Sir Frank Dicksee (1853 – 1928) was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic historical and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time. Although not a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood many of Dicksee`s paintings can be considered Pre-Raphaelite in style, referring to a new movement in the 19th-century art, which referenced the Middle Ages, classical and biblical mythology, and nature in a manner similar to Italian artists painting before Renaissance painter Raphael.
The image depicts Romeo and Juliet in a loving embrace. This picture was an illustration to “Romeo and Juliet”, it was painted with oil on canvas and was located in the Southern City Art Gallery, Southampton, England.
Romeo and Juliet is a picture of love and its pitiable fate in the world which atmosphere is too sharp for this, the tender blossom of human life. Romeo`s love was a sentiment rather than a passion. All this is to be found in the beautiful story which was told long before Shakespeare`s day, and which, however simply told, will always excite a tender sympathy; but it so beautifully depicted by the painter that it has become a glorious song of praise.
The sweetest and the bitterest love and tender embraces and dark (obscure) horrors, and the fullness of life are here all brought close to each other; and yet these contrasts are so blended into a unity of impression, that the echo which the whole leaves in the mind resembles a single butendless sigh.
We feel the fragrance breathing of opening flowers. We see the submissive and gentle girl. “Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night”. Juliet and Romeo read their hearts.
The lovers see only themselves in the universe. That is the true moral of their fate. Here comes the triumph of the beautiful over the merely tragic. There love breathes of all the sweet sights and sounds in the world of beauty. And happy Juliet says: “It is not yet near day – Believe me, love, it was the nightingale”.
This picture evokes such sentiments as joy and admiration & delight all at the same time. This is a tragic love but “No pity sitting in the clouds”.
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