In an Artist's Studio Literary Elements

First-person plural, limited omniscient speaker who appears to have knowledge of the artist's dreams and emotional perspective.The introduction of the first person plural "we" is a striking feature, since a sonnet conventionally has a singular lyric speaker, the first person “I”.

Petrarchan sonnet, with an ABBA ABBA CDCDCD rhyme scheme; iambic pentameter

a. Moon (simile)—Rossetti’s speaker describes the woman in the pictures as being “fair as the moon.” This simile is striking for the resemblance it bears to an epic simile, spanning the last 4 lines of the sonnet. The moon simile allows Rossetti to draw a number of comparisons as well as setting up the peculiar double negative structure towards the end.

b. Light (simile)—This is the second of Rossetti’s epic similes; being “joyfull as the light,” the woman in the picture is meant to have a radiant quality, shinning from the canvass to the viewers’ eyes.

c. Queen/nameless girl/saint/angel (metaphor)—Lines 4-7 introduce a string of metaphors that might also be taken as literal representations of the woman in the portrait. Rossetti aptly restrains her language so that these comparisons of the woman to a queen, angel, saint, etc. might be taken either literally (the artist has literally painted the woman as all of these things) or figuratively. The ambiguity underlines some of the subtler themes of the sonnet.

The fricative "f" sound creates an alliteration in the phrase "feeds on her face." "Wan with waiting" is also alliterative. "Canvasses" and "loveliness" create an assonance because the last letter of the former word is vocalized, whereas the "s" sound at the end of "loveliness" is not.

The painter is creating the image of a woman who is in love with him, yet the real model is wan and sorrowful, perhaps in need of attention from the painter but not receiving it because his focus is wholly on his artistic endeavors.

Petrarchan Sonnet

A painter's studio, likely sometime in the late nineteenth century.

Sardonic

The speaker and the woman are cast as the protagonist, while the artist, because of his inability to recognize the dangers of his obsession, becomes both the antihero and protagonist.

The painter lavishes time and attention on inanimate creations that depict the woman he loves—at the expense of the actual woman. She herself is nameless despite appearing in picture after picture.

Saints and angels are references to the Judeo-Christian religion. During the Middle Ages, artists with wealthy patrons frequently used those patrons as models for various heroes or saints. In this poem, the paintings are not being done for a patron: they remain in the artist's studio instead of the patron's home or in a public space.

The phrase “her true kind eyes” is a synecdoche for the woman herself.

An inanimate picture is described as having a face that "looks back at him" (the painter) with "true, kind eyes." The mirror is described as having "g[iven] back" all the woman's loveliness.

The phrase "feeds upon her face" suggests that the artist obtains a form of satisfaction or nourishment from looking at the image of the woman he adores, however it is an example of hyperbole. He is not literally biting or chewing her, but the act of looking at an idealized image of her satisfies him somehow.