Lucinda hawksley lizzie siddal biography

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Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. She worked long hours in unpleasant conditions, and her family was worrying about her already delicate health. Instead he sent his own very respectable mother, in her grand carriage, to talk about the finances. Mrs Siddal was awed by the arrival of a carriage at her modest home on the Old Kent Road.

Initially, Siddal started working part-time as a model, and remained part-time at the hat shop. She modelled for Rossetti for the first time infor one of his lesser-known paintings, Rossovestita. According to his patron, John Ruskin, throughout their ensuing relationship, Rossetti drew and painted Siddal thousands of times. Through her modelling work and the success of the paintings she appeared in, Lizzie helped change the public opinion of beauty.

Within a couple of years, Lizzie was earning enough to leave the hat shop. Other artists clamoured to paint her, but Rossetti, by this time recognised as her lover, became jealous and asked her to model only for him. Neither was easy to live with: Siddal was addicted to the drug laudanum, and Rossetti was serially unfaithful. Her paintings were often derided by art critics, yet Siddal had only just begun learning, whereas the men of her circle had been honing their craft, under expert tutelage, for many years.

Her surprisingly quick progress shows why Ruskin took such an interest in her. Inshe was the sole female exhibitor at the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition in London, where one of her paintings, Clerk Saunderswas bought by an influential US collector, Charles Eliot Norton. Shortly afterwards, Siddal, whose health and relationship had been worsening for some time, gave up her annuity from Ruskin.

Rossetti and Ruskin had been controlling her life and she wanted to escape. Home Who was Judge Willis? Share this: Facebook X. Like Loading This entry was posted in Book reviews. Bookmark the permalink. Leave a comment Cancel reply. Search for:.

Lucinda hawksley lizzie siddal biography

Email Address: Sign me up! Join other subscribers. I would have liked either an author's forward or note that credited the major sources, since she doesn't include in text citations. There are end notes, but they are rather vague and were of limited assistance. There is a bibliography at the end and an index which are nice additions. Given the lack of citations it is sometimes hard to tell when the author is presenting a commonly accepted premise, a particular author's conclusions, or an original idea or interpretation.

I particularly enjoyed her use of textual and artistic analysis the poems and artwork of both Siddal and Rossetti as support for her interpretations. This is, of course, quite subjective, but I think it's valid as long as it's treated as reasonable extrapolation and interpretation as opposed to immutable fact. While Hawksley touches on the lack of opportunities for women and people of the lower classes, I wouldn't describe it as either a feminist or socialist work.

I don't see this as a flaw; this is just a comment. Given the subtitle of the book, I did wish that Hawksley had elaborated more on the concept of the supermodel or cults of personality. This is mentioned in passing and in conclusion in the work, but is not addressed directly. But I would have enjoyed an exploration of this idea, rather than just a bald statement that Lizzie was the first.

Before reading this I really knew next to nothing about Lizzie Siddal beyond her name and image from the paintings she modeled for and sadly I was not terribly surprised that her life was not the most ideal. I mentioned that this didn't feel like a very in-depth look at Lizzie Siddal's life, which I suspect has much to do with how little documentation there is about her as women weren't considered very worthy of attention and documentation in the Victorian era, especially when surrounded by the many self-involved men that made up much of the PRB art movement.

I also felt the book romanticized her and her life a bit more than most biographies so but in this case I don't actually consider that a failing since there wasn't much to work with and the author really made her feel real and sympathetic when there wasn't much to work with. My biggest complaint is one I often have with books that involve artists and their works in that there were not enough images of the works described, they don't always have to be color plates, but if you take the time to describe and art work in detail please include an image of it.

Much of the impact of the work in the narrative is lost if you can't see it.