Beata Beatrix (replica) 

1871-1873

Frame: Its general design replicates the frame of the original painting, except, of course, for the fact that this is in two parts, with the frame separating the main picture from the predella bearing a small plaque with the picture's title. The symbolical roundels are the same, except that there are two at the bottom. The top of the frame bears two inscriptions: Jun: Die 9: ANNO 1290 QUOMODO SEDET SOLA CIVITAS! There is another inscription below the predella: MART. DIE 31 ANNO 1300, Veni Sponsa di Libano.

This is a painting that DGR grew to care for, after a fairly prolonged unhappiness with a work he had begun simply for money. In all conceptual and iconographical matters the painting differs very little from the original, except that the added predella thickens both the Dantescan motifs and the autobiographical significance of the subject.

Technically, however, the work is very different indeed, as one can see most immediately if the background areas of the original are compared with this work. Here everything is articulated with much greater precision: the figures of Dante and Eros; their respectively attendant symbolic accessories (the well, symbolizing rebirth and the New Life that Beatrice is dreaming toward; and the Arbor Vitae ornamenting the backspace of Eros); and the distant cityscape architecture of Florence. In one sense the increased definition seems to give greater realism to the picture. But in another and even more telling way the symbolic resonance is increased. That effect comes about because of the way DGR has sharply defined the presence of a field of golden light. In the original painting DGR gives Beatrice an aureole (like the figure of Love) via a witty manipulation of a gold color field that instantiates nature and supernature simultaneously. Here her glory spreads across the entire left two-thirds of the picture, and even appears to hollow out by the power of its lightening the otherwise planar structure of the background areas. The result is not at all to produce a kind of realistic depth recession, though it could be read that way; rather, the gold light comes to seem an extension of Beatrice's person, a flooding glory that rhymes with the darker gold flesh of her tranced face and folded hands.

So here DGR slightly alters the focus of the ideality he first pursued in the original work. In this painting the ideal is clearly centered in the face of Beatrice; and in this painting that face has been drawn somewhat further away from the face of the artist's dead wife toward a more abstract form.

This is a far more dynamic picture than the original. This picture's energy clearly runs along three disharmonic diagonal lines of force: the lines defined by the arm of the sundial, the line joining the dove to the figure of Love, and the line of Beatrice's right arm. In each case symbolic relations are being drawn in reds and golds.

The formal balance between the main picture and the predella is neatly done: the three figures of the former have their equivalents in the latter (with Love being replaced by the train of Beatricean women) in a mirrored arrangement.

BEATA BEATRIX.

Блаженная Беатриче   Beata Beatrix

Галерея Тейт.  86,4*66 cm.

        Россетти начал первую версию картины, ныне находящуюся в галерее Тейт через год после смерти Сиддал в 1864 году после того, как обнаружил ранее сделанный эскиз маслом. Картина, возможно, основана и на портретах Сиддал сделанных в феврале 1862 года и ранее.

   He began the first version of the work, now in the Tate Gallery, London, in 1864,a year after Siddal's death after finding an unfinished oil sketch that he had made of Siddal.

Beata Beatrix (study of Elizabeth Siddal)

1854 (circa)

      Крушение семейной жизни отрицательно сказалось на творчестве Россетти, только спустя годы вернулся он к жанру женского портрета. Беату Беатрикс он писал много лет, с 1864 по 1870 год. Начатая в 1864 году,картина была близка к завершению в 1866 и заказана Hon. William Comper, но окончена лишь в конце 1870-го года,а представлена публике вдовой Компера только в 1889 году.

     Это было воспоминание о жене. Основанная на сюжете смерти Беатриче из "Новой жизни" Данте, она стала одной из известнейших произведений символизма. Состояние, пограничное между жизнью и смертью, земным и духовным, станет позже одной из важных тем, привлекавших символистов.  На протяжении всей жизни Россетти отождествлял себя с флорентийским поэтом Данте Алигьери, культивировал духовную связь с ним. Картина Блаженная Беатриче имеет двойное значение. На ней изображена возлюбленная Данте - Беатриче, но в узнаваемом облике жены Россетти Сиддал.

       В жёлтой дымке Лиззи - Беатриче сидит на балконе флорентийского дворца в позе умирающей с закрытыми глазами и поднятым подбородком, кажется,она остро сознаёт приближающуюся смерть. В ином толковании она закрыла глаза в упоении религиозгого или любовного экстаза. Поза напоминает ту, которая прсутствует на рисунках к 

The Return of Tibullus to Delia (watercolour)

1853 (circa)

Россетти объяснял, что хотел изобразить не момент смерти, а момент "внезапной духовной трансформации". Голубь - вестник смерти принёс ей белый мак (в вариантах - красный). Птица  вкладывает цветок мака (символ невинности, сна  и смерти) в её руку. Мак, как символ, весьма двусмысленен, если вспомнить, что Сиддал умерла (покончила с собой?) как раз от передозировки опия. В глубине картины справа - Данте, устремивший взор на фигуру Амура, несущего пламенное сердце, в центе мост Веккио во Флоренции.   

     Критики приветствовали картину за её эмоциональное воздействие, которое передаётся даже просто через колорит и композицию. Истинная история любви Россетти приобретает новую глубину, Лиззи всё ещё оказывала сильное влияние на его творчество.

