Sample Response
Love, Longing, and Art: The Poetry of Christina Rossetti
“In An Artist’s Studio,” Christina Rossetti, (1830-94)
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel – every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet and the sister of the famous artist Dante
Gabriel Rossetti, part of the Raphaelite Brotherhood. She did not publish any of
her poetry until she was 31, and much of her poetry, including her most famous
work Goblin Market, explored women’s lives and issues. In her personal life, she
did years of volunteer work at a home for “fallen women” or prostitutes. Feminist
critics in particular have an interest in Rossetti’s work as she was writing during a
period when women were often suppressed by patriarchal values and traditions.
After reading and contemplating “In an Artist’s Studio” in some detail, you may
have realised that Rossetti’s poetry can be considered quite subversive in terms
of the way gender is portrayed. The poem is about an artist and his female
model, and the poetic voice informs us at the start that this model serves as the
inspiration for all of the artist’s paintings: “One face looks out from all his
canvases.”
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Portrait of Christina Rossetti by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The unnamed female model appears in all of the artist’s pictures and the different
ways in which she poses is described, “One selfsame sits or walks or leans.”
Rossetti’s poem subversively hints at the threat posed to female consciousness
by male-produced art. At the centre of the Raphaelite School in London and led
by her brother, Christina was uniquely placed to witness the effects of the male
artist at work. In the next few lines of the poem, the reader can discern a change
in poetic tone as “We found her hidden just behind those screens / That mirror
gave back all her loveliness.” The implication is that the model’s real identity and
sense of self has been lost as she is constantly translated into a work of art. Her
true self has become “hidden” and the “mirror” of the artist’s paintings has
masked the fact that she is now aging. Through the paintings in which she
appears, she has been given “back all her loveliness” by the artist who has
painted her as she once was.
As such, “In an Artist’s Studio” is a damning critique of the male artist as
consumer-parasite, who exploits the beautiful face of his model who appears in
all of his paintings. Note that in Rossetti’s poem, the female model stands silent.
Seemingly denied any powers of articulation, the model does not realise how her
image has been used by the artist, as she continues to gaze at him with “true
kind eyes”. The model appears in countless different pictures, “A queen in opal
or in ruby dress / A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, / A saint, an angel”
and the poetic voice is quick to note that “every canvas means/The same one
meaning.” The artist’s studio of the title has been filled with canvasses all
depicting the same face of one model, and it is here that the poem moves
towards a denunciation of such artistic practice.
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Handwritten Rossetti manuscript of a poem she wrote for her mother
“He feeds upon her face by day and night, / And she with true kind eyes looks
back on him” forms the critical centre of the poem. The artist is portrayed as a
voyeuristic and parasitical figure who “feeds upon” (note Rossetti’s powerful
diction) the beauty of his model. The poetic voice is emphatic in his/her
denunciation of this practice, simultaneously stating the superficial reality of the
artist-model relationship as not one based on truth or knowledge but the model’s
capacity to “fill[s] the dream” of the artist. The final line of the poem offers
another criticism, “Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.” In other words, the
female model has been denied all sense of self in the artist’s work; she is there
solely to be interpreted by him “as she fills his dream.”
Also, be aware that Rossetti writes the whole poem as a sonnet, and this also
forms part of her critique. The sonnet as a poetic form dates back from the
Renaissance and is often perceived as part of a masculine tradition of poetry.
Shakespeare, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Thomas Wyatt and John Milton all wrote
important and influential sonnets and sonnet sequences, and this helped cement
the sonnet’s reputation as a masculine endeavour. In “In an Artist’s Studio”
Rossetti cleverly usurps the previously male space of the sonnet and assimilates
it in her new feminist re-assessment of art and artistic practices.
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By enclosing her critique of the male artist in the sonnet form, she reinforces her
argument and reclaims the sonnet as a feminine space. This partly explains why
feminist critics during the 1970s onwards, rediscovered Rossetti’s poetry and
insisted on her entry to the Victorian canon of literary works. Often overshadowed by her famous sibling, Christina’s poetry often went unnoticed and she
is probably more widely read now than she was during her own lifetime.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s illustration of Christina’s long poem Goblin Market, often considered controversial
for its potentially lesbian content
In conclusion, “In an Artist’s Studio” is a clever and subversive piece of poetry,
with criticism of the male artist (all the more controversial when you consider
Christina came from a family of artists and poets) and a strong feminist
undertone. Disguised in sonnet form, the title of the piece gives no hint as to
what the poem might really be about, and herein lies its power and impact as a
piece of poetry. If you have enjoyed this poem, remember to read the other
Rossetti poems available from the online Academy of Poets.
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