Venus in your Garden

Excuse the brief, rambling nature of this post but it's just a thought that I wanted to write down and as you're here, I'll tell you.  Yesterday, I was having a very lovely look around the Beyond the Brotherhood show in Southampton with some lovely friends, and we found ourselves stood in front of this beauty...

Venus Verticordia (1864-8) Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Yes, yes, all very lovely.  Now, the problem I have with this image, which I liked so much I used it on the front of my novel about Alexa Wilding, is that it is hard to get a decent reproduction of it, and secondly, you just end up looking at Alexa and her assets because she is so very luminous, which means you often don't give a massive amount of thought to all the other bits and pieces in the picture. That might well just be me, because it seems rude not to stare at her boob, especially as she is going to the trouble of pointing at it and everything.  Anyway, I was stood to one side of the painting yesterday, talking about how Rossetti scraped out the face to add Alexa and the suchlike, when I was attracted to the blue bird in the corner.  Now, obviously I had seen the bird before, I'm not that boob-obsessed (not quite) and in fact it is one of my favourite bits as the blue adds a spark of something that contrasts with the pinky-russet of the piece, highlighting her eyes.  Anyway, what I had not really clocked before was what the bird was sitting on. It's a trellis, although, in this reproduction, you'd be hard pressed to see it.  Hang on...

Bird! (Also present but not pictured, boob)

Okay, that is not very helpful, but you can just about see that the blue bird is clinging to the struts of a trellis that the roses are climbing up.  In the chalk version from 1863-8, it has moved...

Weird ghost bird over right shoulder...

But in the watercolour replica of 1868, it is where it should be...

Smashing frame!

And in fact a little bit easier to see...

All this rambling is because the friends we were with asked what the significance of the bird was.  Well, blue birds are a symbol of fertility, renewal, birth, possibly there to contrast with the butterflies that symbolise the fleetingness of life in a whole 'circle of life' thing without having to bother Elton John.  However, something about that bird seemed familiar...

Trellis (1864) William Morris

Hang about, I thought, that reminds me of Trellis!  Why had I never noticed that before?! Trellis is probably my favourite William Morris print (don't tell Strawberry Thief) and his first design.  Legend has it that it was inspired by the trellis work in the gardens at the Red House.  Look at the date, right there at the inception of Venus Verticordia and the little flying insects that look somewhat like tiny butterflies.  A couple of Philip Webb's blue birds (Morris couldn't do birds so got his friend to do them) look awfully like the blue bird in the corner of Venus Verticordia. Hmmm...

So what can we surmise from this? Possibly nothing other than it is a co-incidence, or that Rossetti and Morris discussed the design and Rossetti included it as an homage to his friend.  Or pinched it because it was a nice touch and he was a bit blurry on boundaries when it came to pinching stuff or wives. The fact that both Trellis and Venus concern rose covered trellises, even though Rossetti's is somewhat more overblown (show off) makes me suspect that it isn't a simple co-incidence. The scandalous novelist in me wants to read far more, obviously, and suggest that by 1865 when Venus was in full swing, Rossetti was falling back into love with Morris' wife and by including the Trellis bird in the canvas he was signalling that she had 'turned his heart' like Venus. 

What it probably should tell us is that you should never, ever, let Rossetti anywhere near your trellis, but I think we knew that already...