ABSTRACT
The more sensuous phase of taste developed in Rossetti's later period was of hothouse fancifulness, and breathed disdain for the robust, out-of-door growth of native Pre-Raphaelitism. No doubt; but if the mature Rossetti could not be the leader of the Pre-Raphaelites because he was no longer really of them, he was a leader nevertheless, and of a movement more profoundly affecting those whom it touched at all than Pre-Raphaelitism. The true line of attack is not that Rossetti, in part falling short of the Pre-Raphaelite ideal, presently diverged to serve another, but that he and his disciples were never in the fullest sense painters. It is not merely that he was the painter, as he was the poet, of mystery. The mystery of the flesh exists for every great artist, but with the supreme masters of painting it is educed from a frank record, and with Rossetti it is not.
