Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

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Proserpine, 1874, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, with Jane Morris
as model
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The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), later known as the Pre-Raphaelites, was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner who formed a seven-member "Brotherhood" partly modelled on the Nazarene movement.[1] The Brotherhood was only ever a loose association and their principles were shared by other artists of the time, including Ford Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes and Marie Spartali Stillman. Later followers of the principles of the Brotherhood included Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris and John William Waterhouse.

The group sought a return to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of

Sir Joshua Reynolds, 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".[2] The group associated their work with John Ruskin,[3] an English critic whose influences were driven by his religious background. Christian themes were abundant.[4]

The group continued to accept the concepts of history painting and mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. The Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a reform movement, created a distinct name for their form of art, and published a periodical, The Germ, to promote their ideas. The group's debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal. The Brotherhood separated after almost five years.[5]

Beginnings

Illustration by Holman Hunt of Thomas Woolner's poem "My Beautiful Lady", published in The Germ, 1850

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

Gower Street, London in 1848. At the first meeting, the painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt were present. Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and had met in another loose association, the Cyclographic Club, a sketching society. At his own request Rossetti became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown in 1848.[6] At that date, Rossetti and Hunt shared lodgings in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, Central London. Hunt had started painting The Eve of St. Agnes based on Keats's poem of the same name, but it was not completed until 1867.[7]

As an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links between Romantic poetry and art. By autumn, four more members, painters James Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti's brother, poet and critic William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor Thomas Woolner, had joined to form a seven-member-strong brotherhood.[7] Ford Madox Brown was invited to join, but the more senior artist remained independent but supported the group throughout the PRB period of Pre-Raphaelitism and contributed to The Germ. Other young painters and sculptors became close associates, including Charles Allston Collins, and Alexander Munro. The PRB intended to keep the existence of the brotherhood secret from members of the Royal Academy.[citation needed]

Early doctrines

The brotherhood's early doctrines, as defined by William Michael Rossetti, were expressed in four declarations:

  1. to have genuine ideas to express;
  2. to study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
  3. to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote; and
  4. most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.[8]

The principles were 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

medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual and creative integrity that had been lost in later eras. The emphasis on medieval culture clashed with principles of realism which stress the independent observation of nature. In its early stages, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed its two interests were consistent with one another, but in later years the movement divided and moved in two directions. The realists were led by Hunt and Millais, while the medievalists were led by Rossetti and his followers, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The split was never absolute, since both factions believed that art was essentially spiritual in character, opposing their idealism to the materialist realism associated with Courbet and Impressionism
.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was greatly influenced by nature and its members used great detail to show the natural world using bright and sharp-focus techniques on a white canvas. In attempts to revive the brilliance of colour found in Quattrocento art, Hunt and Millais developed a technique of painting in thin glazes of pigment over a wet white ground in the hope that the colours would retain jewel-like transparency and clarity. Their emphasis on brilliance of colour was a reaction to the excessive use of bitumen by earlier British artists, such as Reynolds, David Wilkie and Benjamin Robert Haydon. Bitumen produces unstable areas of muddy darkness, an effect the Pre-Raphaelites despised.

In 1848, Rossetti and Hunt made a list of "Immortals", artistic heroes whom they admired, especially from literature, some of whose work would form subjects for PRB paintings, notably including Keats and Tennyson.[9]

First exhibitions and publications

The first exhibitions 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. Rossetti's The Girlhood of Mary Virgin was shown at a Free Exhibition on Hyde Park Corner. As agreed, all members of the brotherhood signed their work with their name and the initials "PRB". Between January and April 1850, the group published a literary magazine, The Germ edited by William Rossetti which published poetry by the Rossettis, Woolner, and Collinson and essays on art and literature by associates of the brotherhood, such as Coventry Patmore. As the short run-time implies, the magazine did not manage to achieve sustained momentum. (Daly 1989)

Public controversy

Christ in the House of His Parents, by John Everett Millais, 1850

In 1850, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood became the subject of controversy after the exhibition of Millais' painting Christ in the House of His Parents was considered to be blasphemous by many reviewers, notably Charles Dickens.[10] Dickens considered Millais's Mary to be ugly.[11] Millais had used his sister-in-law, Mary Hodgkinson, as the model for Mary in his painting. The brotherhood's medievalism was attacked as backward-looking and its extreme devotion to detail was condemned as ugly and jarring to the eye.[12] According to Dickens, Millais made the Holy Family look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers, adopting contorted and absurd "medieval" poses.[13]

After the controversy, James Collinson resigned from the Brotherhood due to his belief that it was bringing the Christian religion into disrepute. The remaining members 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 the group disbanded, though its influence continued. Artists who had worked in the style initially continued but no longer signed works "PRB".[14]

Ophelia, by John Everett Millais, 1851–52

The brotherhood found support from the critic

Elizabeth Siddall
, Rossetti's wife.

