‘See me, and know me as I am.’ At the age of twenty-one, Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote the short story Hand and Soul, which was published in The Germ, a short-lived magazine created by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Not only does the story offer a glimpse into the young Rossetti’s beliefs and aspirations, it seems to be the only work of…
-
-
Tangled Up in Bloom
“Bloom where you are planted” is an adage we’ve all probably heard, and the sentiment is a positive one: do your best no matter what your circumstances. Clytie (above), painted by Evelyn De Morgan in the late 1880s, is perhaps an extreme example. De Morgan’s image is stunning, yet underneath that floral beauty is a darker story. You see, she…
-
On Storms
“Tones sound, and roar and storm about me until I have set them down in notes.” Ludwig van Beethoven I’ve mentioned Evelyn De Morgan’s painting The Storm Spirits on this site once before, when I was talking about how my moods are often directly tied to the weather. I love a good thunderstorm, there is something dramatic yet comforting to…
-
On Aging
Jane Morris was swept into the Pre-Raphaelite world at age eighteen. She was La Belle Iseult to William Morris, who declared “I cannot paint you; but I love you”. Then she was Pandora, Mnemosyne, Astarte Syriaca and other assorted goddesses to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Years later, after the Pre-Raphaelite bloom had faded from her cheeks, we see Jane on canvas again in Evelyn De Morgan’s The Hour Glass (above). Her…
-
A Pre-Raphaelite Look at Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Warning: This post contains spoilers. If you have not seen Vertigo, you might want to back away slowly because I do not want to ruin your experience You have been warned. “Do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter and take possession of a living being?”–Gavin Elster to Scottie in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo Vertigo is,…
