DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61290#0088
64 DANTE ROSSETTI
be studied direct from nature, and from one model
—do not seem to have been stringently enforced :
indeed in one of Rossetti’s most rigidly Pre-
Raphaelite pictures, “ Ecce Ancilla Domini,” the
face of the Virgin was avowedly painted from
several models, while in that of the Angel the
artist has produced a curious blending of his
brother’s features with those of another sitter.
It is improbable that an aversion to the one-
model rule, which has been attributed to Ford
Madox Brown as a reason for holding aloof from
the Brotherhood, had very much to do with his
decision to remain independent of it. Mr. Madox
Brown was from the first in cordial sympathy with
the movement, and on terms of intimate friendship
with its leaders, but he foresaw the dangers of an
artistic clique, and, perhaps, the impossibility of
permanent consonance of method between tem-
peraments so diverse as those of the seven
members enlisted. Nor was his own strong and
individualistic style of painting quite in harmony
with the manner of his younger friends. He was
pre-eminently an historical painter ; and the critical
and romantic treatment of history, though border-
ing very closely on Pre-Raphaelite ground, hardly
came within the immediate scope of the Brother-
hood. Though frequently acknowledged by his
later critics as the father—or sometimes the grand-
father— of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Mr.
be studied direct from nature, and from one model
—do not seem to have been stringently enforced :
indeed in one of Rossetti’s most rigidly Pre-
Raphaelite pictures, “ Ecce Ancilla Domini,” the
face of the Virgin was avowedly painted from
several models, while in that of the Angel the
artist has produced a curious blending of his
brother’s features with those of another sitter.
It is improbable that an aversion to the one-
model rule, which has been attributed to Ford
Madox Brown as a reason for holding aloof from
the Brotherhood, had very much to do with his
decision to remain independent of it. Mr. Madox
Brown was from the first in cordial sympathy with
the movement, and on terms of intimate friendship
with its leaders, but he foresaw the dangers of an
artistic clique, and, perhaps, the impossibility of
permanent consonance of method between tem-
peraments so diverse as those of the seven
members enlisted. Nor was his own strong and
individualistic style of painting quite in harmony
with the manner of his younger friends. He was
pre-eminently an historical painter ; and the critical
and romantic treatment of history, though border-
ing very closely on Pre-Raphaelite ground, hardly
came within the immediate scope of the Brother-
hood. Though frequently acknowledged by his
later critics as the father—or sometimes the grand-
father— of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Mr.