Page:Pictures & poems.djvu/9



HERE seems now little reason to doubt that Rossetti was right in considering himself a painter who wrote, rather than a poet who painted, and in maintaining, as he always did, that he could better embody his conceptions in design and color than in words. Both in painting and in poetry he seems to have known perfectly well what he wished to express, but whereas his poetic faculty, naturally of a high and brilliant order, had been diligently cultivated from early youth, the serious study of design was not entered into until comparatively late in life, and though then pursued with characteristic energy, yielded satisfactory results only at the cost of great effort. This fact but throws into stronger relief his brave and continuous struggles for technical excellence in painting according to his own high ideals, when in poetry, at far less mental and physical cost, success was to be had.