Barbara Longhi’s Saint Agnes of Rome:Iconic Images of Purity and Virtue

Barbara Longhi of Ravenna(1552-1638)enjoyed creating small devotional paintings depicting holy saints,in particular Saint Agnes(c.291-304).This saint’s life and martyrdom was recorded by the Bishop of Milan,Saint Ambrose(339-397),a Doctor of the Church and theologian,in his book Concerning Virgins(374)and by Jacobus de Voragine,the Archbishop of Genoa,in his Golden Legend(Legenda Aurea,1275).The saint’s story continues to be imaged and recounted to the present day because she is an icon of a pure and virtuous adolescent female.Barbara Longhi,along with her father,Luca Longhi(1507-1580),painted several versions of Saint Agnes.In their many depictions they composed two types of images:a single-solo-image of the saint;and her presence in a group of saints-a theme known as holy conversation.In her paintings of Saint Agnes,however,Barbara Longhi preferred to depict the solo image of the saint as virgo,a young maiden of virtue.This essay is composed of two parts:(1)an account of the life and martyrdom of Saint Agnes;and(2)an iconographical interpretation of Barbara Longhi’s Saint Agnes of Rome.

Muse Turned ＂Femme Fatale＂ in D. G. Rossetti＇s Painting and Poetry

In many of D. G. Rossetti＇s paintings, Elizabeth Siddal appears as a model. In real life, they formed a married couple, and the relatonship was not as idealistic as it might have been, between a muse-figure and an artist. After Elizabeth＇s death, Rossetti seemed to have been preoccupied with the ＂Lilith＂ theme in his painting and poetry and somehow he could not free himself from the haunting memory of the ＂wronged wife＂, the muse. This often found manifestation in his portrayal of the ＂femme fatale＂ images. Applying psychoanalysis to art-criticism and literary appreciation, this paper is an attempt to explore the relationship between a model and an artist, which both psychologically and aesthetically, seemed to be working beyond the former＇s death. Through a detailed analysis of the ＂Lilith＂ image in D. G. Rossetti＇s art, this paper has shown the coplexities of the artist＇s agony and anxiety over the image of a muse, a homely beloved--turned into a threatening ＂femme fatale＂, now distant, unknown, frightening yet fascinating, and mystified by death.

The Questing,Passive Gaze:Ezra Pound’s“Yeux Glauques,”John Ruskin,and the Pre-Raphaelite Moment

“Yeux Glauques,”the sixth poem of Ezra Pound’s 1920 Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,has been read as an indictment of Victorian viewers’and readers’rejection of Pre-Raphaelite art and poetry,a rejection proleptic of Georgian readers’rejection of Pound’s own innovations.This is largely accurate.But the poem’s citation(in its first stanza)of John Ruskin’s“Of Kings’Treasuries”can be read as directing readers’attention to Ruskin’s 1864 lecture,in part an exhortation to examine the etymologies of the words of the texts they read.Such an etymological examination of“glauques”in the poem’s title in effect reinforces a secondary implication of the poem as a whole:that the Pre-Raphaelite movement suffered from its members’failure to convincingly or feelingly represent active female subjectivity.

Evelyn Pickering De Morgan’s Ariadne at Naxos:A Pagan Martyr

This short essay focuses on just one of the mythological paintings of Evelyn Pickering De Morgan,Ariadne at Naxos of 1877 at The De Morgan Foundation(Figure 1).1 It consists of an iconographical and iconological analysis of the ancient legend of Ariadne and Theseus,demonstrating Evelyn’s classical erudition and artistic mastery in visualizing a moment in the narrative,the desertion of Ariadne by Theseus on the beach at Naxos.