''A Sea-Spell'' is an
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
of 1877 and an accompanying
sonnet of 1869 by the
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
artist
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...
, depicting a
siren
Siren or sirens may refer to:
Common meanings
* Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies
* Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology
Places
* Siren (town), Wisconsin
* Siren, Wisc ...
playing an instrument to lure sailors. It is now in the
Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...
.
Painting
Description
The painting depicts a
siren
Siren or sirens may refer to:
Common meanings
* Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies
* Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology
Places
* Siren (town), Wisconsin
* Siren, Wisc ...
in human form playing a musical instrument "in a thoughtful reverie",
surrounded by
apple
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
s, apple
blossoms, and a
seagull.
The instrument being played has been described as a
harp and as "somewhat related to the
psaltery";
according to an analysis published in the journal ''Music in Art'', it is an unusually short Japanese
koto
Koto may refer to:
* Koto (band), an Italian synth pop group
* Koto (instrument), a Japanese musical instrument
* Koto (kana), a ligature of two Japanese katakana
* Koto (traditional clothing), a traditional dress made by Afro-Surinamese women
* K ...
, a traditional 13-stringed
zither
Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat ...
-like instrument.
The artist's brother
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti (25 September 1829 – 5 February 1919) was an English writer and critic.
Early life
Born in London, Rossetti was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti and his wife Frances Rossetti ''née'' Polidor ...
described the subject as "a Siren, or Sea-Fairy, whose lute summons a sea-bird to listen, and whose song will prove fatal to some fascinated mariner".
Execution
![Dante Gabriel Rossetti - La viuda romana (Dîs Manibus)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti_-_La_viuda_romana_%28D%C3%AEs_Manibus%29.jpg)
In 1873, Rossetti made a drawing of a sea-maiden playing an instrument, titled ''
Ligeia
"Ligeia" () is an early short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his wife Ligeia, a beautiful and intelligent raven-haired woman. She falls ill, composes "The Conqueror Wor ...
Siren'', as a preliminary study for ''A Sea-Spell''.
He had begun work on the painting itself by 18 August 1875.
His brother wrote that Gabriel painted the work, along with another half-length figure painting called ''
The Roman Widow'', after his patron
Frederick Richards Leyland "suggested" that he was interested in buying several such paintings. Leyland later denied making a commitment to do so.
The model was
Alexa Wilding
Alexa Wilding (born Alice Wilding, c. 1847 – 25 April 1884) was one of the favourite models of the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, featuring in some of his finest paintings of the later 1860s and 1870s. She sat for more of h ...
, one of Rossetti's several muses.
''A Sea-Spell'' was a companion to ''
Veronica Veronese
''Veronica Veronese'' is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model. The painting was conceived as a companion to ''Lady Lilith.'' Rossetti sold the painting to one of his best clients, shipping mag ...
'', for which Wilding also modeled.
Rossetti was assisted by an unidentified
naturalist in finding and positioning the
stuffed seagull used in the painting, which led to some delay.
Poem
Rossetti wrote a
sonnet in 1869 as a "double" of the painting completed years later, as he did for several other works in the same period.
The text of the poem is as follows:
Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
:While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
:Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell,
The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.
But to what sound her listening ear stoops she?
:What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,
:In answering echoes from what planisphere,
Along the wind, along the estuary?
She sinks into her spell: and when full soon
:Her lips move and she soars into her song,
:What creatures of the midmost main shall throng
In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune:
:Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
:And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die?
Critical reception and analysis
Jerome McGann
Jerome John McGann (born July 22, 1937) is an American academic and textual scholar whose work focuses on the history of literature and culture from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Career
Educated at Le Moyne College (B.S. 1959), Sy ...
wrote that the painting is a "failure", caused by Rossetti's excessive intellectualizing of his work; previous critics suggested, to the contrary, that the work is flawed due to Rossetti's "slipshod" execution.
The scholar Helene E. Roberts wrote that the painting is one of a group of depictions of Rossetti's "ideal woman". She wrote that the iconic image of womanhood dominated Rossetti's "dream world", and that the painting is intended to evoke similar reveries in the viewer, citing its musical theme as a prompt for "indolent musing". She argued that, although the combination of daydreaming and womanhood in ''A Sea-Spell'' could be
pornographic
Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults, , Rossetti encourages more spiritual responses, emphasizing the subject's face and making her exposed arms "masculine, or at best matronly".
Lucien Agosta argued that the piece illustrates a common theme in Rossetti's work, of Art as independent of – and triumphant over –
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
. He noted that Rossetti, in a letter, had written that the subject's song was a "magic lay" and that the sonnet describes unnatural "netherland gulf-whispers", and that the siren's attraction of a bird to listen to her song inverts the relationship of ''
Veronica Veronese
''Veronica Veronese'' is an oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model. The painting was conceived as a companion to ''Lady Lilith.'' Rossetti sold the painting to one of his best clients, shipping mag ...
'', in which the musician is inspired by a bird.
History
The painting was owned by Leyland, who may have acquired it from Rossetti, and was sold through
Christie's in 1892. It was owned by
T. F. Wigley, David Croal Thomson, and
William Hulme, Viscount Leverhulme, who sold it in 1926 through
Anderson Galleries
Anderson or Andersson may refer to:
Companies
* Anderson (Carriage), a company that manufactured automobiles from 1907 to 1910
* Anderson Electric, an early 20th-century electric car
* Anderson Greenwood, an industrial manufacturer
* Anderson ...
of
New York. Anderson Galleries sold it to another New York dealer, Scott & Fowles, from whom the lawyer and art collector
Grenville L. Winthrop purchased it in 1935. Winthrop donated the work to the
Fogg Art Museum
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
of his ''
alma mater'',
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, in 1939.
''A Sea-Spell'' was exhibited in a posthumous exhibition of Rossetti's work at the
Burlington Fine Arts Club in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
in 1883; in the
National Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of ...
, on loan from Wigley, in 1899;
in a Rossetti-centered exhibition at the
University of Kansas Museum of Art in 1958; at the
National Museum of Western Art
The is the premier public art gallery in Japan specializing in art from the Western tradition.
The museum is in the museum and zoo complex in Ueno Park in Taitō, central Tokyo. It received 1,162,345 visitors in 2016.
History
The NMWA was es ...
of
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
in 2002; and as part of many Fogg Art Museum and Harvard Art Museums exhibitions. It is currently on display on the second floor of the Harvard Art Museums.
See also
*
List of paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This is a list of paintings by the British Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, paint ...
References
External links
Theoretical analysis of siren as mystic artist
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sea-Spell, A
Paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Paintings in the Harvard Art Museums
1877 paintings
Sonnets
Gulls in art
Musical instruments in art