Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

s, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

, John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

and Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

. The three founders were soon joined by William Michael Rossetti

William Michael Rossetti

William Michael Rossetti was an English writer and critic.-Biography:Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.He was one of the seven founder members of the...

, James Collinson

James Collinson

James Collinson was a Victorian painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850.Collinson was a devout Christian who was attracted to the devotional and high church aspects of Pre-Raphaelitism...

, Frederic George Stephens

Frederic George Stephens

Frederic George Stephens was an art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood....

and Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members....

to form a seven-member "brotherhood".

The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what they considered to be the mechanistic approach first adopted by the Mannerist

Mannerism

Mannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...

artists who succeeded Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

and Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

. They believed that the Classical

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic

Academic art

Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...

teaching of art. Hence the name: Pre-Raphaelite. In particular, they objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". To the Pre-Raphaelites, according to William Michael Rossetti, "sloshy" meant "anything lax or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or person of a commonplace or conventional kind". In contrast, they wanted to return to the abundant detail, intense colours, and complex compositions of Quattrocento

Quattrocento

The cultural and artistic events of 15th century Italy are collectively referred to as the Quattrocento...

Italian and Flemish art.

The Pre-Raphaelites have been considered the first avant-garde

Avant-garde

Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

movement in art, though they have also been denied that status, because they continued to accept both the concepts of history painting

History painting

History painting is a genre in painting defined by subject matter rather than an artistic style, depicting a moment in a narrative story, rather than a static subject such as a portrait...

and of mimesis

Mimesis

Mimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...

, or imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. However, the Pre-Raphaelites undoubtedly defined themselves as a reform-movement, created a distinct name for their form of art, and published a periodical, The Germ
The Germ (periodical)
The Germ was a periodical established by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to disseminate their ideas. It was not a success, only existing for four issues between January and April 1850....

, to promote their ideas. Their debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal.

Beginnings of the Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millais's parents' house on Gower Street

Gower Street (London)

Gower Street is a street in Bloomsbury, Central London, England, running between Euston Road to the north and Montague Place to the south.North Gower Street is a separate street running north of the Euston Road...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

in 1848. At the initial meeting, John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

, and William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

were present. Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts. They had previously met in another loose association, a sketching-society called the Cyclographic Club. Rossetti was a pupil of Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

. He had met Hunt after seeing his painting The Eve of St. Agnes, which is based on Keats's poem

The Eve of St. Agnes

"The Eve of St. Agnes" is a long poem by John Keats, written in 1819 and published in 1820. It is widely considered to be amongst his finest poems and was influential in 19th century literature. The poem is in Spenserian stanzas....

. As an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links between Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

poetry and art. By autumn, four more members had also joined, to form a seven-member-strong Brotherhood. These were William Michael Rossetti

William Michael Rossetti

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti's brother), Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner

Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members....

, James Collinson

James Collinson

, and Frederic George Stephens

Frederic George Stephens

Frederic George Stephens was an art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood....

. Ford Madox Brown was invited to join, but preferred to remain independent. He nevertheless remained close to the group. Some other young painters and sculptors were also close associates, including Charles Allston Collins

Charles Allston Collins

thumb|Convent Thoughts by CollinsCharles Allston Collins was a British painter, writer and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early years:...

, Thomas Tupper, and Alexander Munro

Alexander Munro (sculptor)

Alexander Munro was a British sculptor of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.Son of a stonemason, his talents were supported by financial assistance from his father’s employer, the Duchess of Sutherland. He came to London in 1848 to study sculpture under Charles Barry...

. They kept the existence of the Brotherhood secret from members of the Royal Academy.

Early doctrines

The Brotherhood's early doctrines were expressed in four declarations:

to have genuine ideas to express
to study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them
to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote
most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues

These principles are deliberately non-dogmatic, since the Brotherhood wished to emphasise the personal responsibility of individual artists to determine their own ideas and methods of depiction. Influenced by Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

, they thought that freedom and responsibility were inseparable. Nevertheless, they were particularly fascinated by medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual

Spirituality

Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

and creative integrity that had been lost in later eras. This emphasis on medieval culture was to clash with certain principles of realism

Realism (arts)

Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...

