Clever as Paint: The Rossettis in Love

David E. Kemp, a former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

The author of Dora: A Case of Hysteria, a black comedy about Freud,
turns her attention to the Pre-Raphaelite circle of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti, his wife Lizzie Siddal, and his protégé William Morris in
this wickedly funny play. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in
1848 by a group of artists that included Rossetti, Millais, and Holman
Hunt, advocated a return to the simple style of painting that existed
before Raphael. The group’s philosophy was a protest against what it
perceived as the stifling formality of contemporary Victorian art. The
play offers insight into various aspects of the creative process,
explores the relationship between love and despair, and mercilessly
dissects the eccentricities of the Pre-Raphaelites.

After Siddal’s suicide, Rossetti buried his love poems in her coffin.
Seven years later, in order to please his new lover (Janey Morris, a
model and the wife of William Morris), he retrieved the poems and
published them. Rossetti’s devotion to his late wife bordered on
necrophilia, so it seems appropriate that Siddal’s ghost makes an
appearance in the play’s second act.

Witty, compassionate, and eerily beautiful, Clever As Paint appeals to
contemporary tastes while remaining true to its 19th-century context.