Lizzie Siddal, Dante Rossetti and the one thousand faces of Neptune

I finally finished reading the dazzling “Lizzie Siddal – Face of the Pre-Raphaelites”, by Lucinda Hawksley. The book is a delight in every page, specially for who, like me, have a big interest on the Victorian era and mainly on its artistic movements. Among them, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and its romantic protagonists play a key role. I have a great fascination with the life of the painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and by his “femme fatales”, to which the stunning Elizabeth Siddal many times loaned her face. Siddal became Rossetti’s lover and finally, almost in the end of her troubled life, his wife. Rossetti and Lizzie were the protagonists of a relationship seasoned by the typical romanticism of their time, marked by poetry, art, laudanum, religiosity and tragedy. Neptune in all of its fashions.

Lizzie Siddal didn’t have, for her time, what one could name a conventional beauty. Tall, slim, pale face and red-haired – what was still considered a sign of bad luck – , Lizzie was seen with strangeness and caused controverted feelings, of both admiration and repulse. However, for the eyes of the young painters of the Pre-raphaelite Brotherhood, she was some kind of idyllic creature. One after another they invited her to sit for them, starting off a career she had never dreamt about and that would immortalize her, as well as it would open the doors for her work as a painter and poet.

Unfortunately it was not possible to find the complete Lizzie’s birth data, but is known that she was born at July 25th, 1829, under the stars of Cancer. Incredible sensitivity, mood instability, romantic inclinations, attachment to the past – what made her to identify almost instantly with the Pre-Raphaelite themes and use them in her own paintings – don’t leave doubts about the typical Cancer temperament. Therefore, one could imagine the extension of her sorrow and sadness by bearing during 10 years the hesitation of Rossetti in marrying her. Even more painful was the experience of giving birth to a stillborn baby. Family and children are of vital importance for Cancer people, and they use to be very maternal types. Of melancholy temperament, Lizzie suffered from an unknown illness that stole her vitality and that was only getting worse with the passing of time, in spite of the efforts of Rossetti and some friends to help her heal. When in treatment, Lizzie used to go to water stations – a Cancer treatment – around England. When Rossetti was with her she always experienced relief, what indicated that her illness was probably of emotional causes – Cancer again.

Rossetti and Siddal lived a very troubled relationship. Although Rossetti postponed their marriage and had several affairs during his courtship to Lizzie, their attachment was strong and had a spiritual tone, like the one of two people destined to be together. Rossetti took their relationship to the extremes of the romantic idealization. Lizzie was his Beatrice, homonym poet Dante's beloved, and in the skin of Beatrice he portraited her for several times. But the most symbolic and powerful Rossetti's piece on the same theme is undoubtely Beata Beatrix, his last painting of Lizzie, made after her death on an overdose of laudanum.

Beata Beatrix is an essencially neptunian work. It starts with the supernatural light that surrounds Beatrice and other subjects, giving them an spiritual aura. Beatrice is shown in the trancelike atitude of a martyr, prepared for her passage into a fairest world. A nonrealistic, red-coloured bird brings a poppy in its beak and flies over Beatrice's hands, in an allusion to the Holy Spirit. In the background, the figure of Dante stands by a well, a symbol of rebirth not only of Beatrice but also of himself. On the left, the figure of Love in red sends us to Venus. Being Neptune the higher octave of Venus, and considering the intensity of Dante's love for Beatrice, I see this composition as quite suggestive of a transformation, or evolution, of the material, human love - Venus - to something purer, or most sacred - Neptune. Love as rebirth and a bridge to the heavens. And there's indeed a bridge in the background, the bridge over the Arno river, in Florence, where Dante and Beatrice lived until her death. A sundial shows on the figure nine, the number mystically connected by Dante to his beloved, which is symbolically the number of compassion and higher forms of love.

Another reading of the painting, made by Hawksley herself and that gives us another neptunian facet, is curious and pretty much disquieting. What the fantastic dove is carrying in its beak is nothing less than a poppy - a symbol of death and sleep, but also the source of opium. Beatrice/Lizzie's ecstatic attitude can be interpreted as the one of an addict, the kind of sensation they experience, unconsciously seeking for the neptunian peace of the primeval waters...

However, the most disturbing in the making of Beata Beatrix is its "supernatural", premonitory character. Some scholars may think that that was a piece painted after Siddal's death, as some kind of tribute, but the truth is that Rossetti started it before his wife's overdose on laudanum and consequent death. As we know, the psychic and mediumistic are also Neptune dominions. Later, Rossetti describes the work as "not as a representation of the incident of the death of Beatrice, but as an ideal of the subject, symbolized by a trance or sudden spiritual transfiguration."

Images: Beata Beatrix (1864) and Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal (1854), both by Dante Gabriel Rosseti

Cancer

When I come, it comes Summer in the north and Winter in the south. Right nine months before Aries, symbol of birth.

I am the mother. The principle of generation and conservation. I am everything that is inside, that nests and protects. Womb, cave, the homeland. I am your refuge and your home. Mother Earth. The essence of the feminine, the ying, the anima, the passive side of every human being. I am your roots, your past, your nest, the place where you turns back to when you need comfort and feel like a child again.

Mysterious, as every water sign. Who dares to find out what is hidden below my surface? But my water is gentle, my water nurtures, fertilizes. It eases your thirst. However, it can be dangerous sometimes. Be careful or I can drag you when my arms assume the shape of rapids or waterfalls.

I am the Moon, I am the Woman. The High Priestess. My breasts overflow with milk and remembrances. With open arms to receive you, here for you when your soul is troubled and your heart is hungry. You don’t need to tell me anything; I just know. And I’ll take care of you when the rest of the world becomes hostile and dry. I will even fight for you if necessary, for I am strong and hard outside. However, I expect from you the same consideration, the same love. Are you ready?

I see the world through silver lenses, I can make it a more beautiful place with my imagination. I go up high to catch stars above and know their secrets, to hear the whispers of my sister Moon. To write words of wonder with my silvered fingers. But sometimes I fall… So deep, so painfully deep I couldn’t even remember my dreams. How could I understand the mystery of being so strong and the same time so crystal fragile? Sometimes, a blow can shatter my heart in a thousand pieces. And I’ll remember them forever. Each one of them. Every piece of myself that I put together, again and again.

I am inside you, with my rainy eyes and hair covered in water lilies. I am that part of yourself that wants to care and nurture, when you scream with emotions and instincts. I am where you feel at home and protected, and where you want to protect. Where you take your nourishment from and feel safe. I am where your soul is – nothing less.

Image: Mother and Child, Gustav Klimt