By 1853 the original PRB had virtually dissolved,[19] with only Holman Hunt remaining true to its stated aims.[according to whom?] But the term "Pre-Raphaelite" stuck to Rossetti and others, including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, with whom he became involved in Oxford in 1857.[20] Hence the term Pre-Raphaelite is associated with a much wider and long-lived art movement.

Later developments and influence

Medea by Evelyn De Morgan, 1889, in quattrocento style

Artists influenced by the brotherhood include

Frederic Sandys (who entered the Pre-Raphaelite circle in 1857)[21] and John William Waterhouse. 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, who was pre-eminently influenced by Burne-Jones.[21]

After 1856, Dante Gabriel Rossetti became an inspiration for the medievalising strand of the movement. He was the link between the two types of Pre-Raphaelite painting (nature and Romance) after the PRB became lost in the later decades of the century. Rossetti, although the least committed to the brotherhood, continued the name and changed its style. He began painting versions of femme fatales using models including

medieval designs and other crafts leading to the Arts and Crafts movement headed by William Morris. Holman Hunt was involved with the movement to reform design through the Della Robbia Pottery
company.

After 1850, Hunt and Millais moved away from direct imitation of medieval art. They 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 and Palestine 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 his reversal of principles.

James Archer, The Death of King Arthur, c. 1860

Pre-Raphaelitism had a significant impact in Scotland and on Scottish artists. The figure in Scottish art most associated with the Pre-Raphaelites was the Aberdeen-born

Arthurian-based paintings including La Morte d'Arthur and Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere.[25]

Pre-Raphaelism also inspired painters like Lawrence Alma-Tadema.[26] The movement influenced many later British artists into the 20th century.

Rossetti came to be seen as a precursor of the wider European

Symbolist movement. There is evidence to suggest that a number of paintings by the German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker were influenced by Rossetti.[27]

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery 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,[28] who wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
, with influences taken from the same mythological scenes portrayed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Tolkien considered his own group of school friends and artistic associates, the so-called TCBS, as a group in the vein of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Arthur Hughes, Fair Rosamund, 1854

In the 20th century artistic ideals changed, and art moved away from representing reality. After the

Tate Gallery, re-established a canon of Pre-Raphaelite work.[31] Among many other exhibitions, there was another large show at Tate Britain in 2012–13.[32]

In the late 20th century the Brotherhood of Ruralists based its aims on Pre-Raphaelitism, while the Stuckists and the Birmingham Group have also derived inspiration from it.

List of artists

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Associated artists and figures

Loosely associated artists

Illustration and poetry

Many members of the 'inner' Pre-Raphaelite circle (

subject painting, which had been dismissed as artificial. Their belief that each picture should tell a story was an important step for the unification of painting and literature (eventually deemed the Sister Arts[36]), or at least a break in the rigid hierarchy promoted by writers like Robert Buchanan.[37]

The Pre-Raphaelite desire for more extensive affiliation between painting and literature also manifested in illustration. Illustration is a more direct unification of these media and, like subject painting, can assert a narrative of its own. For the Pre-Raphaelites, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti specifically, there was anxiety about the constraints of illustration.[37] In 1855, Rossetti wrote to William Allingham about the independence of illustration: "I have not begun even designing for them yet, but fancy I shall try the 'Vision of Sin' and 'Palace of Art' etc. – those where one can allegorize on one's own hook, without killing for oneself and everyone a distinct idea of the poet's."[37] This passage makes apparent Rossetti's desire to not just support the poet's narrative, but to create an allegorical illustration that functions separately from the text as well. In this respect, Pre-Raphaelite illustrations go beyond depicting an episode from a poem, but rather function like subject paintings within a text.

Collections

William Holman Hunt, The Hireling Shepherd, 1851

There are major collections of Pre-Raphaelite work in United Kingdom museums such as the

Frederic Sandys
. The Ger Eenens Collection The Netherlands includes a work by John Collier, Circe (signed and dated 1885), that was exhibited at the Chicago World Fair 1893. The British exhibit occupied 14 rooms, showcased a theme familiar with the Fair's outlook, hence they had a sizeable exhibit of Pre-Raphaelite and New-Classical painters. They were extremely well received.

Circe, 1885, by John Collier, depicts the seductive enchantress from Homer's Odyssey and was exhibited at the Chicago World Art Fair 1893, World's Columbian Exposition, Department K Britannica

There is a set of Pre-Raphaelite murals in the Old Library at the

Royal Academy
in London in 2003.

Kelmscott Manor, the country home of William Morris from 1871 until his death in 1896, is owned by the Society of Antiquaries of London and is open to the public. The Manor is featured in Morris' 1890 novel News from Nowhere. It also appears in the background of Water Willow, a portrait of his wife, Jane Morris, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1871. There are exhibitions connected with Morris and Rossetti's early experiments with photography.

The story of the brotherhood, from its controversial first exhibition to being embraced by the art establishment, has been depicted in two BBC television series. The first, The Love School, was broadcast in 1975; the second is the 2009 BBC television drama serial Desperate Romantics by Peter Bowker. Although much of the latter's material is derived from Franny Moyle's factual book Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites,[38] 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."[39]

Dante's Inferno (1967) contains brief scenes on some of the leading Pre-Raphaelites but mainly concentrates on the life of Rossetti, played by Oliver Reed
.

