Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Italian Renaissance: Envisioning Aesthetic Beauty and the Past Through Images of Women
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Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2010 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE: ENVISIONING AESTHETIC BEAUTY AND THE PAST THROUGH IMAGES OF WOMEN Carolyn Porter Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/113 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Carolyn Elizabeth Porter 2010 All Rights Reserved “DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI AND THE ITALIAN RENAISSANCE: ENVISIONING AESTHETIC BEAUTY AND THE PAST THROUGH IMAGES OF WOMEN” A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. by CAROLYN ELIZABETH PORTER Master of Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University, 2007 Bachelor of Arts, Furman University, 2004 Director: ERIC GARBERSON ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF ART HISTORY Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia August 2010 Acknowledgements I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many individuals and institutions that have helped this project along for many years. Without their generous support in the form of financial assistance, sound professional advice, and unyielding personal encouragement, completing my research would not have been possible. I have been fortunate to receive funding to undertake the years of work necessary for this project. Much of my assistance has come from Virginia Commonwealth University. I am thankful for several assistantships and travel funding from the Department of Art History, a travel grant from the School of the Arts, a Doctoral Assistantship from the School of Graduate Studies, and a Dissertation Writing Assistantship from the university. I am also greatly indebted to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts for a generous Graduate Fellowship, which enabled me to fund dissertation research. Many individuals have shaped my thinking throughout this project, and to them I offer sincere thanks. Jerome McGann, University of Virginia, and Mark Samuels Lasner, University of Delaware, both graciously sacrificed their time to discuss all things Rossetti with me. My research at several institutions would not have been possible without the help of kind and knowledgeable museum and library staff. Specifically, I would like to thank Rebecca Melvin Johnson at the University of Delaware Special Collections; Margaretta S. Frederick and Rachael Di Leteurio at the Delaware Art Museum; Sabrina Abron at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and iii Mitchell Merling at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. I am especially grateful to the members of my dissertation committee, who have each spent so much time guiding me through this arduous endeavor. I am particularly indebted to my advisor, Eric Garberson, who has been an incomparable guide. Much of what I have worked for in my academic career is contained in the following pages. I consider getting it all down a personal accomplishment but not one that would have been possible without the unquestioning support of my amazing family and my companion, Jay. To them, I offer thanks and all my love. iv Table of Contents Page Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................iii Abstract..............................................................................................................................vii Introduction: Rossetti, the Renaissance, and the Representation of Beauty .......................8 Chapter 1 THE RENAISSANCE IDEALIZED: HISTORY’S BEAUTY IN FAZIO’S MISTRESS...................................................................................................38 Part One: Rossetti’s “Bodily” View of Art in the 1860s ...........................39 Part Two: Rossetti and the Aesthetic Past .................................................46 Part Three: Fazio’s Mistress: Beauty Past, Beauty Present........................79 2 THE RENAISSANCE PORTRAYED: IDEAL BEAUTY AND PORTRAITURE IN BOCCA BACIATA .........................................................92 Part One: Rossetti’s Images of Women and Questions of Portraiture........93 Part Two: Aestheticism, Portraiture, and the Renaissance .......................102 Part Three: The Real and Ideal in Bocca Baciata ....................................125 3 THE LYRICAL RENAISSANCE: AESTHETIC COLOR IN THE BLUE BOWER..............................................................................................140 Part One: Lyrical Color in The Blue Bower..............................................142 Part Two: The Glamorous Venetians: Dangerously Debauched Color ....158 Part Three: The Reclamation of Color in The Blue Bower.......................170 4 THE FATAL RENAISSANCE: THE PERILOUS BEAUTY OF LADY LILITH...........................................................................................................183 v Part One: Rossetti’s Lady Lilith and the femme fatale..............................185 Part Two: Danger and Beauty: the Genesis of Lady Lilith .......................196 Part Three: Absorption and Aesthetic Experience in Lady Lilith .............209 Conclusion: Rossetti and Questions of Aesthetic Historicism........................................218 Bibliography....................................................................................................................225 Vita ..................................................................................................................................243 vi Abstract This dissertation examines Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s knowledge and interpretation of the Italian Renaissance during the 1860s. I argue that there is a relationship between Rossetti’s Aestheticism and his understanding of the Italian Renaissance and that this relationship is visibly manifested in his images of women from the period. In Victorian England, Aestheticism and the philosophy of beauty for its own sake became increasingly popular throughout the 1860s. I challenge the idea that Aestheticism and an interest in Renaissance art are mutually exclusive aspects of the artist’s work. Rossetti’s images of women expressed both his understanding of Renaissance art and the central place of beauty in painting. Based upon Rossetti’s interpretation of Renaissance art and poetry, his criticism, and the criticism of his peers, this dissertation argues that the beauty of women in Rossetti’s paintings came to stand for the beauty of art. Rossetti’s paintings promoted sensual Aesthetic experience in their conflation of formal and female beauty. Using the historically idealized conventions of female portraiture, Rossetti created images of women that privileged Aesthetic beauty over narrative or moral meaning. His use of vibrant, rich color, a quality he and his peers inexorably associated with Venetian Renaissance painting, revealed the connection between Renaissance art and his Aestheticism. Color helped to define his paintings of women as examples of beautiful, sensuous painting. For Rossetti, the representation of alluring, beautiful women was the most powerful way to express the experience of Aesthetic beauty as intoxicating, sensual, and even morally ambiguous. vii INTRODUCTION: ROSSETTI, THE RENAISSANCE, AND THE REPRESENTATION OF BEAUTY For decades Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) has been a figure of intense interest in studies of Victorian art and literature, but many explanations of his work remain deceptively underdeveloped. Accounts of his painting frequently marginalize the crucial role that Italian Renaissance art and literature played in the development of his Aestheticism during the 1860s. I explore Rossetti’s profound engagement with specific aspects of historical tradition, namely painting and poetry relating to themes of women’s beauty, and discuss the ways certain aspects of tradition affected Rossetti’s own representation of women’s beauty from the 1860s. My discussion focuses on four half-length paintings of women produced between 1859 and 1869: Bocca Baciata, 1859 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Fazio’s Mistress, 1863 (Tate Gallery, London); The Blue Bower, 1865 (The Barber Institute, Birmingham); and Lady Lilith, 1869 (Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington). The convergence of Rossetti’s enthusiasm for the Renaissance and engagement with Aestheticism are evident in these images of women. I argue that Rossetti’s conception of the past and his Aesthetic philosophy were not disparate threads of his career but can and should be viewed as related aspects of his production. In his representations of beautiful women, which served as the vehicle for his expression of Aesthetic beauty, the connection between historical tradition and 8 Aestheticism is clearly and ultimately revealed. Part One: The Argument I consider Rossetti’s paintings of women as early but foundational examples of Victorian Aestheticism.1 I have three primary reasons for considering Rossetti’s work as Aesthetic and for concentrating specifically on his images of women, the dominant subject within his production throughout the 1860s. First, considering Rossetti’s images of women as examples of Aesthetic painting more clearly identifies Rossetti’s place within a movement that has resisted