Pre-Raphaelite’s women

Besides from the portraits painted by the Pre-Raphaelites, many paintings include a female individual. The models and muses of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were mostly women. According to Marsh, for the Pre-Raphaelites,

woman was more than the simple subject and inspiration of art. She represented the artist’s own soul, the creative impulse of his art, in an idea repeatedly elaborated in a metaphor of the male artist and his ideal women.⁴⁹

These female models or the stunners were mostly born with identical or strong features and somehow related to the artists romantically. As Marsh discusses, the women of Pre-Raphaelites can be divided into three types (and chronologically). The first type of stunners is the “fair, demure, modest maiden with her innocent attractions.”⁵⁰ The second type is the beauties who can be related to the ‘sex goddess' and the third with the dark or femme fatale figures. The shift of women's image in their paintings reflects the change of society and the status of the Victorian women. As women struggled to gain more rights and presence in the public, their role of identity has changed as they try to acquire a more equitable treatment. With women gaining more rights in education and property rights, the criteria of becoming the ‘ideal woman’ changed in the late era.

They do not have to be naïve, modest or fragile as a delicate flower in order to be the

‘perfect’ women. They were given more characteristics and thoughts. With their influences and reflection to arts, women with sex appeal may not be related immediately to the fallen woman or prostitutes.

Notable stunners who modeled many works for the original brotherhood were

49 Marsh. Pre-Raphaelite Women, 12.

50 Ibid., 26.

29

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal, Jane Morris and, Annie Miller. As the most discussed and popularly known muse of the time, Elizabeth Siddal, the later Mrs. Rossetti, can be considered as the most important model in the early days of the PRB. She modeled and was painted by several members and associates of the PRB, such as Hunt, Millais, Rossetti, Walter Howell Deverell, and Ford Madox Brown. She was a pale, red-headed, tall, and slim woman (Figure 1).⁵¹ Her features were not considered those of a typical beauty in the times when the ideal beauty comes with maternal bodies, petite and, pale skins. According the Deborah Cherry and Griselda Pollock’s study about Siddal,

“Drawings, said to be of Siddal, are represented as truthful mirrors of her beautiful appearance.”⁵² She was first discovered by Walter Howell Deverell, a talented young associate to the PRB who unfortunately died at a young age. He saw her while she was working at a bonnet shop and spent an effort trying to persuade her to model for Viola in his Twelfth Night (1850). The painting later became his most well-known work of art.

With this experience, Siddal’s career as a model in the Pre-Raphaelite circle began.

After Deverell, she sat for Hunt, Millais, and then for Rossetti. Although she only worked for Millais once, she became the face for possibly the most symbolic paintings produced by the group, Millais’s Ophelia (1851-52).

Elizabeth Siddal’s identity did not only remain as a model or a stunner for the British art. Siddal is looked up as sign, she was “more than the name of an historical personage it does not simply refer to a woman, or even Woman. Its signified is masculine creativity.”⁵³ While she was working for Rossetti, the two fell in love and this transformed her life from working simply as a model of the opportunity to create her own art. Both a lover and pupil of Rossetti, Siddal also became the most seen face

51 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1854, Elizabeth Siddal, Graphite and watercolor on paper, 18.1 by 16.2 cm, Wilmington, Delaware Art Museum.

52 Deborah Cherry and Griselda Pollock. "Woman as sign in Pre‐Raphaelite literature: a study of the representation of Elizabeth Siddall." Art History 7.2 (1984): 207.

53 Cherry and Pollock, “Women as sign in Pre-Raphaelite literature,” 208.

30

of Rossetti's painting in his early years. She became engaged with Rossetti in 1851 and finally got married after nearly a decade. However, the marriage ended quickly in 20 months due to Siddal’s early death of an overdose of laudanum. During her relationship with Rossetti, she served as a pupil and created her own paintings. Ruskin was an important patron of Siddal who gives her 150 pounds a year in return for any work she produced and painted. She was also able to exhibit her paintings at the Russell Place in 1857, including her Clerk Saunders (1857).⁵⁴

Figure 1: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal (1854)

During the same period where Siddal sat as the stunner, Annie Miller was another popular model of the PRB. She was first found by Hunt, with whom she later spent a complicated relationship. Besides from Hunt, she also sat for many painting by Rossetti and Millais. She was best known for her appearance in Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience (1853) and Rossetti’s Helen of Troy (1863). Fanny Cornforth was another

54 Robert Upstone, ed. The Pre-Raphaelite Dream: Paintings & Drawings from the Tate Collection.

London: Tate Gallery, 2003, 187.

31

stunner found by Rossetti in 1858, who later also became his housekeeper and mistress.

She represented the second type of the Pre-Raphaelite women, the ‘sex goddesses.’

