Under Construction Journal Issue 6.1 UNDER CONSTRUCTION JOURNAL 6.1 | Page 59

temptress, designed solely to be admired by men. The artistic body of the woman is, therefore, reduced
to the position of an onlooker through imagination of their own subjective goddess or temptress, fated to
be either celebrated or condemned:
“Painting was designed to be “read like a novel” and that viewers had to “throw” themselves
into the ploy and learn the characters. The Victorians “read” the physical form of the individuals
represented as if nature had clearly printed there all sorts of information on moral, intellectual
and psychological strengths, weaknesses and expected behaviour.
Figure 1:
Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Oil on canvas, 1863-68, Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum,
Bournemouth
In an evident contrast to Rossetti’s depiction, one of his most famous models, Elizabeth Siddal, depicted
herself as restrained. Her self-portrait avoids romanticism, exaggeration and a condemnatory back-story
(Figure 2). Depicting herself with a stern facial expression and duller hair, her focus dismisses the body
completely. Like Dickinson, women became ‘afraid to own a Body,’ that was subjective to onlookers. It is
only through personal, creative art where women could immortalise their body as they saw it through
their own eyes.
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