, which stress the independent observation of nature. In its early stages, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed that their two interests were consistent with one another, but in later years the movement divided and began to move in two directions. The realist-side was led by Hunt and Millais, while the medievalist-side was led by Rossetti and his followers, Edward Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

and William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

. This split was never absolute, since both factions believed that art was essentially spiritual in character, opposing their idealism

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

to the materialist

Materialism

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

realism associated with Courbet

Gustave Courbet

Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement , with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists...

and Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was greatly influenced by nature and they used great detail to show the natural world using bright and sharp focus techniques on a white canvas.In their attempts to revive the brilliance of colour found in Quattrocento art, Hunt and Millais developed a technique of painting in thin glaze

Glaze (painting technique)

Glazes can change the chroma, value, hue and texture of a surface. Drying time will depend on the amount and type of paint medium used in the glaze. The medium, base, or vehicle is the mixture to which the dry pigment is added...

s of pigment over a wet white ground. They hoped that in this way their colours would retain jewel-like transparency and clarity. This emphasis on brilliance of colour was in reaction to the excessive use of bitumen by earlier British artists, such as Reynolds, David Wilkie

David Wilkie (artist)

Sir David Wilkie was a Scottish painter.- Early life :Wilkie was the son of the parish minister of Cults in Fife. He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kettle and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter...

and Benjamin Robert Haydon. Bitumen produces unstable areas of muddy darkness, an effect that the Pre-Raphaelites despised.

Public controversies

The first exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite work occurred in 1849. Both Millais's Isabella (1848–1849) and Holman Hunt's Rienzi (1848–1849) were exhibited at the Royal Academy, and Rossetti's Girlhood of Mary Virgin was shown at the Free Exhibition on Hyde Park Corner. As agreed, all members of the Brotherhood signed works with their name and the initials "PRB". Between January and April 1850, the group published a literary magazine, The Germ. William Rossetti edited the magazine, which published poetry by the Rossettis, Woolner, and Collinson, together with essays on art and literature by associates of the Brotherhood, such as Coventry Patmore

Coventry Patmore

Coventry Kersey Dighton Patmore was an English poet and critic best known for The Angel in the House, his narrative poem about an ideal happy marriage.-Youth:...

. As the short run-time implies, the magazine did not manage to achieve a sustained momentum. (Daly 1989)

In 1850 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood became controversial after the exhibition of Millais's painting Christ In The House Of His Parents
Christ in the House of His Parents
Christ in the House of His Parents is a painting by John Everett Millais depicting the Holy Family in Saint Joseph's carpentry workshop. The painting was extremely controversial when first exhibited, prompting many negative reviews, most notably one written by Charles Dickens...

, considered to be blasphemous

Blasphemy

Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...

by many reviewers, notably Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

. (Dickens considered Millais' Mary to be ugly. Interestingly enough, Millais had actually used his sister-in-law Mary Hodgkinson as a model for the Mary in his painting). Their medievalism was attacked as backward-looking and their extreme devotion to detail was condemned as ugly and jarring to the eye. According to Dickens, Millais made the Holy Family look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers, adopting contorted and absurd "medieval" poses. A rival group of older artists, The Clique

The Clique

The Clique was a group of English artists formed by Richard Dadd in the late 1830s. Other members were Augustus Egg, Alfred Elmore, William Powell Frith, Henry Nelson O'Neil, John Phillip and Edward Matthew Ward....

, also used their influence against the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Their principles were publicly attacked by the President of the Academy, Sir Charles Lock Eastlake

Charles Lock Eastlake

Sir Charles Lock Eastlake RA was an English painter, gallery director, collector and writer of the early 19th century.-Early life:...

.

Following the controversy, Collinson left the Brotherhood. They met to discuss whether he should be replaced by Charles Allston Collins or Walter Howell Deverell, but were unable to make a decision. From that point on the group disbanded, though their influence continued to be felt. Artists who had worked in the style still followed these techniques (initially anyway) but they no longer signed works "PRB".

