“In an Artist’s Studio”

In this poem, Christina Rossetti uses an artist’s love for their art to describe a feeling of desire,

love and obsession: an unreachable love. She illustrates the feeling of obsession with a lover

through sentences such as “one face looks out from all his canvases” and “he feeds upon her face

by day and night”. He sees her as a work of art, hidden behind the screen of his imaginations,

looking back at him. The speaker isn’t made clear but the theme of the poem seems rather

romantic. A romance between a man and his imagination presented on an empty, hallow canvas.

The poem is a fourteen-line stanza which seem to have a rhythmic pattern of ABBA. Each line is

written after another with no specific spacing in between. The title of this poem, “In an Artist’s

Studio” and words such as “canvases” creates a clear imagery in the reader’s mind of an artist in

his studio, painting his dream; “a saint, an angel”. However, this poem seems to have a deeper

and more vague feeling than just love for one’s dream. A feeling of unhealthy obsession to a

point of blindless to the world around you and simple bleak.

In the first half of the poem, he seems to describe this woman on his canvases as some of the

most beautiful things a man sees in women. Perhaps “a queen in apal or ruby dress”, or a

“nameless girl in freshest summer greens”, “a saint”, “an angel”. This shows that he sees her as a

perfect dream. As refreshing as a girl in summer, as elegant as a queen, or as kind as an angel.

His obsession with her seems to grow larger as he “feeds upon her face by day and night”. We

recognize this unhealthy obsession he has as he observes this imagination of his and gets lost in

her “true kind eyes”

In the last few lines, the line “not as she is, but was when hope shone bright” shows how she has

lost hope. She doesn’t have those kind eyes and joyful soul anymore. This can demonstrate a

break up long ago where she lost hope and now has moved on from him. Howevevr, she is still

in his mind and he simply can’t move on from the woman that “fills his dream”. The only thing
 “In an Artist’s Studio”

he can hold on to now are the paintings he makes of her in his mind to always keep her “just

behind those screens” with him. Like she has never left.

To conclude my analyses as to why I see this poem as an unhealthy obsession between a man

and his lover, I would want to point out the romantic approach author took at first and how it

quickly changes to how hopeless she is, yet she still fills his dreams. Throughout the entire poem

he seems overly infatuated by her beauty, kindness and elegance and describes how she stands

out from all of his canvases. Further confirming his infatuation when he feeds upon her face and

kind eyes. All these line point to my conclusion that “in an artist’s studio” is actually describing

all things in his mind and the “canvases” are his memories and imaginations of her which are the

only thing left of her for him to reminisce on.