Chapter 36 of the 1952 novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck references pre-Raphaelite influenced images used to identify different classrooms: "The pictures identified the rooms, and the pre-Raphaelite influence was overwhelming. Galahad standing in full armor pointed the way for third-graders; Atalanta's race urged on the fourth, the Pot of Basil confused the fifth grade, and so on until the denunciation of Catiline sent the eighth-graders on to high school with a sense of high civic virtue. Cal and Aron were assigned to the seventh grade because of their age, and they learned every shadow of its picture—Laocoön completely wrapped in snakes".

See also

References

  1. ^ Henri Dorra, Symbolist Art Theories: A Critical Anthology (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995), p. 17.
  2. ^ Hilton 1971, p. 46.
  3. ^ Landow, George P. "Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction". The Victorian Web. Retrieved 15 June 2014.
  4. ^ "Christianity and Art: The Pre-Raphaelites". byfaith.org. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  5. ^ "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood". Encyclopedia Britannica.
  6. ^ McGann, Jerome J., ed. (7 May 2005). "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin". The Rossetti Archive. Archived from the original on 23 March 2023.
  7. ^ a b Hilton 1971, pp. 28–33
  8. ^ Quoted by Latham, pp. 11–12; see also his comments
  9. ^ "The Pre-Raphaelites". The British Library.
  10. ^ Slater, Michael (2009). Charles Dickens, p. 309. Yale University Press.
  11. ^ Andres, Sophia (2005). The Pre-Raphaelite Art of the Victorian Novel: Narrative Challenges to Visual Gendered Boundaries, p. 9. Ohio State University Press.
  12. ^ The Times, Saturday, 3 May 1851; pg. 8; Issue 20792: Exhibition of the Royal Academy. (Private View.), First Notice: "We cannot censure at present, as amply or as strongly as we desire to do, that strange disorder of the mind or the eyes which continues to rage with unabated absurdity among a class of juvenile artists who style themselves "P.R.B.," which being interpreted means Pre-Raphael Brethren. Their faith seems to consist in an absolute contempt for perspective and the known laws of light and shade, an aversion to beauty in every shape, and a singular devotion to the minute accidents of their subjects, including, or rather seeking out, every excess of sharpness and deformity."
  13. ^ Fowle, Frances (2000). "Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, Christ in the House of His Parents ('The Carpenter's Shop'), 1849–50". Tate. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
  14. ^ "Pre-Raphaelites: An Introduction". www.victorianweb.org. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
  15. ^ Dearden 1999, pp. 36–37.
  16. ^ Phyllis Rose, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, 1983, pp. 49–94.
  17. ISBN 0719517001
    .
  18. ^ Dearden 1999, p. 43.
  19. ISBN 9780199569922
    .
  20. ISBN 0907849946
    .
  21. ^ a b c Hilton 1971, pp. 202–05
  22. ISBN 0500203334
    , p. 348.
  23. ISBN 0500203334
    , p. 100.
  24. ^
    ISBN 0500203334
    , p. 213.
  25. ISBN 0674013905
    , p. 275.
  26. ^ "Fine Art Books Art Instruction | Photography Books | Visual Arts Periods, Groups & Movements: Pre-Raphaelites". fineartbookstore.com. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  27. ^ Rebecca Jelbert: "Paula Modersohn-Becker’s self-portraits and the influence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti." The Burlington Magazine, vol.159, no.1373 (2017): 617–22.
  28. ^ See, for example, Bucher (2004) for a brief discussion on the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on Tolkien.
  29. OCLC 5104656181
    .
  30. ^ Burroughs, B. (1935). "1935 Views the Pre-Raphaelites". The American Magazine of Art, 28(1): 6–13.
  31. ^ Barringer, Tim (1999). Reading the Pre-Raphaelites, p. 17. Yale University Press.
  32. ^ Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde, Tate Britain, accessed 27 August 2014
  33. ^ Goldman, Paul (2004). Victorian Illustration: The Pre-Raphaelites, the Idyllic School and the High Victorians. Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries. pp. 1–51.
  34. ISBN 9780836960464
    .
  35. ^ Buchanan, Robert W. (October 1871). "The Fleshly School of Poetry: Mr. D.G. Rossetti". The Contemporary Review. as cited in Welland, D.S.R. The Pre-Raphaelites in Literature and Art. London, UK: George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd., 14.
  36. ^ "Chapter One: Ruskin's Theories of the Sister Arts — Ut Pictura Poesis". www.victorianweb.org. Retrieved 21 November 2017.
  37. ^ a b c Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1855). Letter from D.G. Rossetti to William Allingham. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  38. ^ Desperate Romantics press pack: introduction BBC Press Office. Retrieved on 24 July 2009.
  39. ^ Armstrong, Stephen (5 July 2009). "BBC2 drama on icons among Pre-Raphaelites". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 25 July 2009.

Sources

Further reading
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