture which is now in the Tate Gallery, London, was his one perfect expression of the original motive of the "Brotherhood." He chose virginal white and its harmonies as its aptest coloration, and the intense light of morning sufficed for its tonality. There is real grace and sweetness in the figure of the Virgin, for which his sister Christina was the model. This picture was exhibited at the Portland Gallery in 185o and was violently attacked by the critics at the time.
In December 185o appeared the first of the four numbers of The Germ,. the organ of the "Brotherhood," in which Rossetti had a leading place in verse and prose. He contributed to it some
of his most famous poems—The Blessed Damozel, six sonnets and four lyrics.
The attack on the Pre-Raphaelites by the critics prejudiced their sales, and Rossetti turned to water-colours. His first con siderable effort in this medium, which proved well-suited to his talent, was the illustration to Browning's poem "The Laboratory," depicting a lady's visit to an old poison-monger to obtain a fatal potion for her rival in love. This wonderful gem of colour marked the opening of the artist's second period, and his departure from that phase of Pre-Raphaelitism of which "Ecce Ancilla Domini!" was the crowning achievement. Other water-colours followed including the original (pen and ink) of "Hesterna Rosa," a gam bling scene (1852), and "Dante drawing the Angel" (1852). "Found" was begun in 1853 ; but this piece of pictorial moralizing (the analogue of the poet's Jenny), vigorous and intensely pathetic as it is, was never really finished.
Rossetti had now become acquainted with the beautiful Elizabeth Siddal, whose sumptuous and individual type moved Hunt, Millais and Rossetti to paint her. Rossetti painted her innumerable times, and they became engaged to be married about 1851. The friends called her "Lizzy" and "Guggums," though the names ill suited her tragic tempera ment and ominous beauty. By 1854 the Brotherhood, championed by John Ruskin, was respectable, but at the moment of success the group was broken up. Ruskin became Rossetti's patron and friend; it was rather a onesided friendship, for Rossetti was not prepared to accept Ruskin's pretensions. In May 186o Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal were married, but the two years of their marriage were painful years, for she was dying of tuberculosis. She gave birth to a still-born child, and on Feb. II, 1862, she died of an overdose of laudanum, which she took from time to time to allay her sufferings. In the meantime Rossetti had met Williani Morris and Burne-Jones, both of them his enthusiastic disciples. To these new friendships are due Rossetti's part in the luckless decorations of the Oxford Union (1857-8). To the exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites in 1857 he sent many works, including the "Wedding of St. George and Princess Sabra" and "Arthur's Tomb" (both in the Tate Gallery, London). "Bocca Baciata," the portrait (in oils) of a woman, a work of wonderful fire, and the pictures on the pulpit at Llandaff Cathedral, marked the close of the second epoch in Rossetti's art and the beginning of the third, last and most powerful of all the phases of his career. The picture "Dr.