Analysis and Meaning of Dante Gabriel Rossettis The Bocca Baciata - Essay Example

? . Analysis and Meaning of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Bocca Baciata Analysis and Meaning of Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Bocca Baciata I. The Bocca Baciata Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Bocca Baciata was commissioned in 1859 by its patron George Boyce at the cost of ?40. It was painted using oil as a medium on a panel with a dimension of 13.25 x 12 inches and is now at the safekeeping of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA. Rossetti’s mistress Fanny Comforth sat as the model of the painting. Bocca Baciata can be said to the beginning of Rossetti’s shift in terms of style and medium in his paintings that later became the signature of his work. Bocca Baciata marked Rossetti’s beginning of painting singular female figures that evoke seduction and earthly pleasure. According to a fellow cofounder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood William Holman Hunt, Bocca Baciata is the pivotal shift of Rossetti’s departure from the austere theme of Pre-Raphaelite style to a “worldly and even voluptuous subjects that now employ highly decorative methods1”. The painting, just like Rossetti’s previous painting bore inscription that wrote; Bocca baciata non perde ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna. ‘The mouth that has been kissed does not lose its savour, indeed it renews itself just as the moon does2 II. Evolution of Dante Gabriel Rossetti as an Artist To fully understand, appreciate and decipher the meaning of Bocca Baciata on how it relate to Rossetti, it would be necessary to understand Rossetti as an artist to contextualize the meaning of the Bocca Baciata and fully understand the painting in the process. Rossetti as an artist did not employ a single theme in his works although the nature of his subjects primarily centred on women. His subject (the female) and how they were depicted evolved and it served as a mark on Rossetti’s growth and maturity as an artist and this has a significance in understanding Rossetti’s final paintings (Bocca Baciata was one of them) that became the signature of Rossetti’s work. The Bocca Baciata can be said to belong to the third and last phase of Rossetti’s development as an artist and it signalled Rossetti’s change of style and theme from the austere to the sensual. This shift of style is significant because Rossetti was not only one of the most accomplished artists during his time but also cofounded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which was a movement towards a particular painting style of stressing the importance of nature3. Bearing in mind Rossetti’s involvement with the Pre-Raphaelite movement is important because Rossetti’s later works that include the Bocca Baciata was still assessed under the standard of the artistic style of the brotherhood of whom he cofounded even when he attempted to depart from it. This resulted to the harsh criticism of his later works that led many critique of the Victorian painting to judge that the best of Rossetti’s works were those whom he had painted earlier. a. The first phase (from 1848 to 1853) The female has always been a central subject among Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s work. This was already evident from his very first public artwork which was The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. What differed from Rossetti’s later work such as the Bocca Baciata is not how the subject changed but rather, on how the rendering of the subject shifted. Bocca Baciata can be said to be similar with Rossetti’s first major work The Girlhood of Mary Virgin in many aspect although not necessarily on how the women were depicted. Bocca Baciata was Rossetti’s first work that marked his shift in terms of rendering the female while The Girlhood of Mary Virgin was Rossetti’s first work that made him prominent in having the female as subjects. Rossetti as an artist during the first evolution of his works can be likened to the growth of a boy to a man where the perspective about the female change as the boy grows to puberty and become a man. In The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, Rossetti’s boyish and impressionable nature was evident as the painting was a reflection of Rossetti’s Victorian social milieu and the sense of propriety during his time. It would be safe to conclude that Rossetti, being a neophyte artist in The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, subscribed to the sense of correctness of the Victorian era especially when he had the mentoring of St. Anne to Mary changed to embroidery instead of reading books. Girls reading books would be politically offensive during that time and deemed inappropriate for an ideal lady4. b. The second phase (1854-1862) The second phase of Rossetti’s development as an artist is marked with the artist’s gradual move from “Pre-Raphaelite typology and figurative realism to an evocation of evanescent emotion in the Dantean and Arthurian watercolours of his second phase5. Majority of Rossetti’s critics agree that “these medieval watercolours and the ethereal drawings of Elizabeth Siddal, also from Rossetti’s second phase, are "now rightly recognized as his best pictorial work6. c. The third phase (1863-1882) The third phase in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s painting career has been the longest and most enduring period of his work. Most of Rossetti’s recognizable paintings were painted during this period. This period was considered as the culmination of his gradual development