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Poet: Christina Rossetti
Poem: In An Artist's Studio
Volume: Poems
Year: Published/Written in 1890
Comment 4 of 4, added on January 10th, 2007 at 2:07 PM.
My interpretation of this sonnet is that it is very romantic and warming, yet deeply upsetting at the same time. I see the artist who Rossetti is writing about as a man, madly in love with a woman who only exists in his dreams and he is so deeply in love with her that his heart is steadily becoming insatiable. I believe this woman exists in a dream that broke his heart, simply because he had to wake up and i think that on waking up and realising he was dreaming almost caused him to die of a broken heart. Furthermore i also believe that given the opportunity, he would have chosen not to have woke up at all, but to have spent the rest of his life in a sweet love-filled state of unconsciousness with the "nameless girl" he loves. She has had such a profound affect on him that he cannot forget her face.So he paints her. In several different poses, to reconstruct his dream as best he can maybe?as many of us would keep photographs and letters from our partners to keep us from losing our special memories? Only, instead of keeping these precious sentiments in a shoebox or a safe, he keeps them stored in his studio.
It could possibly be a recurring dream because "he feeds upon her face by day and night" suggesting to me that when he is not staring at her paintings, he is asleep dreaming about her once again.
Then again, this sonnet is so ambiguous that it could be a variety of things and it could be a mixture of them all. It could even be all of them.
Robin from United Kingdom
Comment 3 of 4, added on October 24th, 2005 at 2:10 PM.
This poem is a reference to Christina's brother and his studio. He repeated these portraits of the lady whom he later married, Miss Siddal, so I dont believe that she is dead. He is so absolutely in love with this woman that he depicts her as "a queen...a saint...an angel" in his art, because that is how she appears in "his dream"s.
Zane from Canada
Comment 2 of 4, added on June 6th, 2005 at 10:05 AM.
I think it is more about the vampiric relationship between the artist and his art. "He feeds upon her face" is a reference to the artist's insatiable lust for the aesthetically ideal woman in the painting. He is fascinated by his own power to create art and to shape his subjects according to his own desires and tastes, “not she as she is but as she fills his dreams”. The poet is also making a larger comment about art in general; an artist can never truly depict reality as it is, (art is an artificial medium) but he/she is usually very good at depicting reality as he/she thinks it should be –whether it be a fantasy or just an inspired subject.
EJP from Australia
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My interpretation of this sonnet is that it is very romantic and warming, yet deeply upsetting at the same time. I see the artist who Rossetti is writing about as a man, madly in love with a woman who only exists in his dreams and he is so deeply in love with her that his heart is steadily becoming insatiable. I believe this woman exists in a dream that broke his heart, simply because he had to wake up and i think that on waking up and realising he was dreaming almost caused him to die of a broken heart. Furthermore i also believe that given the opportunity, he would have chosen not to have woke up at all, but to have spent the rest of his life in a sweet love-filled state of unconsciousness with the "nameless girl" he loves. She has had such a profound affect on him that he cannot forget her face.So he paints her. In several different poses, to reconstruct his dream as best he can maybe?as many of us would keep photographs and letters from our partners to keep us from losing our special memories? Only, instead of keeping these precious sentiments in a shoebox or a safe, he keeps them stored in his studio.
It could possibly be a recurring dream because "he feeds upon her face by day and night" suggesting to me that when he is not staring at her paintings, he is asleep dreaming about her once again.
Then again, this sonnet is so ambiguous that it could be a variety of things and it could be a mixture of them all. It could even be all of them.
Robin from United Kingdom