However, the Brotherhood found support from the critic John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, who praised their devotion to nature and rejection of conventional methods of composition. The Pre-Raphaelites were influenced by Ruskin's theories. As a result, the critic wrote letters to The Times defending their work, later meeting them. Initially, he favoured Millais, who travelled to Scotland in the summer of 1853 with Ruskin and Ruskin's wife, Effie, to paint Ruskin's portrait. Effie's increasing attachment to Millais, among other reasons (including Ruskin's non-consummation

Consummation

Consummation is the initial sexual act made within a marriage.Consummation can also refer to:* Consummation , 1970 recordingSee also:* Consummation of days, event predicted in Daniel Chapter 12, verses 1-4...

of the marriage) created a crisis, leading Effie to leave Ruskin, have the marriage annulled on grounds that it had not been consummated, and marry Millais, which caused a public scandal. Millais abandoned the Pre-Raphaelite style after his marriage, and Ruskin often savagely attacked his later works. Ruskin continued to support Hunt and Rossetti. He also provided independent funds to encourage the art of Rossetti's wife Elizabeth Siddal

Elizabeth Siddal

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal was an English artists' model, poet and artist who was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Walter Deverell, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and most of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's early paintings of women.-Early...

Later developments and influence

Artists who were influenced by the Brotherhood include John Brett

John Brett

John Brett was an artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement , mainly notable for his highly detailed landscapes. Brett was born near Reigate on 8 December 1831, the son of an army vet. In 1851 he began lessons in art with James Duffield Harding, a landscape painter...

, Philip Calderon

Philip Calderon

Philip Hermogenes Calderon was an English painter of French birth and Spanish ancestry who initially worked in the Pre-Raphaelite style before moving towards historical genre. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy in London.Calderon was born in Poitiers, France...

, Arthur Hughes

Arthur Hughes (artist)

Arthur Hughes , was an English painter and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He is the uncle of the English painter Edward Robert Hughes.-Biography:Hughes was born in London...

, Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau

Gustave Moreau was a French Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter of literary ideas, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.- Biography :Moreau was born in Paris. His father, Louis Jean Marie...

, Evelyn De Morgan

Evelyn De Morgan

Evelyn De Morgan was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter.She was born Evelyn Pickering. Her parents were of upper middle class. Her father was Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract...

, Frederic Sandys (who came into the Pre-Raphaelite circle in 1857), and John William Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse was an English painter known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heydey in the mid-nineteenth century, leading him to have gained the moniker of "the modern Pre-Raphaelite"...

. Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

, who was associated with them from the beginning, is often seen as most closely adopting the Pre-Raphaelite principles. One follower who developed his own distinct style was Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....

, who was pre-eminently influenced by Burne-Jones.

After 1856, Dante Gabriel Rossetti became an inspiration for the medievalising strand of the movement.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti became the link to the two different types of Pre Raphaelite painting (nature vs. Romance) after the PRB became lost in the late 1800s. Rossetti, although the least committed to the brotherhood, continued the name and changed the Brotherhoods style drastically. He began painting versions of femme fatales using models like Jane Morris, in paintings such as: Proserpine, the blue silk dress, La Pia de' Tolomei, etc. His work influenced his friend William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

, in whose firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.

Morris & Co.

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. and its successor Morris & Co. were furnishings and decorative arts manufacturers and retailers founded by the Pre-Raphaelite artist and designer William Morris...

he became a partner, and with whose wife Jane

Jane Burden

Jane Morris was an English artists' model who embodied the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. She was a model and muse to the artists William Morris, whom she married, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.-Life:...

he may have had an affair. Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones also became partners in the firm. Through Morris's company the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood influenced many interior designers and architects, arousing interest in medieval designs, as well as other crafts. This led directly to the Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

headed by William Morris. Holman Hunt was also involved with this movement to reform design through the Della Robbia Pottery

Della Robbia Pottery

The Della Robbia Pottery was a ceramic factory founded in 1894 in Birkenhead, England.-Founders:The business was started by Harold Steward Rathbone and Conrad Gustave d'Huc Dressler...

company.

After 1850, both Hunt and Millais moved away from direct imitation of medieval art. Both stressed the realist and scientific aspects of the movement, though Hunt continued to emphasise the spiritual significance of art, seeking to reconcile religion and science by making accurate observations and studies of locations in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

and Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

for his paintings on biblical subjects. In contrast, Millais abandoned Pre-Raphaelitism after 1860, adopting a much broader and looser style influenced by Reynolds. William Morris and others condemned this reversal of principles.