Fanny was a blonde and fine-looking woman who was originally a prostitute before she started her career as Rossetti’s model. Unlike the paintings of Elizabeth Siddal, she was often portrayed in sexually attractive expressions and postures. She sat for many paintings and sketches of Rossetti, including his unfinished attempt on the subject of prostitution, Found (1854-81) and Lady Lilith (1866-68).

After the early death of Siddal, Jane Burden, later known as Jane Morris became Rossetti’s favorite muse in his later works. She was known for her beautiful features such as tall and her iconic thick eyebrows (that can be seen in most of her portraits).

Jane Morris was first discovered by Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones in Oxford. She married William Morris, a close friend of Rossetti and Burne-Jones, and sat regularly as a model for Rossetti. Working as the muse for Rossetti, she becomes the centerpiece of most Rossetti's famous paintings in his later years, such as The Blue Silk Dress (1868), Mariana (1868) and, Proserpine (1874).

Euphemia (Effie) Chalmers Gray or more commonly known as Effie Millais was originally the wife of John Ruskin. She come to know Millais through her husband and posed for a character in his The Order of Release, 1746 (1853). In the same year, the couple traveled with Millais to Scotland for Ruskin’s portrait. During the trip, Effie Gray and Millais fell in love and this relationship led to a scandal that shocked the art society. After the divorce, Gray married Millais in the following year. Though she posed for Millais both before and after their marriage, her role as a muse of the Pre-Raphaelites was short.

The Pre-Raphaelite women had many things in common. They were usually known for striking looks, passive, quiet, and fragile. The women who posed for the PRBs may not have fit the ideal image of femininity for the Victorians. However,

32

through a period of time, the Pre-Raphaelites “were able to alter and enlarge Victorian definitions of beauty, and create a look that has remained popular with painters and public for so long.”⁵⁵ Despite from simply severing as their models and muses, many of these women were influenced and became the pupil of the artists. Elizabeth Siddal may probably be the most symbolic associated figure for the PRB. Besides being the principal muse and wife of Rossetti, she was also Rossetti’s pupil. Patronized by Ruskin, Siddal was able to start her career as an artist and was the only female artist to be included in the Pre-Raphaelite salon.⁵⁶ Other than the models, there wejre also female associates that shared Pre-Raphaelite styles and ideals. Christina Rossetti, the sister of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti, a famous poet who wrote the Goblin Market (1862) and Remember (written in 1849 but was published in 1862) was one talented individual in the literary circles. As a member that shared the same social group, she was one of the most important female poets at the time. She also modeled for several paintings of her brother's work. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-49) was one of the works she sat for Rossetti and also one of the first paintings with the initials PRB inscribed.

Many paintings by the Pre-Raphaelites used women as an inspiration and were set as the main subject of their works. Painting women became one of their common

interests. As discussed in Michael Benton and Sally Butcher’s “Painting Shakespeare,” “woman became a dominating metaphor for their creative psyche, a blend of muse, cultural ideal, and spiritual icon.”⁵⁷ The Pre-Raphaelites’ preference

with picturing love and death with youth and beauty can be seen throughout their paintings. Shakespeare’s heroines became inspiring muses to collaborate with their

55 Ibid., 26.

56 Ibid., 28.

57 Michael Benton and Sally Butcher, "Painting Shakespeare," Journal of Aesthetic Education 32.3 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press,1998): 58.

33

ideals. Out the works of Shakespeare, they favored tragedies and characters within the play that suffered in a psychological crisis. Most of the heroines portrayed in their paintings were related to “symbols of female fragility and missed opportunities.”⁵⁸ These women have shared similar characteristics such as strong features on their faces, loose hair, long necks and large eyes. Reflecting and connecting to women's status in the Victorian environment, the Pre-Raphaelites painted their idealized image

of women. Though reflecting on their identity as passive women that stay in the private spheres, they tend to “invest them with the higher state they deserved.”⁵⁹

They painted their ideal women with “elevated structures of feeling and of representation whereby women were both elevated and constrained, worshiped and restricted to specific roles.”⁶⁰ Ironically, the fact that women were painted commonly on canvases and framed as an art hung in the houses of the bourgeois and galleries can

be seen as a reflection of women's position in the society.⁶¹

To have a clearer understanding of how Pre-Raphaelites’ way of portrayal of Shakespeare’s women differs from others, the following will be an overview of comparison of the works between them and other artists during the 19^th century. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood has taken a big part when it comes to the study of Victorian art, due to its avant-gardism. Aside from them, many artists during the nineteenth century also painted their own interpretation or versions of Shakespeare’s heroines. The analyses of the Pre-Raphaelites painting will be discussed in the latter sections.

