The Bower Meadow

With a canvas that had borne a beautiful landscape background, Dante painted this piece in Hunt Company in 1850 at Sevenoaks, Kent. He devised a crystal bright and intelligent composition with dancing beautiful females seated balancing in rhythmic greens and reds complementary harmony.

This is an imaginative and romantic composition attempt whereby the half-length ladies are enjoying and singing a melodious tune while the other two ladies are dancing to the themes of the song sang. The foreground figure on the left that’s modelled by the fabulous Marie Spartali sits in a three-quarter right view with her face tilted in profile wears a loose see me through the deep pink, medieval garment. The cloth has a beautiful twisted white fabric around her neck while her dark auburn black hair is coiled and twisted at her back of the head. She also has a clear pearl spiral ornament on her hair fastened behind the ears.

There is a little winged child, according to an early ink and pen study, between those musicians who seems to hold a cheerful bird. This might indicate or suggest symbolism of concepts such as heavenly, earthly, music and even divine, human or also love. Worthy to note is the chilling figure that runs across that distant meadow which interpolates another enigmatic note. The work possesses a surrealist kind of quality with effects heightened by a strange upper right building. Although the art’s treatment is toughly symbolic and abstract, it is knowingly clear that this piece was inspired uring the time Gabriel Rosetti was at Kelmscott in summer and early 1871 during fall. Thus the painting has to vividly be compared to another art done by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, famously known as Water Willow.

The painting might have been dated 1872; however, most of the piece was done in 1871 and fine details and concluding done in the following year. Leyland had started negotiating to buy the painting on 1872 in January and was finally purchased in June of the same year. Currently, in Fitzwilliam, there is a slight different exciting version of the Bower Meadow by Dante Gabriel. The piece was initially executed as a spot of ink and pen sturdy in Ashmolean which has now evolved to one delicate finished pastel. All in all, the art by Dante is superb in its way and style with the finishing and detailing perfected well. The Bower Meadow is considered amongst the best ten work done by Dante.