The movement influenced the work of many later British artists well into the twentieth century. Rossetti later came to be seen as a precursor of the wider European Symbolist

Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...

movement. In the late twentieth century the Brotherhood of Ruralists

Brotherhood of Ruralists

The Brotherhood of Ruralists is a British art group founded in 1975 in Wellow, Somerset, to paint nature. Their work is figurative with a strong adherence to 'traditional' skills...

based its aims on Pre-Raphaelitism, while the Stuckists

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...

and the Birmingham Group have also derived inspiration from it.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England.Entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery is free, but some major exhibitions in the Gas Hall incur an entrance fee...

has a world-renowned collection of works by Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites that, some claim, strongly influenced the young J.R.R. Tolkien, who would later go on to write his novels, such as The Hobbit
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...

and The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...

, with their influence taken from the same mythological scenes portrayed by the Pre-Raphaelites.

In the twentieth century artistic ideals changed and art moved away from representing reality. Since the Pre-Raphaelites were fixed on portraying things with near-photographic precision, though with a distinctive attention to detailed surface-patterns, their work was devalued by many painters and critics. In particular, after the First World War, British Modernists

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

associated Pre-Raphaelite art with the repressive and backward times in which they grew up. In the 1960s there was a major revival of Pre-Raphaelitism. Exhibitions and catalogues of works, culminating in a 1984 exhibition in London's Tate Gallery

Tate Gallery

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...

, re-established a canon of Pre-Raphaelite work.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

James Collinson
James Collinson
James Collinson was a Victorian painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850.Collinson was a devout Christian who was attracted to the devotional and high church aspects of Pre-Raphaelitism...

(painter)
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

(painter)
John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

(painter)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

(painter, poet)
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti was an English writer and critic.-Biography:Born in London, he was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti, and the brother of Maria Francesca Rossetti, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Christina Georgina Rossetti.He was one of the seven founder members of the...

(critic)
Frederic George Stephens
Frederic George Stephens
Frederic George Stephens was an art critic, and one of the two 'non-artistic' members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood....

(critic)
Thomas Woolner
Thomas Woolner
Thomas Woolner RA was an English sculptor and poet who was one of the founder-members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was the only sculptor among the original members....

(sculptor, poet)

Associated artists and figures

John Brett
John Brett
John Brett was an artist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement , mainly notable for his highly detailed landscapes. Brett was born near Reigate on 8 December 1831, the son of an army vet. In 1851 he began lessons in art with James Duffield Harding, a landscape painter...

(painter)
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

(painter, designer)
Richard Burchett
Richard Burchett
Richard Burchett was a British artist and educator on the fringes of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who was for over twenty years the Headmaster of what later became the Royal College of Art....

(painter, educator)
Edward Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

(painter, designer)
Charles Allston Collins
Charles Allston Collins
thumb|Convent Thoughts by CollinsCharles Allston Collins was a British painter, writer and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early years:...

(painter)
Frank Cadogan Cowper
Frank Cadogan Cowper
Frank Cadogan Cowper was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary scenes, described as "The last of the Pre-Raphaelites".-Life and work:...

(painter)
Fanny Cornforth
Fanny Cornforth
Fanny Cornforth was an English maidservant who became a model and mistress to Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

(artist's model)
Henry Holiday
Henry Holiday
Henry Holiday was an English historical genre and landscape painter, stained glass designer, illustrator and sculptor. He is considered to be a member of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art.-Early years and training:...

(painter, stained-glass artist, illustrator)
Walter Howell Deverell (painter)
Arthur Hughes
Arthur Hughes (artist)
Arthur Hughes , was an English painter and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He is the uncle of the English painter Edward Robert Hughes.-Biography:Hughes was born in London...

(painter, book illustrator)
Robert Braithwaite Martineau
Robert Braithwaite Martineau
Robert Braithwaite Martineau was an English painter.He attended Colfes school for a few years at the age of 15. He first trained as a lawyer and later entered the Royal Academy where he was awarded a silver medal. He studied under Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt and once shared a studio...

(painter)
Jane Morris (artist's model)
Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford (painter and artist's model)
May Morris
May Morris
Mary "May" Morris was an English artisan, embroidery designer, socialist, and editor. She was the younger daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite artist and designer William Morris and his wife and artists' model Jane Morris....

