Exploring the Intriguing World of The Rossettis - Tate Britain: A Weekend in London
Updated: Sep 22
About Me: I’m Naïma, a French contemporary artist and oil painter inspired by feminine strength and softness, wild nature, and the beauty of becoming. My paintings explore freedom, connection, and the many ways we return to ourselves. Through feminine figures, wild animals, and contemplative landscapes, I create work that invites you to slow down, feel, and reconnect with something instinctive and deeply your own.
The first time I encountered the world of the Pre-Raphaelites, I was captivated by its combination of beauty, symbolism, poetry and mystery. But seeing the original paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the artists around him at Tate Britain was a completely different experience.
The colors, the details, the flowers and, above all, the women seemed to emerge from another world.
Exploring the Pre-Raphaelites at Tate Britain
During a visit to London, I spent time exploring the exhibition The Rossettis at Tate Britain, which brought together the work and lives of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal and Christina Rossetti.
For me, it was more than an exhibition about nineteenth-century British art. It became an opportunity to think about the relationship between painting, poetry, femininity, nature and symbolism—themes that continue to influence my own art.
Tate Britain vs Tate Modern: What you need to know
London has two Tate museums: Tate Britain, located in Millbank, and Tate Modern, which opened in 2000. Both are incredible, but my heart always pulls me toward Tate Britain for its classic and romantic collections.
Who Were the Pre-Raphaelites?
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in London in 1848 by three young artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais.
The group rejected many of the conventions of academic Victorian painting. They were inspired by medieval art, literature, poetry and the intense observation of nature.
The Pre-Raphaelites became known for their brilliant colors, meticulous details, literary subjects and highly symbolic imagery.
Flowers, landscapes, clothing, jewelry and objects were rarely included simply as decoration. They could carry an emotional or symbolic meaning.
This is one of the reasons I feel so connected to Pre-Raphaelite art.
A painting can tell a story without explaining everything.
A flower can become a memory.
A woman can become a symbol.
A landscape can become an emotional state.
A Unique Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition
While I was in London, to my great surprise, Tate Britain was hosting a special Pre-Raphaelite exhibition, featuring the amazing collection of the Rossettis.It was Sept 2023
The Pre-Raphaelites’ Vision of Beauty and Women
I have had the pleasure to witness in real life some of my all time favorite paintings. A true inspiration for me, as I am diving myself into painting more female portraits and starting to write poetry.
I realised that I was painting the same symbols such as the Butterfly to represent the woman's soul. Women were painted in a romantic, sensual yet strong way.
Finding Inspiration for My Own Art
So many connections and illuminations were made during my time there, exploring and looking closely at each artwork; I found that my heart was resonating to that era in so many ways.
I find beauty in revealing through art the mystery of the woman, her essence...wild and free. I always felt I was painting poetry and while reading the history of how the pre-raphaelites poets, painters, men and women were working and creating alltogether... I left even more inspired and in a urge to go back to my easel to paint more and more.
I was so mesmerized by the details of each women, I saw symbols I naturally love to incorporate too in my art such as the rose flower, nudity, the woman naked to me represents the wild self, the authenticity of the soul.
The pure vulnerability, yet the fierce and strong self.
Venus and the Symbolism of Transformation
Many of Gabriel's aesthetic portraits, such as Monna Vanna, Aurelia and The Beloved, began as images of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Venus Verticordia alludes to Venus's ability to change 'bodily love, symbolised by the apple, to 'soul's' love, shown by the butterfly. This is echoed in the transition from honeysuckle to roses.
The agent of change, symbolised by the arrow, is Venus's beauty. This is aligned with the beauty and power of art in the form of the painting. (Text from the Tate Britain gallery).
Every month I try to take the time to go to the museum to infuse myself into the energy and really learn from the masters, the way they lived and painted. It is very important for my artist journey to keep learning.
Flowers and Symbolism in Pre-Raphaelite Painting
Flowers are everywhere in Pre-Raphaelite art.
Roses, lilies, honeysuckle, poppies and other plants often appear around the female figures.
Their importance goes beyond their visual beauty.
Flowers have traditionally carried symbolic meanings connected with love, purity, death, desire and transformation.
The Pre-Raphaelites used this language of flowers to enrich their paintings and create connections between the natural world and human emotion.
This is particularly meaningful to me because flowers and nature are also recurring elements in my own paintings.
I often surround my female figures with botanical forms because I don't see nature as something separate from the woman.
Nature can become part of her emotional landscape.
A flower can express what she cannot say.
A forest can represent her inner world.
A butterfly can suggest the person she is becoming.
The Pre-Raphaelite Woman and the Wild Feminine
My own fascination with the feminine figure has increasingly led me toward the idea of the wild feminine.
By this, I don't mean a particular physical appearance.
I mean something deeper: intuition, emotional freedom, connection with nature and the courage to return to oneself.
This is one of the reasons Pre-Raphaelite women continue to fascinate me.
They exist between worlds.
Between woman and myth.
Between reality and dream.
Between beauty and melancholy.
Between nature and culture.
Looking at them today, I can still feel the tension between the idealized feminine image and the individual woman behind it.
What I Took Away From the Rossettis Exhibition at Tate Britain
Visiting The Rossettis at Tate Britain made me want to return to my studio and paint.
It reminded me that an artist can look at the past without simply reproducing it.
We can borrow ideas, symbols and techniques while transforming them into something personal.
The Pre-Raphaelites looked backwards toward medieval art, but they were also responding to the world around them.
I can use flowers and traditional symbolism while exploring modern ideas of identity and transformation.
I can paint beauty without making beauty the only subject.
Sharing with you one of my female portraits that I created during this year, like the pre raphaelites painters, I found myself working over and over on the painting, adding many layers of oils, until I found satisfaction and truth.
From Rossetti to My Own Paintings
The Rossettis reminded me why I am drawn to figurative painting.
I am interested in the moment when a portrait becomes something more than a portrait.
When a woman becomes a symbol of transformation.
When flowers become an extension of her emotions.
When color creates an atmosphere rather than simply describing an object.
When beauty becomes a doorway into something deeper.
This is what I continue to explore in my own paintings.
My women are surrounded by nature because nature is part of their story.
They are not simply portraits of faces and bodies.
They are reflections of inner worlds.
My visit to Tate Britain left me with a renewed appreciation for Pre-Raphaelite art and the world of the Rossettis.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal and Christina Rossetti each contributed to a fascinating artistic and literary world in which painting, poetry, love, nature and symbolism became inseparable.
For me, the greatest inspiration lies in the way they transformed beauty into a language.
