Thursday, July 30, 2009

Desperate Romantics Episode 2

Thanks to Comfortablyblue for directing my attention to episode 2 of Desperate Romantics on YouTube!


Millais was quite distracted while painting Lizzie, by thoughts of Effie as Ophelia:

Meanwhile, the candles have all gone out on poor Lizzie:

After she has healed, she goes back into the water and finishes the painting:

And then promptly dives in face-first with Rossetti:

Lizzie sees Millais' painting for the first time:

My only real objection in this episode is the fact that they chose to make Ruskin appear to be more obsessed with extremely curvaceous and buxom interpretations of womanhood. In both last episode and this, you see him secretly looking at sketches of full-figured women in intimate positions. In reality, however, it was quite the opposite...he was obsessed with the very young, almost pre-puberty female body, and specifically, the hairless nether-regions. However much I may understand why they wouldn't want to put this in a tv show (his proclivities are as repulsive now as they were then), I hope people don't get the wrong idea of Ruskin as a result.

But again, a rolicking good show, quite enjoyable!

3 comments:

Meredith said...

Oh no, did they make it look like he painted that in a month or two or less? I remember it took him at least an entire summer painting the background outdoors.

Grace said...

But of course they did ;) Millais basically said "hey, that was a great exhibition, but now we have to ensure Ruskin will be our patron. I have this painting of Ophelia I wanna do, and I already painted in everything but the water. Can Lizzie model?" and Rossetti said "*angst*" and Millais said "suck it" and painted her and Ruskin loved him. The end.

Castles Crowns and Cottages said...

Good morning dear friend! With Ruben home again, I am out of touch for a couple of days...again, another excellent review of the series! The scenes at least look beautiful and are eye candy for those of us less knowledgeable on the subject. Thanks for the insight on these magnificent characters! Anita