Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Plates bright and vivid. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Still others reflect Rossetti’s early reading in Shakespeare Sir Walter Scott Cervantes Monk Lewis. Mein- hold. Mrs. Browning and Mrs. Crowe and his fascination with both the The Arabian Nights and with classical and ballad litera- ture. A small group are illustrations for Ros- setti’s own early literary works-his ballad “William and Marie” (83) his prose tale “Sorrentino” (88) and a poetic drama “The Slave” (105b) the last two no longer extant: one illustrates his father’s poem Lisa and El- viro (89). While many of the juvenile drawings illustrate unidentified literary subjects oth ers are clearly generic in terms of theme or subject matter such as the four groups of chivalric figures in Plates 105-108. In terms of their aesthetic merit the drawings vary enormously but the collection documents far more thoroughly than any surviving archive the early sources of Rossetti’s artistic imagi- nation; it also enhances considerably our un- derstanding of the evolution of his early style. It is a commonplace among art critics to assert Rossetti’s indifference to such artis- tic essentials as perspective form and draughtsmanship and one of the most signi ficant features of the drawings in the Cabi- net which are characterized by their diversi ty of subject style and technique is the evi- dence they provide of his conscious efforts to master his craft to discover ways of translat- ing imaginative ideas into workable artistic forms. That individual drawings may be un- successful is offset by the cumulative number. (SP)