(embroiderer and designer)
William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

(designer, writer)
Christina Rossetti
Christina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...

(poet)
John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

(critic)
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys
Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys , but usually known as Frederick Sandys, was an English "Pre-Raphaelite" painter, illustrator and draughtsman, of the Victorian era....

(painter)
Thomas Seddon
Thomas Seddon
Thomas Seddon , English landscape painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite style, was born in London.His father was a cabinetmaker, and the son for some time followed the same occupation; but in 1842 he was sent to Paris to study ornamental art. On his return he executed designs for furniture for...

(painter)
Frederic Shields
Frederic Shields
Frederic James Shields , was a British artist, illustrator and designer closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown.-Early years:...

(painter)
Elizabeth Siddal
Elizabeth Siddal
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal was an English artists' model, poet and artist who was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Walter Deverell, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and most of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's early paintings of women.-Early...

(painter, poet and artist's model)
Simeon Solomon
Simeon Solomon
Simeon Solomon was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter-Biography:...

(painter)
Marie Spartali Stillman
Marie Spartali Stillman
Marie Euphrosyne Spartali, later Stillman , was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter of Greek descent, arguably the greatest female artist of that movement...

(painter)
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

(poet)
Henry Wallis
Henry Wallis
Henry Wallis was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.Born in London on 21 February 1830, his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname. His...

(painter)
William Lindsay Windus
William Lindsay Windus
William Lindsay Windus was an English painter, part of a group of Liverpool painters who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style.-Life and work:...

(painter)

Loosely associated artists

Sophie Gengembre Anderson
Sophie Gengembre Anderson
Sophie Gengembre Anderson was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre painting of children and women, typically in rural settings. Her work is loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement....

(painter)
Wyke Bayliss
Wyke Bayliss
Sir Wyke Bayliss was a British painter, author and poet. He almost exclusively painted interiors of British and European churches and cathedrals, and was known in the late Victorian era as an academic authority on art...

(painter)
George Price Boyce
George Price Boyce
George Price Boyce was a British watercolour painter of landscapes and vernacular architecture in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He was a patron and friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti....

(painter)
Joanna Mary Boyce
Joanna Mary Boyce
Joanna Mary Boyce, also known as Mrs. H. T. Wells, her married name, was an English painter of portraits, genre pictures, and occasionally landscapes. She was the sister of pre-Raphaelite watercolorist George Price Boyce, and was herself associated with the Brotherhood.Boyce was born in Maida...

(painter)
Sir Frederick William Burton
Frederick William Burton
Sir Frederic William Burton RHA was an Irish painter born in Corofin, County Clare. He was the third director of the National Gallery, London.-Artistic career:...

(painter)
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron
Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes....

(photographer)
James Campbell
James Campbell (artist)
James Campbell was an English artist, part of a group from Liverpool, who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style. He studied briefly at the Liverpool Academy and then moved on to the Royal Academy Schools in 1851....

(painter)
John Collier
John Collier (artist)
The Honourable John Maler Collier OBE RP ROI , called 'Jack' by his family and friends, was a leading English artist, and an author. He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation. Both his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry...

(painter)
William Davis
William Davis (artist)
William Davis was an Irish artist, and part of a group of Liverpool based artists who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style of painting....

(painter)
Evelyn De Morgan
Evelyn De Morgan
Evelyn De Morgan was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter.She was born Evelyn Pickering. Her parents were of upper middle class. Her father was Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract...

(painter)
Frank Bernard Dicksee
Frank Bernard Dicksee
Sir Francis Bernard Dicksee KCVO was an English Victorian painter and illustrator, best known for his pictures of dramatic historical and legendary scenes. He also was a noted painter of portraits of fashionable women, which helped to bring him success in his own time. Dicksee was born in London...

(painter)
John William Godward
John William Godward
John William Godward was an English painter from the end of the Pre-Raphaelite / Neo-Classicist era. He was a protégé of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema but his style of painting fell out of favour with the arrival of painters like Picasso...

(painter)
Thomas Cooper Gotch
Thomas Cooper Gotch
Thomas Cooper Gotch was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and book illustrator, and brother of John Alfred Gotch the noted architect.-Early life:...

