Proserpine Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Proserpine
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Painter: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Location: Museums and Art Gallery, Birmingham.
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter, and translator. He is remembered as a man of romance, flamboyance, and singularity. He worked under the influence of the European Symbolists and was a major follower of the aesthetic line in art. His art is characterized by sensuality and medieval poetics. Poetry and image are closely linked in Rossetti’s works; he wrote sonnets to tie to his paintings or, conversely, painted to illustrate his poems.
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Description of Dante Rossetti’s painting Proserpina
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter, and translator.
He is remembered as a man of romance, flamboyance, and singularity. He worked under the influence of the European Symbolists and was a major follower of the aesthetic line in art. His art is characterized by sensuality and medieval poetics.
Poetry and image are closely linked in Rossetti’s works; he wrote sonnets to tie to his paintings or, conversely, painted to illustrate his poems. He meets his first muse, Elizabeth Siddle, creates a Pre-Raphaelite fraternity, and actively communicates with other artists.
Dante Gabriel endlessly paints the red-haired Lizzie, even in the presence of other sitters, her image dominated or merged in the features of the girls depicted. Exquisite beauty, aestheticism on canvas, is what Rossetti held dear. His drawings were notable for their colorfulness, brightness with the denseness of the paint application.
There is no vulgarity in the painting Proserpine, the artist professes the cult of superior femininity in symbiosis with Renaissance ideals. The role of Proserpine is played by the poet’s new and last muse, Jane Maurice, wife of a pre-Raphaelite friend. She becomes the main inspiration and embodiment of Rossetti’s style, even more so than previous women.
Contemporaries described her as a tall, slender woman in a long dress of purple cloth, with a mass of wavy black hair and a thin, pale face, from which a pair of strange, sadly deep eyes under thick black eyebrows look out.
A series of portraits of her appears, but Dante Gabrielné thought of them as portraits. He always called them something and each was an image, either of an ancient heroine or a literary one from medieval English poetry.
The painting is named after the daughter of Demeter and Zeus, Proserpina (Persephone), who in Roman mythology was kidnapped by Hades and spent six months in the realm of death. Therefore, night and day are joined together in the portrait.
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The painting is rich with symbolism. Proserpine, the Roman goddess of the underworld, is often associated with duality – both the Queen of Hades and a symbol of spring and fertility, due to her mother Ceress domain of agriculture. The pomegranate she holds is a key element, as in the myth, eating even a few seeds bound Proserpine to the underworld, forcing her to spend a portion of each year there. This act symbolizes her transition and entrapment, a sacrifice or perhaps a fateful choice that separates her from the world above. The dark, heavy drapery of her dress and the somber expression suggest her sorrow and confinement in the underworld. The ivy, often associated with fidelity or death, can further emphasize her connection to the underworld or her enduring sadness. The fiery brazier might represent the hearth of the underworld, the eternal flame, or perhaps the passion and turmoil within her. The scroll with text likely alludes to the specific narrative or poem that inspired the depiction, adding a layer of literary context. Overall, the painting evokes themes of captivity, tragic destiny, loss, and the complex nature of power and sacrifice.