{"id":484,"date":"2023-04-24T18:30:03","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/?p=484"},"modified":"2023-04-24T18:30:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:30:03","slug":"in-an-artists-studio-lay-the-lady-of-shalott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/2023\/04\/24\/in-an-artists-studio-lay-the-lady-of-shalott\/","title":{"rendered":"In An Artist’s Studio … Lay the Lady of Shalott"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christina Rossetti\u2019s \u201cIn an Artist\u2019s Studio\u201d struck me for multiple reasons: first and foremost, the haunting line of \u201che feeds on her face\u201d. The imagery alone was enough to draw me in, but I became more interested in the poem going over it with peers in class, learning the context of Christina Rossetti\u2019s life and how it may have influenced this posthumously published work. The poem can easily be related to her being the model for many of her brother\u2019s paintings: after all, the woman in the poem is only \u201cone selfsame figure\u201d though she looks out from \u201call his canvases\u201d. She is portrayed \u201cnot as she is\u201d, but as many different fictional figures, in only a perfect, curated pose. Looking at some of the images of the paintings Christina Rossetti modeled for, I was reminded of the poem and subsequent paintings of \u201cThe Lady of Shalott,\u201d and one of my classmates brought up the same association. The beautiful, yet often tragic, female figures of the paintings surrounding the Lady of Shalott reflect not only Christina Rossetti\u2019s own experiences, but the more generalized experiences she describes through \u201cIn An Artist\u2019s Studio.\u201d \u201cA queen in opal or in ruby dress, \/ A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, \/ A saint, an angel\u201d are all possible paintings done of the same female model. The painting of the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse embodies multiple of these: the lady is dressed in a white, shining dress, similar to opal\u2014she stood beside the water \u201cqueenly\u201d as well. At the same time, she is beautiful yet nameless, known only as the \u201cLady of Shalott.\u201d And as for being saint or angel-like, one could interpret the moment the painting depicts from the poem as her saint-like moment\u2014sailing off to her death, a sacrifice she makes, \u201csick of shadows\u201d, \u201cchanting\u201d as she drifts along the water to the light of Camelot. Finally, it is worth noting that both the poem and the painting of the Lady of Shalott depict her death as rather serene, also saintly in nature\u2014it brings to mind the line of \u201cIn An Artist\u2019s Studio\u201d where Rosetti states that she, a model, is painted \u201cnot as she is, but as she fills his dream\u201d. Both the painting and poem depicting the Lady of Shalott\u2014nameless, queenly, angelic\u2014were produced by men. Rossetti’s poem invites an interpretation of the poem and painting that looks at how the figure of the Lady of Shalott is represented, and why.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christina Rossetti\u2019s \u201cIn an Artist\u2019s Studio\u201d struck me for multiple reasons: first and foremost, the haunting line of \u201che feeds on her face\u201d. The imagery alone was enough to draw me in, but I became more interested in the poem going over it with peers in class, learning the context of Christina Rossetti\u2019s life and … Continue reading In An Artist’s Studio … Lay the Lady of Shalott<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}