Christina Rossetti : Poetry in Art

'The editors of Christina Rossetti: Poetry in Art--which is advertised as the first book to bring this material together--are surely right to argue that she composed her work in an atmosphere saturated with visual art' - New York Review of Books

The first art book to explore Rossetti's art and poetry together, including her own artworks, illustrations to her writing, and art inspired by her

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) is among the greatest of English Victorian poets. The intensity of her vision, her colloquial style, and the lyrical quality of her verse still speak powerfully to us today, while her striking imagery has always inspired artists. Rossetti lived in an exceptionally visual environment: her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, was the leading member of the avant-garde Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and she became a favourite model for the group.

She sat for the face of Christ in William Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, while both John Everett Millais and Frederick Sandys illustrated her poetry. Later on, the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron and the great Belgian Symbolist Fernand Khnopff were inspired by Rossetti's enigmatic verses. This engaging book explores the full artistic context of Rossetti's life and poetry: her own complicated attitude to pictures; the many portraits of her by artists, including her brother, John Brett, and Lewis Carroll; her own intriguing and virtually unknown drawings; and the wealth of visual images inspired by her words.

Long listed for the Historians of British Art Book Prize

Details

• Author: Nicholas Tromans, program director at Christie's Education, London, and former curator at Watts Gallery, Surrey.
• Hardcover: 192 pages | 200 colour and black and white illustrations
• Date published: October 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN: 978-0300234862
• Product Dimensions: 25.4 x 19.1 cm