Author Description

"Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82) is best known for his contribution to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, of which he was a founding member in 1848. By 1853 he and his colleagues, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, had gone their separate ways and Rossetti retreated into a medieval fantasy world. He concentrated on themes from the life and works of his namesake Dante Alighieri and from Malory's legends of King Arthur, depicting these and other poetic subjects exclusively in watercolour. In 1859 his art changed again. He reverted to oil-painting and produced a series of idealized and symbolic portraits of 'stunners' - beautiful women shown at close range in exotic settings - who were to become his staple subject matter for the rest of his career. Rossetti's themes emphasize the female domination of men, often linking it with male destruction.^ His symbolic use of flowers and of motifs drawn from Japanese and Oriental art in these 'subjectless' pictures mark him out as a founder of the Aesthetic Movement in Britain and a precursor of European Symbolism." "This exhibition, held to mark both the millennium and the centenary of the University of Birmingham, focuses on a selection of languorous beauties painted between c. 1860 and 1870. Its centrepiece is The Blue Bower, a masterpiece that Rossetti executed in 1865, using his housekeeper and mistress, Fanny Cornforth, as model. This seminal picture is explored within the context of the artist's development and personal circumstances during the 1860s. The reasons for his change of style and medium are investigated and particular attention is paid to his relationships with women, especially Fanny Cornforth, Lizzie Siddal, Alexa Wilding and Jane Morris. The exhibition explores thematic links with the history and literature of the period.^ It also discusses Rossetti's connections with the Old Masters, notably Titian and the Venetians, and with his contemporaries, including Whistler, Courbet, Burne-Jones and Munch."--Jacket.