. Art and criticism : monographs and studies. deep brown hairstreaming over her shoulders, regretful eyes and ideally beauti-ful face, stands for an instant as she passes, holding the pome-granate in her hand—that fateful pomegranate of which shehad eaten one grain only, but which was sufficient to enchainher to her new throne of Empress of Hades in spite of thepleadings of her mother Ceres. Beside her stands an incenseburner as the attribute of a goddess. The ivy-branch in thebackground (a decorative appendage to the sonnet inscribed onthe label) may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory. I
. Art and criticism : monographs and studies. deep brown hairstreaming over her shoulders, regretful eyes and ideally beauti-ful face, stands for an instant as she passes, holding the pome-granate in her hand—that fateful pomegranate of which shehad eaten one grain only, but which was sufficient to enchainher to her new throne of Empress of Hades in spite of thepleadings of her mother Ceres. Beside her stands an incenseburner as the attribute of a goddess. The ivy-branch in thebackground (a decorative appendage to the sonnet inscribed onthe label) may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory. Iquote these explanations from a letter by Rossetti, for few peo-ple, when they have ceased reading Ovid and Lempriere, cancarry in their minds the key to the symbolism of ancientGreece and Rome. Doubtless this impressive conception ofProserpine is full of literary and philosophical intentions, but itis beautiful as a work of art not on account of those inten-tions but in spite of them. In Veronica Veronese the mystic intentions are not im-. ROSSETTlS VERONICA VERONESE. A PRE-RAPHAELITE MANSION. 333 mediately obvious, nor does any explanation seem is a beautiful blond maiden clad in olive-green velvet,with a white neckerchief and a reddish-purple girdle. She isseated on a dull-red chair, and leaning over a table on whichare some primroses and a daffodil. As she listens to a canary-bird singing, her fingers stray over the chords of a violin, andbefore her the paper lies ready to receive the record of thenotes. The absolute originality of the composition, which sep-arates the causes in opposite corners of the picture, and unitesthe effects in the intensely expressive face, at once strikes an arrangement as this has not been conceived artist has painted hands in such a position. This is some-thing strange, intimate, and at the same time dreamily beauti-ful, comparable with nothing that ancient or modern art hasproduced — something so refined, s
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