as an artist and had finally represented his ideals in pictorial schema that he had been attempting to express from his youth and in his poetry7. It was only in this stage that Rossetti’s was finally satisfied with his work after the extreme longing to have his thought embody a visible form8. Only in this phase that Rossetti reached a creative plateau in his artistic career for this period was his destination both as a man and an artist9. This period was initiated by the painting of the Bocca Baciata which was radical shift from Rossetti’s earlier works and signalled the change of meaning in his works. From the religious, pious and wholesome rendering of his female subjects in his earlier works, the female became a sensualist in Rossetti’s Bocca Bacciata. She is neither longer innocent nor a vestal virgin but experienced just like its model Fanny Comforth who was his mistress. In a way, this period was also the most misunderstood stage of Rossetti’s work. Paintings that were produced during this phase were criticized as grotesque, animalistic, ugly and exaggerated rendering of the female subject. Rossetti was conscious in the exaggerated rendering of his subject in this period because he did not just intend to mirror nature which was the main theme of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The criticism may have come from the Pre-Raphaelite quarters of which Rossetti cofounded because the standard that was used to measure the aesthetic value of his artwork during this period was consistency and realistic rendering of nature which was predominantly Pre-Raphaelite. Nevertheless, despite of all the criticism hurled at Rossetti’s work during this period, this was the phase where Rossetti’s work was marked. III. Meaning of Bocca Baciata Dante Gabriel Rossetti has three trademarks as an artist. First is his use of heavy symbolism in his paintings, second is the inscription of sonnets, poems or descriptions alongside with his work and lastly, his preference towards the female as a subject of his paintings. These three factors (symbolism, sonnet and poetry in his painting and women as subjects) have always been present in all of Rossetti’s paintings since his first work The Girlhood of Mary Virgin in 1849. Such, it would be more relevant to dissect and decipher the meaning of Rossetti’s Bocca Baciata using these three parameters which are present in all of Rossetti’s work. a. Meaning of Bocca Baciata in terms of symbolism Just like Rossetti’s other works, Bocca Baciata is not without symbolism. Even before beginning the paint, the use of Fanny Comforth, who was his mistress as a model is already symbolic that the painting will be a departure of its previous religious theme such as those in Ecce Ancilla Domini which was modelled by his sister Cristina. In the painting, Rossetti’s mistress Fanny Comforth was depicted in a state of semi-dishabille on the forefront of flowers while holding one of the marigolds in her right hand. She is wearing a rich auburn hair and on their sides were a rose and jewellery. On her left is an apple placed on a parapet10. She was also staring wistfully into the unknown. According to Bentley, these elements in the painting, when taken together, the marigolds, flower (whose name is a compound of Mary and gold), the white rose which Rossetti had earlier placed on the chaste robe of the Blessed Damozel as "Mary' s gift, /For service meetly worn and its ripe apple, which, of course, evokes both the Christian story of the Fall and the classical topos of the Judgement of Paris, send a mixed, even contradictory, message that is only partly clarified by the painting's title Bocca baciata non perda ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna''': ' " The mouth that has been kissed loses not its freshness; still it renews itself even as does the moon11". Here, the artist who was religious in the first two phases of his work finally broke his impulse as a man and finally discussed his sensuality which he shares with his model Fanny Comforth. b. The accompanying inscription in Bocca Baciata The title of painting inscribed as “Bocca baciata non perda ventura, anzi rinnova come fa la luna''':" The mouth that has been kissed loses not its freshness; still it renews itself even as does the moon" confirms the sexual theme of the painting that the subject has a sexual experience already. Rossetti himself confirmed the sexual connotation of the painting in a personal inscription to William Bell Scott on November 13, 1859 writing as “I have painted a little half-figure in oil lately which I should like you to see, as I have made an effort to avoid what I know to be a besetting fault of mine—& indeed rather common to PR painting—that of stipple in the flesh. I have succeeded in quite keeping it at a distance this time, and am very desirous of painting . . . various figures of this kind, chiefly as a rapid study of flesh painting12.” c. The transformation of the female in Bocca Baciata Unlike in Rossetti’s first painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin where he used subtleties such as the employment of embroidery in exchange for books in the mentoring of St. Anne to Mary, Rossetti was quite blatant with his theme in Bocca Baciata that it was painted chiefly as a rapid study of flesh painting. It can be surmised that perhaps Rossetti had already the tenacity to be “true” to himself because he was already established as an artist when the Bocca Baciata was commissioned. Unlike in the The Girlhood of Mary Virgin where he was still an upstart painter where he still has to consider approval for his works. From the religious Ancilla