Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature by Lynne Pearce (book review)

Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature by Lynne Pearce (book review)

In her inter-disciplinary study of Pre-Raphaelite art and literature Pearce explores the representations of eight female characters, including Tennyson's Lady of Shalott and Dante's Beatrice and attempts not merely to expose the sexism and misogyny of the artists/authors, but to see if we might interpret them in ways more agreeable to the late 20^th Century feminist. That is, she aims to provide us, via the process of reading against the grain, with feminist readings rather than simply feminist critiques of the texts. With this emphasis on the modern feminist and her consumption of texts, she hopes that she has produced an “additional, yet complementary, perspective” to the work of feminist art historians such as Deborah Cherry, Griselda Pollock and Jan Marsh. Her focus on what the 20^th Century feminist ought to do with these Pre-Raphaelite texts (produced by men, for a primarily male audience) was a unique project at the time of publication, building on the strong foundations provided by the aforementioned feminist art historians during the 1980s.

Pearce's introduction, which describes various reading strategies as well as her aims in the coming chapters, is the longest section of the book. Her emphasis on reading against the grain is crucial, as it allows the reader to encounter ways in to a text. The practise depends on the belief that artists and authors did not “control the ideological content of their work from some transcendent, omniscient, authorial position, not that they 'reflected' the ideologies of their historical epoch in some naïve way.” In other words, there are ways to interpret the texts that were not intended by their creators (either on a conscious level or at all) and are not restricted to the dominant ideologies of the period in which they were created.

Although she provides an interesting explanation of the ways in which we can interpret images there are parts of this introductory chapter that seem unnecessary, in that they are not particularly relevant to the following chapters or simply do not require such extensive explanation. One such example is her lengthy discussion regarding the methodology of Louis Althusser and Pierre Macherey, which Mancoff notes in her review of the book. On the other hand, the reading strategies she endorses do provide us with access to multiple ways of understanding the texts rather than restricting us to only one understanding, which seems to me to be advantageous in shaping our interpretations. However, there are certain other ideas or arguments that Pearce dismisses or does not consider, which render some of her interpretations somewhat superficial, which I aim to demonstrate in the following discussion of some of her painting-poem combinations.

To begin with, I would like to very briefly explain the problem with Pearce's chapter on Guenevere – it is a case of mistaken identity. The woman in the painting she discusses is not Queen Guenevere, but La Belle Iseult. She is not the only scholar to have made this quite understandable mistake (the painting has in fact been exhibited as Queen Guinevere after Morris' death) but, as Marsh points out, the little dog sleeping on the bed is Iseult's emblem. This fault leads to the poem-painting pairing being mismatched and as a result of her mistake, much of Pearce's interpretation of the painting is dependent on the identification of the woman as Guenevere.

The first of the female characters studied by Pearce in this work is the Virgin Mary. In this chapter, Pearce examines The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-49) and, to a lesser extent, Ecce Ancilla Domine (1849-50) – both paintings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti – and the double sonnet inscribed on the frame of the former, as well as in the exhibition catalogue. (Pearce, 1991, pp.31-43) I certainly agree with Pearce's decision to pair this poem with The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, as the two texts have the same author and are presented together as a whole. Therefore, it makes sense for us to assume a relationship between them. In Ways of Seeing, Berger demonstrates the way in which the inclusion of text with an image will influence our interpretation of an image by presenting us with a reproduction of Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows, followed with a reproduction of this same painting on the following page, but with the inclusion of the caption: “This is the last picture that Van Gogh painted before he killed himself.” Our way of seeing the image has changed as “the image now illustrates the sentence”.

Pearce also endorses this view in her reading of this painting-poem pairing, claiming that the presence of the sonnet influences or perhaps even dictates our interpretation of the painting and in particular the figure of Mary. She also notes that there are, of course, elements present in the painting itself that influence our interpretation, such as the halos. The presence of the halos, when the audience is familiar with the religious symbolism, indicates that the characters in the painting cannot be simply “any” ordinary men or women. Victorian audiences would be familiar with golden plates representing halos but, as Pearce explains, some of the other symbolism (associated with High Church/Catholicism) in the painting was not so widely understood, hence Rossetti's inclusion of the second of the two sonnets, which provides the viewer with a description of this less familiar symbolism and how it should be interpreted.