(painter)
Charles Edward Hallé (painter)
Edward Robert Hughes
Edward Robert Hughes
Edward Robert Hughes was an English painter who worked in a style influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism and Aestheticism. Some of his best known works are Midsummer Eve and Night With Her Train of Stars. Hughes was the nephew of Arthur Hughes. He often used watercolour/gouache...

(painter)
John Lee
John Lee (artist)
John Lee was a British painter, part of a group of Liverpool artists, influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style. Very little is known about Lee's life and only four paintings have been attributed to him with any certainty...

(painter)
Edmund Leighton
Edmund Leighton
Edmund Blair Leighton was an English painter of historical genre scenes, specializing in Regency and medieval subjects.-Biography:...

(painter)
Frederic, Lord Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton PRA , known as Sir Frederic Leighton, Bt, between 1886 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical and classical subject matter...

(painter)
James Lionel Michael
James Lionel Michael
James Lionel Michael was an Anglo-Australian solicitor and poet.-Early life:Michael was born in Red Lion Square, London, the second son of James Walter Michael, a solicitor, and his wife, Rose Lemon née Hart....

(minor poet, mentor to Henry Kendall)
Charles William Mitchell
Charles William Mitchell
Charles William Mitchell was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter from Newcastle. A contemporary of John William Waterhouse, his work is similar in many ways. His one famous piece was Hypatia, shown in 1885 and likely inspired by the Charles Kingsley serialized novel Hypatia or New Foes with an Old...

(painter)
Joseph Noel Paton
Joseph Noel Paton
Sir Joseph Noel Paton FRSA, LL. D. was a Scottish artist, born in Wooer's Alley, Dunfermline, Fife.Born to a family of weavers who worked with damask, Joseph continued the family trade for a short time...

(painter)
John William Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse was an English painter known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style. He worked several decades after the breakup of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which had seen its heydey in the mid-nineteenth century, leading him to have gained the moniker of "the modern Pre-Raphaelite"...

(painter)
Daniel Alexander Williamson
Daniel Alexander Williamson
Daniel Alexander Williamson was a British artist, part of a group of Liverpool painters who were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite style.-See also:*List of Pre-Raphaelite paintings - including the works of Daniel Alexander Williamson....

(painter)

Collections

There are major collections of Pre-Raphaelite work in the Tate Gallery

Tate Gallery

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...

, Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum

The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...

, Manchester Art Gallery

Manchester Art Gallery

Manchester Art Gallery is a publicly-owned art gallery in Manchester, England. It was formerly known as Manchester City Art Gallery.The gallery was opened in 1824 and today occupies three buildings, the oldest of which - designed by Sir Charles Barry - is Grade I listed and was originally home to...

, Lady Lever Art Gallery

Lady Lever Art Gallery

The Lady Lever Art Gallery was founded in 1922 by Sunlight Soap magnate, William Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme, and dedicated to the memory of his wife....

, Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery

Walker Art Gallery

The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England, outside of London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group, and is promoted as "the National Gallery of the North" because it is not a local or regional gallery but is part...

and Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

. The Delaware Art Museum

Delaware Art Museum

The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 works. The museum, was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle and is now celebrating its centennial...

has the most significant collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside the United Kingdom.

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

is an avid collector of Pre-Raphaelite works and a selection of 300 items from his collection were shown at a major exhibition at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

in 2003.

The National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

houses at Wightwick Manor

Wightwick Manor

Wightwick Manor is a Victorian manor house located on Wightwick Bank, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England, and one of only a few surviving examples of a house built and furnished under the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement...

, Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton

Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...

, and at Wallington Hall

Wallington Hall

Wallington is a country house and gardens located about west of Morpeth, Northumberland, England, near the village of Cambo. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1942, after it was donated by Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, the first donation of its kind...

, Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

, both have significant and representative collections.

Portrayal in popular culture

The story of the Brotherhood, from their controversial first exhibition through to their eventual embracement by the art establishment, has been depicted in two BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

television series. The first, The Love School
The Love School
The Love School is a BBC television drama series originally broadcast in 1975 about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, written by John Hale, Ray Lawler, Robin Chapman and John Prebble. It was directed by Piers Haggard, John Glenister and Robert Knights. It was shown during January and February 1975...

