Now, Back to Stitching!

I love William Morris's designs.  Beth Russell, inspired by Morris, has created some gorgeous needlepoint designs.  I have several I'm currently working on, but my favorite is finished.   I read this saying from Morris years ago and was thrilled to see it come to life through Ms. Russell's talents.

Here's my October Christmas ornament SAL.  Even got it all completed and ready to hang on the tree!

More stitching to come!!

PRB - Part 4

Now let me tell you a little about Rossetti - he was born in London in May of 1828, the son of an Italian immigrant family.  His father, Gabriel Rossetti, was a famous Italian poet and Dante scholar who had come to England as a refugee after the Neapolitan revolution in 1821.

Rossetti aspired to be a poet and attended King's College School.  However, he also wished to be a painter. He studied at Henry Sass's Drawing Academy from 1841 to 1845 when he enrolled at the Antique School of the Royal Academy, leaving in 1848.  After leaving the Royal Academy, Rossetti studied under Ford Madox Brown before transferring his allegiance to Holman Hunt.  His friendship with Hunt and subsequent meeting with Mallais was the major factor in the creation of the PRB.  Criticism of his paintings caused him to withdraw from public exhibitions and turn to watercolors, which he sold privately.

In the early 1850s he met Elizabeth Siddal.  The twenty-year-old with her tall thin frame and copper hair was the first of the PRB stunners.  She became his lover, and after and on-off relationship, he married her in 1860.

Rossetti made many pencil drawings of Lizzie which were extremely beautiful and sensitive.  In 1862, after the still birth of their child, Lizzie committed suicide by overdosing on laudanum.  Overcome with grief, Rossetti enclosed a small journal in Elizabeth's coffin containing the only copies he had of many of his poems.  He is said to have slid the book into her red hair.  In 1862 he produced the famous picture "Beata Beatrix", a tribute to his deceased wife, who was quite obviously the model for Beatrix.

In 1869, Rossetti had his wife's body exhumed to recover his poems.  The mental problems, which ultimately destroyed him, were most likely to have started from this unhappy and bizarre event.

In the last twenty years of his life, Rossetti became increasingly obsessed with Jane Morris, the wife of his friend William Morris.  For most of these years, his pictures were of lone women.  Most of the pictures had a stylized Jane Morris as their model.  In the 1870s Rossetti became addicted to chloral (a narcotic) and alcohol.  Consequently, Jane Morris broke off their relationship, as he started to lose his reason.

Toward the end of his life, Rossetti sank into a morbid state, darkened by his drug addiction to choral and increasing mental instability.  This was possibly worsened by his reaction to savage critical attacks on his disinterred poetry from the manuscript poems he had buried with his wife.  He spent his last years as a withdrawn recluse.

He died at the house of a friend on Easter Sunday, 1882.  He had gone there in an attempt to recover his health, which had been destroyed by choral as Elizabeth's had been destroyed by laudanum.  He is buried at Birchington-on-the-Sea, Kent, England.

So, what is the connection between Rossetti and William Morris besides Rossetti's attraction to his wife Jane?  Morris founded a design firm with Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones as partners.   And the rest, as they say, is history.

PRB - Part Three

I've been invisible for a few weeks.  Lots happening with Mom - moved her to a different nursing home.  It is AWESOME!  I decorated her room so it's more like her home.  The care, compassion and attention to details by the staff is amazing.  We attend daily mass and she gets her vodka tonic every day at 4PM.  She and my step-father used to have their one drink every day at 4PM before her stroke.  They also attended mass each and every day.  Anything we can do to make her life more familiar is a blessing.

Last time I posted, I shared John Ruskin's support of Lizzie Siddal and also her addiction to laudanum. Now we'll explore the tumultuous relationship between Siddal and Rossetti.

When Rossetti met Lizzie, he was smitten with her beauty.  She was what the PRB called "a stunner".  He began using her exclusively as the model in his paintings beginning in 1853 with his watercolor "The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice".  After becoming engaged to Rossetti, Siddal began to study with him, becoming both his mistress and his student.

Rossetti, however, was not one to remain faithful to his fiancé.  He reportedly had several affairs during the course of their engagement.  Lizzie was insecure with their relationship and used her frail health (brought on by an addiction to laudanum and a tendency toward anorexia) to repeatedly manipulate Rossetti and regain his attention whenever she believed he had strayed.  Countless times she was considered to be near death.  When Rossetti would get word she was close to death's door, he would rush to her side.  She would miraculously recover once he appeared.

Lizzie and Rossetti made each other indescribably happy as well as sad.  Their marriage was doomed form the start.  Rossetti was reluctant to propose marriage, supposedly in part because of Lizzie's working class background.  Waiting for years for Rossetti to consent to marriage took its toll on Lizzie's health.  Lizzie's supporter, John Ruskin, scolded Rossetti in his letters for not marrying Lizzie and giving her the security she needed.  During this period she also began to write poetry, often with dark themes about lost love or the impossibility of true love.

Siddal travelled to Paris and Nice several years for her health.  She returned to England in 1860 to marry Rossetti.  They were married May 23, 1860.  She lived five minutes away from the small church in Hastings at the time of her wedding.  Though the walk was a short distance, she was so frail she had to be carried to the church.  The marriage to her lover had finally taken place.  By this time her health had degraded to badly, she was severely depressed and very ill.

In 1861, Lizzie became pregnant.  She and Rossetti were overjoyed about the pregnancy.  The pregnancy ended in a stillborn daughter in 1862.  Sadly, shortly after the death of their daughter, Lizzie committed suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum.  She was 32 years old.