Ecce Domini, the female who was virginal and mother of Saviour as modelled by his sister Christina became Fanny Comforth, his mistress, the epitome of “Victorian stunner” in his later works as initiated by Bocca Baciata. Considering the circumstances leading to the painting of Bocca Baciata and its succeeding works, it can safely be concluded that Rossetti had either matured as a painter and a poet in this later work where the theme reflected the true impulse of the man and artist. His later works may have been harshly criticized as “nearly always more or less jaded, his eye failing in the perception of forms, as has so often been the case in even the greatest painters in their decay13" but it was never suspected of its intent unlike the first two works The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ence Ancilla Domini where Rossetti was suspected to have painted it out of monetary consideration14. Finally, it is hard to believe that a man who had mistresses would be strictly pious in his artwork. Such, it would very difficult to reconcile had Rossetti had merely painted the female in religious light because it does not coincide with his personal life. In a way, Bocca Baciata is just a manifestation that Rossetti’s nature as a man finally took over on his work. IV. Conclusion It was quite ironic that Rossetti took criticism during the last phase of his paintings when he already had the steep experience and learning curve as an artist. The phase of which the Bocca Baciata was painted was also the longest phase in Rossetti’s painting career. During that time, he can already be considered as one of the prominent and established artists yet his works went unappreciated by his critics. It seemed that he was more esteemed when he was still a budding artist because he cofounded the rejectionist artistic movement of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which sought to defy the traditional conventions of art as taught by the Royal Academy of Arts than a mature artist in his later works. Rossetti was only able to reach this stage after departing from the Pre-Raphaelite theme that did not embody his creative self although he himself helps incorporate the brotherhood. There were several factors that can be attributed to this. First, Pre-Raphaelite’s theme about nature and propriety does not really represent Rossetti. Rossetti as a man is a sensualist evident with his attachment to his subjects from his wife Elizabeth Siddal to his mistress Fanny Comforth both of was represented in his works. The “restrained” nature of Pre-Raphaelite painting can be artistically suffocating to Rossetti whose emphasis on nature did not really interest him. As an artist, Rossetti is more interested in the inner symbolic truth of nature rather than the detailed manifestation of its externalities15. Rossetti viewed art not just as a mere copy of nature but instead, could be a creation on its own that can be achieve on the canvass. For Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite was a mere imitative design of nature and thus do not coincide with him16. Thus, the Bocca Biacata can be said as Rossetti’s first attempt to depart from the convention of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The women in Rossetti’s last phase of artworks which was initiated by Bocca Baciata were condemned by its critique as "almost without exception sensual, almost animal in expression; women with great red lips and abnormally long necks, unlike anything in nature17”. This assessment, however, was outdated for it evaluated Rossetti’s mature works under the propriety, lens and realism of Pre-Raphaelite standard which has nature and realism as its standard of art. When the Bocca Baciata was painted, Rossetti was conscious that he was taking a new direction in his painting evident with his letter to William Bell Scott that he will be painting about the “stippling of the flesh” and not to subscribe to the Pre-Raphaelite idea of a paint. To quote Bentley, Bocca Baciata was Rossetti’s confirmed departure from any notion of any Pre-Raphaelite theme in his recent work and an unabashed celebration of female physicality and sexuality18. Thus, the great red lips and abnormally long necks in the Bocca Baciata was consciously and purposely done because Rossetti intends to create women that are not like anything in nature19 as he remove his works from the Pre-Raphaelite theme. It is because when the Bocca Baciata was painted, Rossetti did not intend to mirror nature which Pre-Raphaelite’s do, but instead to create it as reflected in his work in Bocca Baciata. Bibliography Abrams, Lynn. “Ideals of Womanhood inVictorian Britain” (web page)(2001), [accessed April 21, 2012] Agosta, Lucien L. Animate Images: The Later Poem-Paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Vol. 23/1(1981), 77-101, pg 78, Bentley, D.M.R. Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Inner StandingPoint’ and ‘Jenny’ Reconstrued. university of toronto quarterly, 80/3(2011), pg. 681-717. Bentley, D.M.R. Love for Love: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Bocca Baciata and the Song of the Bower, The Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, 12(2003). Donnelly, Brian. “Sonnet--Image--Intertext: Reading Rossetti's The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Found”, Victorian Poetry, 48/4(2010), 475-488. Rosetti, Dante Gabriel. Description of the painting Bocca Baciatta. Commissioned by Geogrge Boyce, 1859 Scholarly Commentary. Bocca Baciata Dante Gabriel Rosetti 1859. http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/s114.rap.html [accessed April 20, 2012]. Read More