The one place where he does go down to its means and soul is in his little prose masterpiece, _Hand and Soul_, in which we see the path, the goal, the passion, but not the power of art.

But he never, in thought, got, like Browning, to the bottom-joy of it.

He does not seem to see, as clearly as Browning saw, that the source of all art was love; and that the expression of love in beautiful form was or ought to be accomplished with that exulting joy which is the natural child of self-forgetfulness.

This story of Rossetti's was in prose.

In poetry, Rossetti, save in description from the outside, left art alone; and Browning's special work on art, and particularly his poetic studies of it, are isolated in English poetry, and separate him from other poets.
I cannot wish that he had thought less and written less about other arts than poetry.