La Ghirlandata
La Ghirlandata:
This is one of my favorite Rossetti paintings. The colors are so vivid, the green contrasting with that gorgeous red hair creates an intense effect. The main model in this piece is Alexa Wilding, whom Rossetti used frequently. The angels were modeled by May, the ten year old daughter of Jane and William Morris.
La Ghirlandata was painted at Kelmscott Manor after a period of great difficulty for Rossetti — he had attempted suicide earlier that year (1872).
Here’s a brief synopsis of the painting, courtesy of City of London:
“Rossetti painted this picture while he was staying at Kelmscott Manor, the Oxfordshire house he part-owned with his friend William Morris, following his breakdown and suicide attempt in 1872. Morris stayed away, but his wife Jane – with whom Rossetti was in love – was there. The honeysuckle and roses around the top of the harp in this picture indicate sexual attraction, while the harp itself represents music – a common metaphor for love and lovemaking. However the model for the picture was not Jane Morris but a model, Alexa Wilding, ‘a really good-natured creature’, who arrived at Kelmscott in June 1873.
The angel heads at the top were painted from Jane’s ten-year-old daughter May, who was said to dislike Alexa intensely. La Ghirlandata is one of several paintings of women playing musical instruments which Rossetti painted between 1871 and 1874. His intense use of colour creates a brooding, melancholy mood, while the picture’s symbolism – though unclear – may reflect his emotional condition at this time. Rossetti’s brother later claimed that he had intended ‘a fateful or deathly purport’ by painting the dark blue poisonous monkshood in the foreground, but by mistake he had painted its harmless relative the larkspur instead.”
Vocalist Ariel Tebben drew inspiration from La Ghirlandata for her latest CD cover. In a recent comment on our myspace page Ariel wrote:
…I even made the dress and did the flowers on the harp to resemble the painting. I wrote and found music from that time period in an effort to create an album inspired by the art and music of the Pre-Raphaelite era.
Beautiful job Ariel! Visit her page and listen to her music…her voice is ethereal and she plays the Celtic harp, piano, and guitar.
From her myspace page: “Her latest album ‘Verticordia’ was inspired by Pre-Raphaelite art, the poetic works of WB Yeats and many of the old songs she has loved for years, and is a gorgeous collection of sweet simple melodies, haunting lyrics and amazing new material. Ariel’s recordings and performances have been featured in films, television and radio broadcasts. She has been a star of the cast on the Comcast NW series ‘Synergy’ and local show ‘Love Portland’ featuring artists and places of interest in the beautiful Northwest. “
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