Assignment:
- Describe the speaker in each of these poems.
- Describe the woman depicted in each of these poems.
- What is the relationship between viewer and subject? Which viewer?
- How is the reader implicated in this relationship?
Discussion:
1. The speaker in Rosetti’s “In an Artist’s studio” is one out of a group of people (“we found her hidden just behind those screens” who discovers a commonality amongst paintings in an Artist’s Studio. The speaker is familiar with the woman who is this commonality, and recognizes her being depicted, “Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;”. The speaker is also familiar with the artist, and through the poem imagines manifestations of his obsession with the woman he paints.
2.The woman in the paintings is, “A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,/A saint, an angel”. She is painted as she exists in the obsessive thoughts, or “dreams” of the artist painting her. Which was, evidently, in a time when the artist, the woman, and the viewer were more innocent- or younger, “when hope shone bright”. She is simple, though regal “A queen in opal or in ruby dress”- demonstrating the quintessential aspects of the demure, middle-class woman defined by the era. Her appearance also indicates a virtuous morality, perhaps indicating that, although she is beautiful, she is also reserved (also alluding to her social class standing), as the viewer writes that she is depicted with “true kind eyes” .
3. The relationship between the viewer and the woman in the artist’s paintings is one of vague familiarity. And yet, the meeting between the viewer and the woman is one in which a newfound appreciation for the woman is created, as within the studio she is discovered, as if a treasure, “hidden just behind those screens,”. The woman is a secret window into both the artist’s mind, and into the woman’s true character. Additionally, the paintings and the studio create a magnified understanding of the woman’s aesthetics, as “That mirror gave back all her loveliness”, meaning that the artist’s view of the woman was a view into the “true kind eyes” depicted behind the woman’s pleasant exterior. Thus, the relationship between the woman and the viewer is one of newfound understanding, but also curiosity.
4. By utilizing the first person “we”, the writer of the poem is indirectly involving the reader in the poem’s experience. In this way, the poet is expressing the experience of walking through the artist’s studio, and though the reader is not and was not physically there, the poetry alludes and conveys the greater meaning behind the experience. Thus, the reader accompanies the poet on processing this experience, and ultimately takes part in the secret life in paintings live by the woman “we found… hidden just behind those screens”.
