Ophelia's Muse Read Online Free

let out a snort, which was noted with raised eyebrows by a few students near him. Classical proportions were all well and good, Rossetti thought, but true art should celebrate vibrant color and the beauty of light, the romance of imagination and the truth of nature. It could hardly be denied that Raphael had attained near perfection when it came to the classical forms, but the Academy was now so slavishly dedicated to his example that they no longer cared, in Rossetti’s opinion, whether a painting contained real truth or beauty.
    The professor turned his attention to critiquing a bland painting that sat next to him on an easel, and Rossetti began to nod off again. The paintings above him swam and floated before his eyes: Landseer’s dogs paddled through Turner’s raging seas, while Sir Joshua Reynolds looked on from the deck of the ship, disapproving. “Sir Joshua, Sir Sloshua,” he muttered sleepily.
    He leaned back in his chair, content to wait out the end of the lecture with a nap. But as he gazed at the Turner seascape, the professor’s words echoed through his mind like the dissonant tones of a cracked bell: “You must look to Raphael, you see, and nowhere else, for your proportions of light to dark. The light is an accent to be sparingly used.” But here, right in front of him, was a painting that radiated light, as if it were illuminated from behind. He sat up straight and stared at the seascape as if he were seeing it for the first time. The golden sun bled into the water below and reflected off of every conceivable surface, gilding the edges of the clouds and the crests of the waves, and catching in the full sails of the ships. It captured the exact feeling of watching the sea, when the sun reflects so strongly off the water that you have to squint to look at it, and the clouds shift constantly overhead, bathing the shore in unreal washes of yellow and gray.
    Rossetti let out a low laugh. So Turner had strayed from the rigid practices of the Academy, and yet they had hung his picture in a place of honor. Perhaps, he thought, the Academy’s rules only applied to the mediocre. If you were truly great, a genius, they didn’t give a damn if you followed the rules or not.
    At last the class came to an end, and there was a general shuffling as the students stood up to leave. The student in the next chair noticed that Rossetti was still staring at Turner’s seascape. “It’s a fine painting,” he said.
    â€œIt’s more than fine,” Rossetti declared. “It’s genius.”
    â€œWell, yes, of course,” the man said, taken back by Rossetti’s zealous tone. “Turner is one of the Academy’s most esteemed graduates.”
    â€œIt’s genius,” Rossetti repeated, “but not for the reasons that you think. In fact, I suspect that if you’ve been listening to this travesty of a lecture, you’re completely blind to the very things that make it great.”
    â€œWell, I say!” The student stared at Rossetti, as if he suspected that he’d been insulted, but wasn’t entirely sure how.
    â€œOh, never mind,” Rossetti muttered. There was no point in arguing over the merits of the Academy with its acolytes. He gathered up his portfolio and stalked off, leaving his fellow student staring in his wake.
    Outside the lecture hall the other students were standing on the terrace overlooking Trafalgar Square and lighting pipes, popular among the more bohemian element at the Academy.
    A tall, young man in a paint-spattered smock waved Rossetti over and slapped him on the back good-naturedly. “Dante! I can see that you got a lot out of that class. A lot of rest, that is. I saw you nodding off. Not too impressed with the learned old Academician?”
    â€œHardly,” Rossetti sniffed, not caring if the other students thought him arrogant. “This place becomes less of a school and more of a shrine every