In an Artist's Studio

Question 1

When was it written and published?

Answer 1

Christina Rossetti wrote “In an Artist’s Studio” in 1856, but it wasn’t published until 1896, two years after Rossetti’s death.

Question 2

Give a brief summary

Answer 2

This is a poem about objectification: in seeing his model only as a beautiful dream-girl, the artist overlooks her humanity. The artist’s pictures capture this woman’s beautiful youth, but they ignore the deep sadness of her present-day life.

Question 3

Form

Answer 3

This poem is a standard Italian or Petrarchan sonnet that is made up of fourteen
lines and can be separated into one set of eight lines, called an octave, and one set
of six lines, called a sestet. The first collection of lines presents the basis of the
story or problem, and the final six provide a conclusion or answer

Question 4

Comment on the theme of art and objectification

Answer 4

The artist’s idealized, dream-world portraits of the woman capture all his attention: he sees her “Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.” In other words, his obsession with her beauty leads him to objectify his model, seeing her only as the lovely goddess of his paintings rather than as a real, live person.
The artist’s fixation on this model’s idealized beauty means that he misses (or ignores) some important truths about the real-life model’s suffering. In the real world, this model, whom the speaker knows, has become “wan with waiting” and “dim” with “sorrow.”
The speaker hints that there’s a problem here when she notes that this face is always presented as a gorgeous “queen,” “angel,” or “nameless girl”: in other words, an idealized Victorian icon of female beauty and virtue.
This poem is a criticism not of any one artist in particular, but of a whole Victorian system of sexism that denied women their human complexity.