          Rossetti again represented Lizzie as Dante's Beatrice in one of his most famous works, Beata Beatrix, (1864-1870) which he painted as a memorial to Lizzie after her death. This piece also mimicked the death of Dante's love in his autobiographical work, Vita Nuova. In the work, amidst a yellow haze of relatively indistinct shapes, including Florence's Ponte Vecchio and the figures of Dante and Love, Lizzie sits, representing Dante's Beatrice. With an upturned chin and closed eyes, Lizzie appears keenly aware of her impending fate, death. A bird, which serves as the messenger of death, places a poppy in her hands. Critics have praised the piece for its emotional resonance, which can be felt simply through the work's moving coloring and composition. The true history of Rossetti and his beloved wife further deepens its meaning; although their love had waned at that point, Lizzie still exerted a powerful influence on the artist.
     

       Frame: This smooth gold leaf frame is typical of many DGR pictures from about 1868 forward. It has a simple, rather severe mouldings on either side of very broad, shallow bevelled boards. Large roundels are set into the boards . . . usually placed singly at the mid-point of each side of the painting. In this particular case the roundels and frame inscriptions are closely integrated to the painting. The roundels were possibly inspired by the margin decorations in Plate 14 of Blake's Jobâ The Days of Creation. The texts had been used before by Rossetti as early as 1856 on the original frame of the water-color Dante's Dream . At the bottom is inscribed the line from Jeremiah, Lamentations I, i, quoted by Dante in the Vita Nuova on the death of Beatrice Quomodo sedet sola Civitas!; at the top is the date of Beatrice's death, now partly erased, Jun: Die 9: Anno 1290 (Grieve 23). The roundels placed midway on each side of the frame are contain relief representations of (at the top) the rising sun, (on the right) the stars, (on the left) a crescent moon embracing a single star, and (at the bottom) a land and seascape with the inscription 9 Giugno 1290.They symbolize, in a much more naturalistic way, the same forces that were symbolized by the schematic roundels on the frame of the 1854 Salutation of Beatrice and again probably relate to the closing lines of the Commedia ( Paradiso XXXIII. 143-145) (Grieve23).

Current Location: Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery

https://rossettiarchive.iath.virginia.edu/docs/s168.rap.html

         One of several versions of this subject, this painting was unfinished at the time of Rossetti's death and the background was completed by Ford Madox Brown. In this version, the poppies are red, perhaps an explicit reference to opium-derived laudanum. Another version of the painting is in the Tate collection. There are also numerous related pencil studies in the Birmingham collection, as well as a large ornamental maijolica dish painted with a scene of Rossetti's 'Dante's Dream'.

СИМВОЛИКА  КАРТИНЫ.

Голубь обычно символизирует Мир или святого Духа, но здесь он вестник смерти. В одних вариантах голубь красный, в других - белый. Интересно, что у красного есть нимб, а у белого нет.

   The dove symbolise  a messenger of death.  Usually the dove represents Peace or the Holy Spirit. Here, it is the messenger of death. In other versions of the painting the dove is red, symbolising passion and death.

Мак - символ смерти. Опийный мак использовался для приготовления лекарства лауданум от передозировки которого и скончалась жена Россетти, вероятно, поэтому на некоторых вариантах мак красный - опиумный, на других белый - символ сна и смерти. В личном для Россетти плане мак символизирует уход Сиддал из его жизни, но не из души.

   The poppy symbolise Death. This is an opium poppy sometimes used to make the drug laudanum. Rossetti's wife died from a drug overdose.

Циферблат солнечных часов - символ преходящего времени. Тень стрелки падает на 9 часов. Как объяснял Россеттти "Данте повстречал Веатриче, когда ей было девять лет,  умерла  Беатриче в 9 часов 9 июня 1290 года.

  The sundial represent the passing of time. The shadow on the sundial falls on 9 o'clock. This is time of Beatrice's death in the poem.

Почему плащь Беатриче зелёный, а платье пурпурное? Зелёный - жизнь, весна, надежда, пурпурный - горе и смерть.

 Why is Beatrice's tunic green and the dress purple?  Green for life, purple for sorrow. Green means spring life and hope. Purple means sorrow and death.According to Rossetti's friend F.G. Stephens, the grey and green of her dress signify 'the colours of hope and sorrow as well as of love and life' ('Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti', Portfolio, vol.22, 1891, p.46).

Две фигуры на заднем плане. - ангел любви с пламенеющим сердцем в руке (угасающая жизнь Беатриче) и сам Данте-Россетти, неотрывно смотрит на фигуру Любви, в чьей руке пламенем мерцает затухающая жизнь его госпожи.

Фон картины - река Арно, мост Понте Веккьо и башни собора во Флоренции, где жили Данте и Беатриче.

       Rossetti intended to represent her, not at the moment of death, but transformed by a 'sudden spiritual transfiguration' (Rossetti, in a letter of 1873, quoted in Wilson, p.86). She is posed in an attitude of ecstasy, with her hands before her and her lips parted, as if she is about to receive Communion.  The picture frame, which was designed by Rossetti, has further references to death and mourning, including the date of Beatrice's death and a phrase from Lamentations 1:1, quoted by Dante in the Vita Nuova: 'Quomodo sedet sola civitas' ('how doth the city sit solitary'), referring to the mourning of Beatrice's death throughout the city of Florence.