May Morris 1872

Editor: We are looking at "May Morris," a painting executed in 1872 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, presently residing in a private collection. What strikes me most is the painting’s tender and melancholy mood. It is remarkable. How do you read this work? Curator: You know, the Pre-Raphaelites were quite the bunch. Rossetti especially liked painting women – idealized, of course, usually with that dreamy, faraway look. May, in this portrait, she holds that tiny violet as if it contains the secrets of the universe. It's about beauty, loss, longing, maybe even a touch of the burden of being an "it girl" muse for Rossetti's cadre. What do you see in that delicate gesture of her hands? Editor: That makes sense! Her hands are so delicately clasped around it. The way she presents the bloom seems almost reverential, though tinged with… resignation, I guess? Like beauty is something to be treasured, but it’s also fleeting. It’s not like his other female portraits; this feels more complex. Curator: Exactly. I wonder if that violet held some specific meaning for them? Perhaps it was plucked from their garden, a token of a shared moment. Rossetti wasn't just painting a face, but distilling an emotion, a feeling he felt for her or wished her to have for him! Don't you find the texture in her gown a little unsettling with her downcast eyes? What might that disjunction signal to viewers of the work? Editor: Now that you point it out, definitely. I suppose the very smooth brushstrokes on her skin versus the more elaborate attention on her clothes creates this internal dialogue. Curator: It all feels carefully orchestrated, doesn’t it? Artifice meets raw feeling. Makes you think about the lives of the models behind the paintings, eh? The woman behind the Pre-Raphaelite dream. Editor: For sure. Thanks for offering that window!