The first sonnet, on the other hand, relates specifically to the figure of Mary herself and explain to us her various virtues: simpleness of intellect, supreme patience, sense of duty, wisdom in charity, respectfulness towards her family and so on. Upon reading this sonnet, according to Pearce, we are inclined to view Mary as a “woman representing specific qualities that we (if we are women) should aspire to, or (if we are men) we should require in female dependents.” The fact that Rossetti described the Virgin as “a symbol of female excellence...[to be taken] as its highest type” supports this notion that we are ought to see his painted Mary in these terms and the presence of the sonnet alongside the painting coerces us into doing so. Obviously, if Pearce's argument is correct then the viewer is restricted in how (s)he interprets the painting.

In her collaborative work with Cherry, published in her own book, Pollock's assertion that “written text functions as a frame, positioning the drawings within an authoritative reading of their meanings” reflects this same notion, extending to the memoirs of W. M. Rossetti, and later the literature on the Pre-Raphaelites by prominent and respected art historians, such as Timothy Hilton.

Pearce herself seems to be influenced by this idea of written text as a (metaphorical) frame in the case of the other painting-poem combinations she explores and frequently treats paintings as illustrations of the poems. Of course, to some extent the paintings often are illustrating characters and events from particular poems. However, the mistaken identity of Morris' La Belle Iseult as Queen Guinevere highlights a problem with such an approach. In Pearce's reading of the painting, its contents merely become illustrative of the character of Guenevere from Morris' and, to a lesser extent, Tennyson's poems. For instance, from the presence of the little dog curled up on the bed she infers that it is still warm, having only recently been occupied by this woman and her lover - “and we may presume that it was Launcelot.” However, as mentioned in my earlier discussion of this chapter, the little dog is actually Iseult's emblem – a gift to her from her lover. Relying so heavily on other texts in our interpretation of artworks is actually extremely restrictive, as Pollock implies in her questioning of the authority of such sources, and this is one of Pearce's main weaknesses throughout this work.

Returning to her discussion of the Virgin, I would like to draw attention to the her dismissal of the fact that Christina Rossetti sat for Mary as insignificant, stating that the woman in the painting is Mary “and therefore decidedly not Christina Rossetti,” whereas Marsh suggests that the painting had a personal meaning for Rossetti, “in reference to the devout upbringing provided by the artist's mother, Frances Rossetti, who sat for the figure of St. Anne.” The education that the young Mary is receiving from St. Anne mirrors the real life experiences of Frances and Christina as tutor and pupil. According to Kelvin, Dante and Christina were close as brother and sister from a closely knit family and that even into adulthood “their affection for each other and their loyalty remained constant.” With this in mind, it does not seem to be merely a coincidence that Rossetti chose his sister, someone he respected and cared about, as his model for Mary. Hence, we might say that the woman in the painting can be thought of as Mary or as Christina. This duality of meaning provides us with the potential to read the painting in other ways, not considered by Pearce.

Similarly, in a later chapter, she pays little attention to Beata Beatrix as a portrait of Elizabeth Siddall and signigicantly more attention to it as a portrait of Beatrice, the beloved of Dante. The fact that he chose to paint a posthumous portrait of his wife when it would, no doubt, have been easier to hire a model is in itself telling, as is the presence of the poppy in the lower right of the painting – Siddall's cause of death was an overdose of laudanum. There are problems associated with reading this painting as a portrait of Rossetti's deceased wife, which have been demonstrated in cases where the identities of the historical figures Rossetti and Siddall and the fictional Dante and Beatrice become intertwined and confused, as noted by Pollock.

In the same work, Pollock alludes to the danger of being seduced by the the construction of “Lizzie Siddal” as “fatally ill, consumptive, as an enigma and yet with a specifiable melancholy personality, as a beautiful model, and as the beloved of Rossetti.” “Lizzie Siddal” in this context does not refer to the individual known as Elizabeth Siddall, but rather, in Marsh's words, to a “Pre-Raphaelite mascot.” While these are certainly ways to interpret “Lizzie Siddal” they are not, as Marsh shows, the only ways. Since her death in 1862, the persona of “Lizzie Siddal” has been redefined and reconstructed in a number of diverse roles – as a hysterical young woman, an artist and even an emergent feminist. Reading Beata Beatrix with this in mind, we are able to interpret the text in numerous exciting ways, which sadly are not explored in Pearce's work.

