UniGuide

A Christmas Carol, 1867
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882), British

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain... (by Christina Rossetti)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a poet, illustrator, painter and translator, and was the brother of poet Christina Rossetti. He created a method of painting in watercolours, using thick pigments mixed with gum to give rich effects similar to medieval illuminations.
He founded in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais the ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’, which name alluded to their preference for late medieval and early Renaissance art that came ‘before Raphael’.

Madonna of Foligno, 1511 – 1512
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483 – 1520), Italian

This masterpiece was originally a paint on a wooden piece as a request from the First Secretary to Julius II, Sigismondo de’ Conti and was displayed in the Santa Maria church in Aracoeli on one of the high alters. Conti commissioned the painting to commemorate his survival during a disaster. His house was struck by lightning but nobody was damaged. The miraculous event is represented in the landscape at the center of the painting where a rainbow symbolizes the divine protection of the Virgin with child surrounded by cherubs overlooking the towers of Foligno. This painting shows Conti in a long red cape on the right with St. Jerome, and St. John the Baptist and St. Francis on the opposite side. The angel is holding a sign with nothing written on it; maybe this was because Sigismondo died before he could tell Raphael what "thank you" to the Virgin he wanted written there.

Snow at Mukojima, 1931
Kawase Hasui (1883 – 1957), Japanese

Hasui was known for his spectacular snow, rain and night scenes. This great master of the shin hanga (new prints) school spent most of his adult life as a woodblock printmaker. He was one of the first artists to record the unknown rural places and urban corners that he found so captivating. Hasui traveled widely in Japan and his prints are based upon small, quick sketches and watercolors taken from nature.