Studio: international art (65.1915)

The Edmund Davis Collection

in gesture or expression will always remain an
unrivalled achievement, and this is controlled by a
mood to which every detail of design and colour
contributes, all the movement in the picture being
held in the spell of that out-of-the-way beauty
which gives such an exceptional individuality to
Rossetti’s early works. If we examine the con-
tours which define the general shape of the outline
of Francesca’s hair, the inspired naturalness with
which she surrenders her hands to her lover, and
the simplicity of the design which is the theatre of
this expressive gesture, we shall lose ourselves in
admiration of great unconscious art. And then
there is the colour, which will always keep these
early works high in the estimation of those who
know the treasures of the English school. This
water-colour can be classed with such work as The
Blue Closet or Borgia—the latter mentioned in our
last article, as contained in this collection. Such
works represent Rossetti at the time of his greatest
inspiration just before and after i860, when he was
producing chiefly in water-colours, taking his sub-
jects from Dante, whose genius his own descent
enabled him to understand. Rossetti had just
married Miss Siddall, and was sustained in imagina-
tive art by the faith placed in his genius by Ruskin.
There can be no doubt about it that it is Rossetti’s
art of this period which will live beyond his other
work, with a few works of the same time from
other artists expressing the awakening in “ the

sixties.” Rossetti made replicas of several of his
best things at this time; the mood was upon him
which enabled him to intensify them by every re-
touching, and to give something afresh to them in
every version. The first version of the Francesca
da Rimini, in three compartments, painted in 1855,
was finished in a week ; Miss Siddall being stranded
in Paris without money, Rossetti hastened through
the work, and came to her assistance with the
money received for it from Ruskin. A second
version was painted in 1862.

The three other colour reproductions with this
article represent a fan and a panel by Conder, and
a pastel by Whistler. We spoke of Conder’s work
in our last article. The mood of his water-colours
as reproductions is not antagonistic to that of the
work of Rossetti, in the period just described. The
mind at work is lighter, more playful, more fantastic,
less sinister and infinitely less rich and moving.
Yet both were artists swayed by inclinations that
were those of poets; in the mood of each picture
from them there is something so logical that we
scarcely rebel at the weak drawing. Partly because
Conder worked on silk and not on paper, and partly
because he made the whole charm of his art to rest
with flushes of colour like the gradations of flowers,
his work does not lend itself so well to reproduc-
tion as paintings in general; something essential to
its character is apt to elude any process based on
photography. In the designs for fans, where his

LANDSCAPE DRAWING

BY CLAUDE GELLEE