Bocca Baciata 1859

Dante Gabriel Rossetti made this oil painting, Bocca Baciata, on wood panel sometime in the mid-19th century. Rossetti, and the Pre-Raphaelites, were intensely interested in color, and he’s really showing off here. Look at the carefully built-up glazes, the intense vermillion in the hair, the bright golds and yellows. Notice how he contrasted the woman’s pale skin with the dark background of the wall of marigolds. Rossetti knew exactly how to capture the beauty and sensuality of this woman. But we might also think about the kind of labor that went into sourcing the pigments, preparing them, and layering them on the panel to create this luminous effect. The Pre-Raphaelites looked to the past for artistic inspiration, yet in doing so they tapped into the emerging industrialism of their own time, as art materials were increasingly produced in factories and distributed through commercial networks. Seeing this painting today, it is easy to overlook the connection between its visual beauty and the social and economic conditions that made its creation possible.