PRB - Part 2

Last week I introduced you to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the “face” of the Pre-Raphaelites, the very first supermodel, Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Siddal. 

John Ruskin was a staunch supporter of Siddal.  He was a well known British art critic and social thinker, also remembered as an author, poet and artist. His essays on art and architecture were extremely influential in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.  The Pre-Raphaelites were influenced by Ruskin's theories. As a result, the critic wrote letters to The Times defending their work, which led to their art finally being accepted in Victorian art circles.

In 1855 Ruskin became Lizzie Siddal’s financial supporter as she struggled to be recognized as an artist and poet. Ruskin paid £150 per year in exchange for all drawings and paintings that she produced. Siddal produced many sketches but only a single painting. Her sketches are laid out in a fashion similar to Pre-Raphaelite compositions and tend to illustrate Arthurian legend and other idealized medieval themes.  During this period Siddal also began to write poetry, often with dark themes about lost love or the impossibility of true love.

Siddal suffered from a ‘mysterious illness’, which is now believed to have been an addiction to laudanum.  It was to prove to be her downfall.

Laudanum was a mixture of opium and alcohol.  It was not dispensed by prescription, and was widely accepted as a ‘cure all’, similar to how aspirin is viewed today.  One could purchase laudanum from a barber, a grocer, or at market stalls.  It was touted to address symptoms of alcoholism, bedwetting, coughs and colds, insanity, morning sickness, nervous tension, muscle fatigue, toothache and was sold to mothers to soothe their babies.  One can see where it would be easy to become addicted to laudanum. 

As an aside, there were many who were dependent on “tincture of opium” – such notables as Walter Scott, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

September Ornament SAL

Here's my September Christmas ornament!  It was fun - can hardly wait to see the cording and how it finishes ;)

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - Part 1

I gave you an insight into redheads and the ordeals they faced over the centuries last week. Today I'll introduce you to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the “face” of the Pre-Raphaelites, the very first supermodel, Elizabeth Siddal.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (known as “PRB”) was founded in London in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poets, artists and critics.

They named themselves “Pre-Raphaelite” because they believed the classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art.

The fact Elizabeth Siddal (known as “Lizzie”) achieved such prominence was a remarkable feat given just about everything about her went against the standards of what was popular in Victorian times.  She had flowing, wavy locks of red hair, was tall and slender with large eyes.  In 1849, when she was 20 years old, Lizzie worked as a milliner in London. She made a meager salary of 24 pounds a year but soon discovered she could make more than double as a model for artists.  Being a model during this era was not viewed as socially acceptable.  No woman with morals would consider such a profession.

Lizzie was discovered by Walter Deverell in 1849 and, through him, was introduced to the PRB.  While posing for Millais' Ophelia (1852), Siddal had floated in a bathtub full of water to model the drowning Ophelia. 

Millais painted daily into the winter with Siddal modeling. He put lamps under the tub to warm the water. On one occasion the lamps went out and the water slowly became icy cold. Millais was absorbed by his painting and did not notice the lamps were no longer working. Siddal, however, did not complain and eventually became very sick with a severe cold or pneumonia.

From 1853 on, Lizzie was the primary model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  After he met her he began to paint her to the exclusion of almost all other models and he insisted she stop modeling for the other Pre-Raphaelites.  Lizzie was interested in art and showed promise as an artist and poet in her own right.  After meeting Rossetti, she became his student and struggled to be recognized as an artist in a world dominated by men.   

More next time - Happy stitching!  Cheers!

Redheads - OH MY!

My daughter, Sarah, has been blessed with gorgeous red hair and she comes by it rightly.  My grandfather’s nickname was “Red”; when I was young,  my hair was as red as Sarah’s.  (Now it's more gray then red - HA! ).  I have pictures of the two of us when she was small and our hair color was exactly the same.  I remember detesting my red hair as I was growing up.  I wanted to be blonde – you know, “Blondes have more fun!”  My daughter also wished she had different hair until she was in her 20s.  Now she loves it.

A portrait of Sarah I painted on an 8x10 porcelain tile

Throughout history, being a redhead was not necessarily a healthy thing to be.  Redheads have been subjected to discrimination and fearful prejudice, being viewed as untrustworthy, mischievous, temperamental, and lustful. In ancient Egypt, red hair was seen as so unlucky, red-haired girls were burned alive. According to Greek myths, redheads turn into vampires when they die.

In medieval Europe, the infamous witch-hunting manual, Malleus Maleficarum, instructed that red hair and green eyes were marks of a witch, as were freckles (which most redheads are prone to have). This belief might have stemmed from the general consensus that redheads were evil, wanton, and hot-tempered. In the Bible, Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot are often portrayed as redheads, as was Lilith, Adam’s first wife who insisted on sexual equality. Even Jonathan Swift, in his 1726 classic Gulliver’s Travels, characterized redheads as being wanton and promiscuous.

Elizabeth Siddall was Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s model in the 1850s until her death in 1862.  Her image is recognized worldwide as the model for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.  She had glorious red hair which was not considered socially acceptable in the Victorian era.

Beata Beatrix by Rossetti

Over the years, I’ve studied the paintings of Master Artists who have lived through the centuries.  Through this study, their paintings take on more life and meaning as I learn more about their lives and come to understand their trials and tribulations.  

I'll share what I've learned about Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites soon.  It's absolutely FASCINATING!!

What does this have to do with cross stitch and needlework?  Stay tuned ;)

Happy stitching -
Cheers!