Dante Gabriel Rossetti was born in London on May 12, 1828. He was part of an educated and artistically talented family. From an early age, he was well educated in the literary and artistic classics. He expressed a passion for the arts and inspired to be a painter and poet. He attended the King’s College and Henry Sassā drawing academy. Afterward, in 1848 he was the pupil of his mentor and lifelong friend Ford Madox Brown. At this time, Rossetti began to write poems, eventually mastering the sonnet form.
Later that year, Rossetti befriended William Holman Hunt, a fellow artist. Together with John Everett Millais, they founded a group known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; an artistic group focused on reforming English art. They believed that a mechanistic style and classical poses adopted by Mannerists of Raphael and Michelangelo were corrupting to the process and academic teaching of painting. The group gained public attention through publishing The Germ magazine and befriending a vocal critic John Ruskin.
More famous artists joined or shared the opinions of the controversial company. Overall, Rossettiās artistic style was influenced by Medievalism, which he expressed in dense compositions. In the 1860ās, he used oil painting techniques to depict close-up images of women who modeled for him. Throughout his life, several of them were his mistresses and lovers. His wife, Elizabeth Siddal died of a laudanum overdose in 1862, propelling Rossetti into severe depression.
At the end of his life, Rossetti lived in a luxurious estate by the Thames funded by his patrons. He engaged in further portrayals of women. At one point, the artists were commissioned to paint the murals at the Oxford Union. He continued to write poems and books, many of which he eventually published. Critical response to his works caused further depression, which Rossetti drowned in alcohol and the chloral hydrate drug. He died on Easter in 1882, severely depressed, suffering from Bright’s Disease, psychosis, and paralysis. He is buried at Birchington-on-Sea, England, leaving behind a legacy as an influential English artist of the 19th century.