“In an Artist’s Studio”

In this blog post I will be composing a close reading of Christina Rossetti’s poem entitled “In an Artist’s Studio”. In this poem, the female narrator finds herself in the art studio of, presumably, a male artist. There are many canvases with a seemingly similar face that appear in all the paintings. There are two implicit messages within this poem: the loss of female identity in a male-dominated art world, and the reclaiming of a woman’s identity. These two messages are clearly divided in the structure of the sonnet. The octave addresses the claim that a woman’s identity is “hidden” and made as a “one selfsame figure”. Rossetti is claiming that the depictions of queens, nameless girls, and saints are all the same–almost as if the woman’s face and figure is being exploited for the benefit of the artist. Even though she is depicted as various characters, she has “the same one meaning” that doesn’t add nor subtract from her. She remains the same as she is constantly used over and over again like a recyclable object. Additionally, the woman in the various paintings has no voice because she is literally trapped within the canvass where she cannot move nor speak. Instead, she is kept in her place, just like the majority of the women in the Victorian Era.

In the last sestet of the sonnet, the tone changes and the repetition of the word “not” appears multiple times. This repetition is a way for the woman in the poem to push back against the way that men perceive her. The implicit message in the last couple verses that repeat “not as she is” alludes to the fact that all those paintings are not really of her, but are only multiple visions of how the artist wants to see her. It is not her in the paintings, but just a “dream” she fills in the minds of men.