Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Beata Beatrix was made by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (British) between 1864 and 1870. It measures 88.4 cm × 66 cm, which is now collected in the Tate Gallery. This painting is a kind of symbolic image of his wife: a red pigeon in the painting holds the white poppies in its mouth and is ready to fly into the arms of Beata Beatrix. The reversal of the colors shows the anomalous fate. The painter curses this reversal life and death aiming to recover the lost love. Beata Beatrix intoxicatingly raises her head and closes her eyes to show her crazy love for her husband before death. Her hands are folded, with the background painting a sundial pointing to word “9”. This indicates the time that Beata died and also the time on the evening before his wife’s death. On the back there are two images: Eros and Dante. The color is pure, only red and green are isolated together.

Rossetti made such an explanation to this painting: this is reflected by her sudden death into the kingdom of heaven and sitting in the balcony which dominates the whole city. Do you remember how Dante describes the sad scene after her death? So I want to regard city as the background and add the image of Dante and God who casting a hostile look. When the bird spreading the death takes the poppy into Beata Beatrix’s hands, how unfortunate this is! From her locked eyebrows, we can see she has been aware of a new world, as written in the end of “Rebirth”, the happy Beatrix will always stare at his face.

Beata Beatrix 1880
Beata Beatrix 1880