The First Madness of Ophelia - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Description
A poignant watercolour by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicting the onset of Ophelia's madness, rendered in the distinct style of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, produced this watercolour in 1864. The composition depicts a scene from Shakespeare's Hamlet, specifically the moment Ophelia begins to lose her grip on reality. Rossetti focuses on the psychological state of the protagonist, who stands at the centre, adorned with a floral crown. Her expression is vacant, contrasting with the concerned figures of Laertes, King Claudius, and Queen Gertrude surrounding her.
The artist employs a flattened, medievalist perspective, which was characteristic of his mid-career work. The figures are arranged in a frieze-like manner against a decorative background, echoing the influence of illuminated manuscripts and early Italian art. Rossetti uses a saturated palette, particularly the deep blues of Ophelia's gown and the heavy, textured reds of Laertes' cloak, to create a sense of dramatic tension. The attention to costume detail and the symbolic use of flowers reflect the Pre-Raphaelite interest in historical accuracy and poetic narrative.
This work demonstrates Rossetti's preoccupation with tragic female figures, a theme he returned to throughout his career. By choosing to depict the onset of Ophelia's madness rather than her eventual drowning, he captures a moment of transition. The figures are tightly grouped, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere that mirrors the internal turmoil of the characters. The work remains a fine example of the Victorian fascination with Shakespearean tragedy, rendered through the specific aesthetic lens of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.
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Specific Features
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Museum-grade giclée on FSC-certified archival matte paper, with framed and canvas options.
- Paper sizes: A4, A3, A2, A1, A0 and B2 (50×70 cm)
- Canvas: XS (20×30 cm) to Large (60×90 cm)
- Frames: black, natural wood, dark wood or white
The First Madness of Ophelia - Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Artist Biography
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
He was born in London to an Italian political exile and named after the author of the Divine Comedy. His father was a professor of Italian at King's College. The household ran on poetry, politics, and argument. Rossetti wrote verse throughout his life and considered himself a poet as much as a painter.
His early paintings are small, bright, and meticulously detailed in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. The Girlhood of Mary Virgin and Ecce Ancilla Domini have the flat, jewelled quality of medieval altarpieces. After 1860 the style changed. The paintings became larger, more sensual, and dominated by the face and figure of Jane Burden, who was William Morris's wife.
The relationship between Rossetti, Morris, and Jane is one of the more uncomfortable triangles in art history. Morris married her. Rossetti painted her obsessively. She modelled for Proserpine, La Pia de' Tolomei, and dozens of other works in which she appears as a mythological woman trapped in an unwanted situation. Whether the affair was physical remains debated. Morris, characteristically, said nothing publicly and channelled his feelings into wallpaper.
Rossetti buried a manuscript of his poems in his wife Lizzie Siddal's coffin when she died of a laudanum overdose in 1862. Seven years later he had the coffin exhumed to retrieve them. He published the poems. He was addicted to chloral hydrate by then and increasingly paranoid. He died in 1882, at fifty-three.
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