A stunning collection of paintings, sculpture and decorative art from the 13th century to the present day.
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A stunning collection of paintings, sculpture and decorative art from the 13th century to the present day.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
This exhibition was held at the Walker Art Gallery in 2003/4.
Oil on canvas, dated 1882, 77.5 x 37.5cm, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery. Purchased by the Public Picture Gallery Fund
The goddess Proserpine was doomed to spend half the year in the Underworld, because she had partaken of a pomegranate after she was abducted by Pluto. Rossetti began eight canvases with this composition, one of his most powerful. This version is the eighth and last, completed just a few days before his death.
Afar away the light that brings cold cheer
Unto this wall, - one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door.
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean gray
That chills me: and afar, how far away
The nights shall be from the days that were.
Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
(Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring
Continually together murmuring,)
'Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!'