The modern Pygmalion

In the class discussion of Pygmalion, the 'darker side' of the story was briefly touched upon. It's been a few years since I've seen Vertigo so I can't really speak much on that, but I do have some experience with another depiction of Pygmalion's story. A Victorian artist named Dante Gabriel Rosetti. A poet and artist, his works obsessively focused on a woman he later married, Elizabeth Siddal. The majority of Rosetti's works show an inhumanely beautiful woman, modeled after Siddal, in some form of contemplative and ethereal state.

Rosetti's portrayal of Siddal is alike to Pygmalion's. He molds the image of a woman into one that he deems is perfect, objectifying her and creating an image of beauty and perfection impossible to be reached. His sister Christina describes his obsession in a poem title "In an Artist's Studio"

One face looks out from all his canvases,

One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:

We found her hidden just behind those screens,

That mirror gave back all her loveliness.

A queen in opal or in ruby dress,

A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,

A saint, an angel-- every canvas means

That same one meaning, neither more nor less.

He feeds upon her face by day and night,

And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,

Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:

Not wan with waiting, nor with sorrow dim;

Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;

Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.