UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Ut Pictura Poesis: Visual Poetics of Pre-Raphaelite Art Magisterská diplomová práce Autor: Bc. Štěpánka Bublíková Vedoucí práce: Mgr. David Livingstone, Ph.D. Olomouc 2013 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto magisterskou diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně a uvedla úplný seznam citované a použité literatury. V Olomouci dne: 19. 8. 2013 ………………………………………………. Acknowledgements I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. David Livingstone, Ph.D. for his help, patience, professional comments and especially for his encouragement. I also thank to Ms. Petra Charvátová for borrowing her own source materials. Completion of this work would not be possible without support and motivation from my dear family and friends. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 6 PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD BACKGROUND ............................. 10 John Ruskin and ut pictura poesis in the 19th century ............................................................ 10 PRB ‒ members, style and shared themes ............................................................................... 11 1. ROSSETTI: A UNIQUE MERGER OF PRE-RAPHAELITE PAINTING AND POETRY ...................................................................................... 13 1.1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti ................................................................................................ 13 1.2. Selected examples of self-ekphrasis in Rossetti’s art ................................................... 14 A Sea Spell ................................................................................................................................. 14 Aspecta Medusa ......................................................................................................................... 15 Astarte Syriaca ........................................................................................................................... 17 La Bella Mano ........................................................................................................................... 18 Proserpine .................................................................................................................................. 21 The Blessed Damozel ................................................................................................................. 23 The Day-Dream .......................................................................................................................... 26 2. REVERSED EKPHRASIS: PRE-RAPHAELITES INSPIRED BY WORK OF 19TH BRITISH POETS ...................................................................... 30 2.1. Alfred Tennyson and "The Lady of Shalott" ............................................................. 30 Pre-Raphaelite painters and The Lady of Shalott ................................................................... 32 2.1.1 William Holman Hunt: The Lady of Shalott (1857) .................................................. 33 2.1.2 John William Waterhouse and his visual representations ....................................... 35 The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse (1888) ......................................................................... 35 The Lady of Shalott by Waterhouse (1894) ......................................................................... 37 "I Am Half-Sick of Shadows," Said the Lady of Shalott (1915) ......................................... 38 2.1.4 Sir John Everett Millais and The Lady of Shalott ..................................................... 41 2.1.5 Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal ‒ the only woman artist who pictured "The Lady of Shalott" ...................................................................................................................................... 43 2.2 Visual representations of John Keats’ "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" ........................ 45 John Keats and his “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” .................................................................. 45 2.2.2 La Belle Dame Sans Merci ........................................................................................... 45 “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” and its visual representations in the Pre-Raphaelite art...... 46 2.2.1 Henry Meynell Rheam ................................................................................................ 47 2.2.2 Frank Cadogan Cowper .............................................................................................. 49 2.2.3 John William Waterhouse........................................................................................... 50 2.2.4 Walter Crane ................................................................................................................ 52 2.2.5 Arthur Hughes ............................................................................................................. 53 3. EKPHRASIS: THE PRE-RAPHAELITE OR OTHER POETS INSPIRED BY THE PRE-RAPHAELITE OR OTHER PAINTERS ............ 55 3.1 Dante Gabriel Rossetti ................................................................................................ 55 3.1.1 Pre-Raphaelite painting in Rossetti’s poetry ............................................................. 55 "For The Wine of Circe by Edward Burne-Jones" ................................................................ 55 3.1.2 Other than Pre-Raphaelite painting in Rossetti’s poetry ......................................... 56 “For Our Lady of the Rocks by Leonardo Da Vinci” ......................................................... 57 “For Spring by Sandro Botticelli” ....................................................................................... 57 “For The Holy Family by Michelangelo” ............................................................................ 58 3.2 Emily Pfeiffer .............................................................................................................. 59 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 61 RESUMÉ ....................................................................................................................... 64 ANNOTATION ........................................................................................................... 68 ANOTACE .................................................................................................................... 69 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 70 INTERNET SOURCES ............................................................................................. 72 APPENDICES .............................................................................................................. 75 Images and texts ...................................................................................................................... 75 Introduction Throughout history the art of painting and the art of poetry have been developing next to one other in a close relationship. It can be argued that a painter and a poet have much in common in terms of creating art. Both are creating images representing ideas, emotions or personal expression of thoughts and opinions. They use similar devices. A painter uses a brush to convey their message on canvas in the form of a visual image, as well as a poet uses a pen or voice to form words which will produce a literary text. I also observe asymmetrical similarity in the manner of perception of these two genres. On the one hand, a painting could be analyzed by deconstructing it into words, hence the “reading” of a picture using various techniques and methods examining the piece from a different point of view, e.g. subject, composition, colours, frame, purpose, perspective and impression. On the other hand, a poem is an image “painted” in the reader's mind by using words and the visualization of such an image helps to comprehend the poet’s idea. To provide an argument I based my work on the concept of ut pictura poesis, a Latin phrase, defition of which is provided in Judith Harvey’s entry for the glossary on the Chicago University website and it can be literally translated as “as is painting, so is poetry”. This argument was based on an analogy between the art of painting and poetry introduced by Horace, a Roman lyric poet living in the first century before Christ, who sees these two arts sisterly related.1 The origins of this theory date back to classical philosophers such as Simonides, Plutarch or Aristotle. 2 In the nineteenth century, the English art critic John Ruskin, adopted the idea of ut pictura poesis and refers to it repeatedly in his major work entitled 1 Judith Harvey, “ut pictura poesis,” The University of Chicago. Winter 2002. http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mitchell/glossary2004/utpicturapoesis.htm (accessed May 12, 2013). 2 Harvey 6 Modern Painters. 3 Ruskin is considered the most important art critic and aesthetician who influenced the entire artistic generation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The members of the brotherhood devoted their work to painting and poetry, in some cases to both arts. Thus they and their work represent a relevant example of the theory of ut pictura poesis and the theme of the interconnection between the visual arts and poetry in general. Professor Aaron Kashtan states in his lecture named “Pre-Raphaelite Approaches to Ut Pictura Poesis: Sister Arts or Sibling