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Rossetti, Dante Gabriel - The Daydream
Identifier
008067
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The picture I have chosen is the study for the daydream because it is a wonderful example of enhanced perception - a sort of transfiguration of the sitter.
This is what the V&A have to say about the final painting:
The sitter for this painting was Jane Morris, the wife of William Morris, who often posed for Rossetti. At the time this was painted Rossetti was involved in an illicit love affair with Jane. He shows her sitting in the branches of a sycamore tree and holding a sprig of honeysuckle. This sweet-smelling climbing plant symbolised the bonds of love for the Victorians, and Rossetti may have included it here as a subtle reference to the relationship between artist and model. Rossetti was also a poet, and the title relates to his poem of the same name which ends:
She dreams; till now on her forgotten book
Drops the forgotten blossom from her hand.
I must admit than when I saw the study I though the flower was a bindweed.........
A description of the experience