As for now, there are still many different representations by other artists that shared the common theme of these heroines. Thomas Francis Dicksee, a fellow English painter who also exhibited at the Royal Academy since 1841, painted several paintings

58 Hulea, “Pre-Raphaelites Painting Shakespeare’s Women,” 128.

59 Ibid., 128.

60 Marsh, Pre-Raphaelite Women, 10.

61 Ibid., 10.

34

subjecting Shakespearean heroines. To see the differences with Millais’s Ophelia,⁶² Dicks ee’s Ophelia (1864)⁶³ (Figure 2) was shown in profile and against a dark background. He focused mainly on the character’s emotion instead of the combination with the background. Other than Ophelia, Dicksee painted several heroines during his art career, such as; Ideal Portrait of Lady Macbeth (1870), Cleopatra (1876), Juliet (1877), Beatrice (1883), Miranda (1895), and two more versions of Ophelia and Juliet.

One of the greatest difference between Dicksee’s paintings of the heroines with the Pre-Raphaelites, is the dramatic moment of the selected scenery. As the PRB and its associates tend to portray a dramatic scene that was filled with intense emotions, Dicksee’s heroines were mostly shown in a still and calm position. While portraying the same scene of Juliet’s balcony, Ford Madox Brown chose to paint out a passionate scene during Romeo’s arrival,⁶⁴ while Dicksee chose to represent his Juliet on the Balcony (1875)⁶⁵ with the heroine in a figure standing by the balcony (Figure 3).

Figure 2: Thomas Francis Dicksee, Ophelia (1864)

62 See Figure 12: John Everett Millais, Ophelia (1851-1852) , 64.

63 Thomas Francis Dicksee, 1864, Oil on canvas, 30.5 x 25.5 cm, Bilbao, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

64 See Figure 7: Ford Madox Brown, Romeo and Juliet (1870), 34.

65 Thomas Francis Dicksee, 1875, Juliet on the Balcony, Oil on canvas, 101 x 152.4 cm, Dundee, McManus Galleries.

35

Figure 3: Thomas Francis Dicksee, Juliet on the Balcony (1875)

Other than Dicksee, there were also different styles of interpretation of the heroines to build up a comparison. Some French artists like Achille Devéria, Louis Boulanger, and Eugène Delacroix painted the theoretical versions of the heroines. The three artists painted their interpretations of Ophelia from a stage performance of Harriet Smithson (the future Mrs. Berlioz and was the muse for Hector Beriloz’s Symphonie Fantastique). In 1827, Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger painted their series of Souvenirs du Théâtre Anglais à Paris (1827), including Ophelia, Juliet and Desdemona, from which most of them were influenced by Smithson’s role on stage. As influenced by the theoretical performances, their interpretations of these heroines showed dramatic

36

moments of the play. In their illustrations of Ophelia⁶⁶ and Juliet⁶⁷ (Figure 4 and 5), viewers can clearly see the heroines’ body language and the “detailed naturalism of the actors’ depiction of pain and convulsions which preceded their deaths.”⁶⁸ A few years later, Eugène Delacroix also painted his series of Hamlet and within included a drawing of Ophelia in her madness, Le Chant d’Ophélie (1834) (Figure 6). Noted by Jules Janin, a French writer and critic, Delacroix was influenced by Smithson’s role when he drew his impression of Ophelia.⁶⁹ Very different from how the Pre-Raphaelite later reimagine the character, Delacroix focused on the “disjunction of her body”⁷⁰ instead of drawing out the entire scenery.

Figure 4: Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger, Souvenirs du Théâtre Anglais à Paris, Ophelia’s Madness from Hamlet (1827)

66 Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger, 1827, Souvenirs du Théâtre Anglais à Paris, 43 x 30 cm, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France

67 Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger, 1827, Souvenirs du Théâtre Anglais à Paris, 0.43 x 0.3 m, Paris, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.

68 Peter Raby, Fair Ophelia: A Life of Harriet Smithson Berlioz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 88.

69 Cited in Judith Wechsler. "Performing Ophelia: The iconography of madness." Theatre Survey 43.2 (2002): 213.

70 Ibid., 213.

37

Figure 5: Achille Devéria and Louis Boulanger, Souvenir du théâtre anglais à Paris, Final scene of Romeo and Juliet (1827)

Figure 6: Eugène Delacroix, Le Chant d’Ophélie (1834)⁷¹

71 Eugène Delacroix, 1834, Le Chant d’Ophélie, Work on paper, 25.8 x 20.7 cm, Paris, Cliché

38

From the above examples, we can see how other artists besides from the Pre-Raphaelites have reimagined the heroines. They tend to either portray them in a more dramatic or still expressions. As how we will see in the later discussion, the usage of colors is different from how the Pre-Raphaelites chose to represent. Connecting to their main belief that their paintings should go botanic realistic, they focused more on the creation of the entire scenery. They would spent have of the year to paint out the background and go back to their studio to finish up with their main model of the painting.

In difference, they would also add many details to the painting, such as, flowers, embroideries, accessories and, details on their dresses. With these additional details to the scene, they were able to present their interpretations with connections and symbolisms to the subject and theme of the paintings.