The Rossettis at Tate Britain bears serious scrutiny, says Lucy Boswall.
Beige walls, beige wood, beige carpet. The almost monochrome décor in the first room of The Rossettis at Tate Britain is so reminiscent of a high-end Indian restaurant that the absence of canned music is startling in itself. I was half-expecting a smiling man in a Nehru jacket to ask me if I had a reservation, before being sudd-enly and overwhelmingly distracted by the sole splash of colour at its centre.
Christina Rossetti sits on her bed, awoken from sleep with her knees drawn away from her brother Michael. His feet are aflame, and he points a lily branch at her belly while a small white bird hovers nearby. It looks so familiar, and yet so fresh. Ecce ancilla Domini, their artist-sibling Gabriel intoned with its title. From somewhere deep in my soul the response bubbled up unbidden: fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum.
