Explore "Rossetti" by Lucien Pissarro on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The storm of abuse caused by his two first pictures assisted a natural inclination to give up his first source of religio-mystical inspiration. Gradually the young painter groped his way towards romantic subjects and discovered a rich mine of them in the works of Browning, Dante, Keats, and the "Morte d'Arthur" of Malory. He may be said to have found there the subjects of most of his compositions, and his works inspired by these poets are delightfully full of originality and ingenuity.
He tried first a large canvas from the page's song in "Pippa Passes" but had to abandon it. The composition of it remains in a little painting called "Hist, said Kate the Queen," dated 1851. He executed two other pen-and-ink designs from Browning entitled "Taurellos' first sight of Fortune" and the "Laboratory," at about the same time. Probably the latter was his first essay in water-colour, it is very different from those for which he is popularly known.