Lucinda Hawksley
Lizzie Siddal: Face of the Pre-Raphaelites by Lucinda Hawksley is a biography of the model who graced many of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
While working as a hat-maker and assistant in a London hat shop, Lizzie is discovered by the Irish poet William Allingham. He recommends her to his artist friend, Walter Howell Deverell of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. With her flowing red hair, delicate features, and waif-like figure, Lizzie captivates the Pre-Raphaelite artists, serving as their muse and posing for many of their paintings. She becomes romantically involved with the most illustrious of the Pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The attraction was instantaneous and mutual. Their tempestuous relationship was to last a little over a decade until her untimely death.
Jealous, possessive, and childish, Rossetti threw temper tantrums if Lizzie formed friendships with anyone other than himself. But he allowed himself the liberty of engaging in sexual relations with other models, understandably causing Lizzie considerable distress. All the while, he dangled Lizzie for over nine years with the promise of marriage, finally marrying her in the tenth year of their relationship.
For her part, Lizzie used emotional blackmail and her illnesses (real or imaginary) to manipulate Rossetti into running back into her arms whenever she felt threatened by his absence. Possibly anorexic and complaining of constant pain, she began taking laudanum to dull the physical and psychological pain, becoming increasingly dependent on the drug. She intentionally overdosed at the age of thirty-three.
It is to Hawksley’s credit that she portrays Lizzie Siddal as having more than just a stunning face. She was a talented artist and poet in her own right. Although she had no formal training, her sketches and paintings elicited praise and eventually garnered the patronage of John Ruskin, a leading art critic. Hawksley includes several of Lizzie’s poems and pictures of her art. Lizzie emerges as a talented, tortured soul whose entanglements with the Pre-Raphaelites presented her with advantages she would otherwise never have had. But her turbulent relationship with Rossetti came at a heavy price.
Hawksley situates Lizzie in the context of her time and place, making it as much a biography of the times as it is of Lizzie Siddal. We are given glimpses of the Pre-Raphaelites’ life-style, families, friendships, and relationships with models. On the surface, the group appears fun-loving and supportive of each other’s artistic endeavors. But lurking beneath are infidelities, betrayals, and estranged relationships, all of which are underpinned with a heavy dose of class distinctions.
Hawksley’s portrayal is balanced in that neither Lizzie nor Rossetti emerge unscathed. Lizzie is a product of a time when women were totally reliant on men for support. As such, she resorts to subterfuge, deception, manipulation, and emotional blackmail to achieve her goals. Rossetti is egotistical, selfish, and exploitative, monopolizing and controlling Lizzie with promises of marriage and respectability.
The biography is engaging, accessible, and provides a balanced perspective on the life and times of an intriguing woman who died tragically before realizing her potential. The bibliography is impressive. But the book suffers from a lack of adequate citations, leaving one wondering how much is speculation and how much is based on fact.
Recommended.