, was broadcast in 1975; the second is the 2009 BBC television drama serial Desperate Romantics
Desperate Romantics
Desperate Romantics is a six-part television drama serial about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, first broadcast on BBC Two between 21 July and 25 August 2009.-Overview:...

by Peter Bowker

Peter Bowker

Peter Bowker is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool , a musical drama about a shady casino owner; Occupation , which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; and Desperate Romantics , a...

. Although much of the latter's material is derived from Franny Moyle

Franny Moyle

Franny Moyle is a British television producer and author. She is best known for her book Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites , which was adapted into the BBC drama serial Desperate Romantics by screenwriter Peter Bowker.-Career:Moyle is a graduate in English and the...

's factual book Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites, the series occasionally departs from established facts in favour of dramatic licence and is prefaced by the disclaimer: "In the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the art establishment of the day. The pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were inspired by the real world around them, yet took imaginative licence in their art. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit." Ken Russell

Ken Russell

Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...

's 1967 film Dante's Inferno
Dante's Inferno (1967 film)
Dante's Inferno: The Private Life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Poet and Painter is a feature-length 35mm film directed by Ken Russell and first screened on the BBC on 22 December 1967. It quickly became a staple in cinemas in retrospectives of Russell's work...

concentrates on the life of Rossetti, with brief scenes on the other leading Pre-Raphaelites.

Books

Andres, Sophia. (2005) The Pre-Raphaelite Art of the Victorian Novel: Narrative Challenges to Visual Gendered Boundaries. Ohio State University Press, ISBN 0-8142-5129-3
Bate, P.H. [1901] (1972) The English Pre-Raphaelite painters : their associates and successors, New York : AMS Press, ISBN 0-404-00691-4
Daly, G. (1989) Pre-Raphaelites in Love, New York : Ticknor & Fields, ISBN 0-89919-450-8
des Cars, L. (2000) The Pre-Raphaelites : Romance and Realism, New York : Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0-81092-891-4
Mancoff, D.N. (2003) Flora symbolica : flowers in Pre-Raphaelite art, Munich ; London ; New York : Prestel, ISBN 3-7913-2851-4
Marsh, J. and Nunn, P.G. (1998) Pre-Raphaelite women artists, London : Thames & Hudson, ISBN 0-500-28104-1
Staley, A. and Newall, C. (2004) Pre-Raphaelite vision : truth to nature, London : Tate, ISBN 1-85437-499-0
Townsend, J., Ridge, J. and Hackney, S. (2004) Pre-Raphaelite painting techniques : 1848-56, London : Tate, ISBN 1-85437-498-2
Watson, M.F. (1997) Collecting the Pre-Raphaelites : the Anglo-American enchantment, Aldershot : Ashgate, ISBN 1-85928-399-3

External links

Collection of links
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery's Pre-Raphaelite Online Resource
Liverpool Walker Art Gallery's Pre-Raphaelite collection
Pre-Raphaelite and other Masters: the Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection
Pre-Raphaelitism Lecture by John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites
Pre Raphaelitism in Poetry
Literary Aspects of Pre Raphaelitism: The Cambridge History of English and American Literature
Pre-Raphaelite Chronology
The Pre-Raphaelite Critic is a collection of full-text and excerpted 19th century reviews of the movement and its individual members.
Oscar Wilde, Joseph Worcester, and the English Arts & Crafts Movement an article describing Worcester's desire to establish a brotherhood similar to the Pre-Raphaelites in the SF Bay Area
The Pre-Raphaelite Society
Pre-Raphaelite online resource project at the Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
The Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art
Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood: women featured in Pre-Raphaelite art
The Pre-Raph Pack Discover more about the artists, the techniques they used and a timeline spanning 100 years.
Lizzie Siddal.com Elizabeth Siddal: Pre-Raphaelite model, painter, poet. Siddal is famous for posing as Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais. She later married Pre-Raphaelite founder Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Ed Ian Chilvers. Oxford University Press 2009Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. York University. 23 October 2011 http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t3.e1985
"Pre-Raphaelitism" A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art by Ian Chilvers and John Glaves-Smith. Oxford University Press Inc. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. York University. 23 October 2011

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