1849 -1881 · Vita nuova, love, memory and pre-Raphaelitism

Rossetti makes Dante and Béatrice the mirror of his own poetry: encounter, refusal, salvation and mourning become a series of images where earthly love and spiritual vision merge.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti bears the first name of the Florentine poet and grew up in a family that passionately studied his work. Painter, poet and translator, throughout his career he returned to the Vita nuova and Dante's love for Beatrice. His first watercolors recount the meeting, the refused greeting or the first anniversary of the young woman's death with a precision close to illumination. Later, Dante's Dream at the time of Béatrice's death develops the story on a monumental scale: figures dressed in green, poppies, draperies and enclosed spaces transform mourning into vision. For Rossetti, this cycle is never a distant illustration. allow us to unite text, desire, memory of Elizabeth Siddal and reflection on the survival of the loved one in art. The selection "Dante and Beatrice at Dante Gabriel Rossetti" notably compares Béatrice meeting Dante at a wedding party and Dante drawing an angel. His reading favors figures.

At Rossetti, Dante meets Béatrice as much in memory as in the world: each image becomes a passage between love, poetry and mourning.