Larsen and Mancoff's reviews of Woman/Image/Text are generally very favourable, praising the inclusion of “stunning readings and a comprehensive theoretical approach” and showing us that we can “take possession of these works in a way that counters, transcends, and explodes” the misogyny exposed by scholars such as Cherry and Pollock. However, it is worth noting that neither Mancoff nor Larsen realise the mistaken identity of La Belle Iseult as Queen Guinevere, with Mancoff referring to the Guenevere “in the painting” and Larsen barely commenting on the chapter in question.

In their defence, the painting the painting was in fact in the Tate Gallery under the name Queen Guinevere in 1986, which accounts for the subsequent confusion in the early 1990s, during which Pearce's work and subsequent reviews of her work were published. However, as Marsh points out, as well as the presence of the little dog on the bed, there is documentary evidence in favour of the woman's identity as Iseult. This exposes Pearce's research as insufficient, and particularly as she makes several references to Marsh's work throughout her book, it seems odd that she would choose to identify the woman in the painting as Guenevere over Iseult. For Mancoff, particularly as a Professor of Art History, the failure to notice this mistake is also unjustified.

I agree with Mancoff's claim that Pearce offers “an intriguing and potentially productive and affirming direction in the feminist critique of Pre-Raphaelite art” but unfortunately I cannot conclude that her own attempt at reading the texts was successful in this instance. Pearce's ideas regarding the importance of the modern feminist's consumption of the texts and how far she ought to go with attempts to appropriate them are, indeed, fascinating. The problem is simply that there are so many ways to interpret the texts that she does not consider, which undermines her aims of showing the possibilities and limitations of reading against the grain. Of course, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to explore all possibilities with regards to how we may interpret a particular text, but it is safe to say that a more thorough exploration than Pearce provides is needed.

Larsen suggests, towards the end of her review, that one “wonders what Pearce might make of Siddal's paintings,” and indeed, a comparison between her drawing of the Lady of Shalott and Holman Hunt's painting would have been an interesting addition to Pearce's chapter on this character. In Barringer's summary of Cherry's work with Pollock, for example, it is noted that “while Hunt's image pathologises the lady's act of rebellion, a drawing of the same scene by Elizabeth Siddall celebrates her moment of power.” A discussion of the comparison of representations of women by women with representations of women by men would have been a welcome addition to Pearce's work, as by investigating the differences or similarities between them would surely aid us in deciphering the intended and possible meanings of the men's works, as well as how modern feminists ought to interpret them.

To briefly summarise, I believe that Pearce's initial premise presents us with an exciting and original development in the discourse of feminist art history but that she fails to provide an adequate illustration of her ideas, with her main weaknesses being the limitations of her reliance on written texts when interpreting the paintings she discusses. However, with comparatively little research on this area since the 1980s, I feel that this book provides art historians with an excellent topic for further research.

References

Barringer, Tim, “The Lady of Shalott c.1888-1905” in Barringer, Rosenfield & Smith, Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde (Tate Publishing, 2012)

Berger, John, Ways of Seeing, (1972; Penguin, 2008)

Kelvin, Norman, “Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti: A Pairing of Identities,” Victorian Literature and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2004)

Larsen, Elizabeth, “Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature by Lynne Pearce,” College Literature, Vol. 20, No. 3 (1993)

Mancoff, Debra, “Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature by Lynne Pearce,” Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1994)

Marsh, Jan, Pre-Raphaelite Women (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1987)

Marsh, Jan, The Legend of Elizabeth Siddal, 2^nd ed. (1989; Quartet Books, 2010)

Marsh, Jan, “William Morris's Painting and Drawing,” The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 1001 (1986)

Pearce, Lynne, Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature (University of Toronto Press, 1991)

Pollock, Griselda, “Woman as Sign in Pre-Raphaelite Literature: The representation of Elizabeth Siddall” in Vision and Difference: Feminism, femininity and the histoies of art, Routledge Classics Edition (1988; Routledge, 2003)