What was it about? What were the goals?
This was a British art movement, started by three artists in 1848, that protested against the Royal Academy in London, and the high renaissance art of Raphael and others, favouring instead earlier works like that of Paolo Ucello, Piero della Francesca, and others. Pre-Raphaelite artists wanted to go back to before Raphael, and develop art in a different direction, ignoring chiaroscuro, and favouring large flat areas filled with patterns, details, and brilliant colours. They also imbued their paintings with symbolism. Every object included takes on a second, hidden meaning.
They developed a wet white-ground technique, and took their canvases outdoors to copy as many details from nature as possible. They were following the art critic John Ruskin’s advice to “go to nature in all singleness of heart . . . rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing.”
The three core members, Hunt, Rossetti, and Millais recruited four more artists into their brotherhood, a kind of secret club, and then sent artworks to the Royal Academy’s exhibits in 1849-50. At the same time, they produced an art magazine called The Germ. Critics, including Charles Dickens, hated them. Rossetti was so upset he never exhibited his art publicly again. But, luckily, John Ruskin supported them, allowing them to gain respectability.
The group quickly fell apart as Hunt and others moved away, and then Millais joined the Royal Academy in 1853, which Rossetti saw as a betrayal. Millais became very popular and eventually became president of the Royal Academy.
A bit of historical context:
While the art of this short-lived brotherhood may look quaint and old-fashioned today, it was a forerunner for other acts of rebellion that would lead to modern art. A small group of artists rebelled against the establishment, developed a new aesthetic and new techniques, and won, taking over the Royal Academy. It was an inspiration for the Impressionists and other later movements. Also, since Rossetti and other Pre-Raphaelites later supported the Aesthetic Movement, or “Art For Art’s Sake”, this was an important stepping stone on the road to modern art – where artists abandoned the idea that art should be limited to illustrations of famous stories that promote good morals.
The underlying philosophy of the period:
Their belief in the importance of beauty above all else led to the “aesthetic movement”, which protested the moralizing of both romantic and neoclassical painting. A pretty picture should be enough. It was a radical idea during the proper and prudish Victorian era. Rossetti, Burne-Jones, and Whistler were the most prominent artists of this movement. While Ruskin had supported the Pre-Raphaelites, he rejected this notion, feeling that art should be moral and useful, promoting truth. He hated Whistler.
How was it represented in the other arts – music, architecture, and literature?
These movements were small with few parallels in other arts. The only notable exception was furniture design, with “aesthetic” furniture consisting of ebony stains, gilding, and Asian influences.
What made it great?
These artists were extremely skillful and had great vision. They made works that captured the imaginations of their viewers, filling each work with both detail and mystery. Since many of their works involved figures with no stories, it was up to the viewer to try and create one. These artists knew how to create a mystery, simply from the inscrutable expressions of their subjects’ faces.
The three founding members:
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
Other Pre-Raphaelites:
Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893)
Charles Allston Collins (1828-1873)
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (1829-1908)
Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898)
William Morris (1834-1896)
John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)
John Maler Collier (1850-1934)
Kate Elizabeth Bunce (1856-1927)
Eleanor Fortesque-Brickdale (1872-1945)
Some of the most famous artworks of the movement:
'Isabella', by John Everett Millais, 1849
Millais painted this when he was just nineteen. It was inspired by the San. Benedetto Altarpiece by Lorenzo Monaco. If you look at Isabella on the right, with her love, Lorenzo, their pose mirrors that of two saints in Monaco’s work. The story of Isabella and Lorenzo comes from Bocaccio’s Decameron, a book of short stories written in 1353, but it was re-popularized through a poem written by John Keats in 1818. Isabella was the sister of two wealthy, Florentine merchants. Lorenzo was a clerk working for them. He and Isabella fell in love, and you can see at this party, he stares at her intensely. Her brothers noticed too, and decided to take Lorenzo into the woods, kill him, and bury him. Lorenzo’s ghost came back to Isabella, and led her into the forest where he was buried. She dug him up, but he was too heavy to lift. So, she cut his head off and took it home, where she buried it in a pot of basil. She loved the plant very much. You can see her callous and pretentious brothers on the left side, one hurting the dogs, while the other examines his wine.
'Ophelia', by John Everett Millais, 1852
This shows the death of Ophelia, the love of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s play. She’s drowned herself in a river. The detailed scene doesn’t detract from the main figure––it’s as if nature herself has provided a floral display for her funeral. The violet flowers around her neck symbolize her faithfulness and chastity. This work was painted outdoors. In fact, Millais was threatened with a law suit for walking through a farmer’s field and destroying the hay. His model lay in a bathtub for hours, and eventually caught cold, so Millais had to pay her doctor’s expenses. The result of all this is one of the most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings.
'Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep)', by William Holman Hunt, 1852
This painting was quite unique when it was painted for its asymmetrical composition, showing so little of the sky. Painted outdoors in Hastings, it is filled with colour and details and captures the sunlight beautifully. Surprisingly, there’s a hidden political message here, referring to the dangers of France’s new Napoleon III and England’s largely unguarded shores. There is no shepherd in the work, and the sheep, symbolizing the British, are alone on dangerous ground. That it was painted in Hastings was no accident, as it was on this shore, in 1066, that Britain lost in battle to the invading Normans.
'Work', by Ford Maddox-Brown, 1852-65
This work offers a snapshot of different social classes in Victorian England. Working-class labourers repair the road, while poor orphans play down below in the foreground. On the left, two upper-class women walk by, one offering a religious pamphlet to the workers. In the background, two rich men ride on horses. The two men on the right were Maurice and Carlyle, whom Brown referred to as “brainworkers”. They were writers. This work meant to identify the plight of the working class, their nobility, and the need for change, for better working rights and conditions.
One reason this work took so long to paint: Ford brought his canvas out to the middle of the street in Hampstead every day to work on it. He wanted every detail to be true to life. Although considered a Pre-Raphaelite, his works show a more contemporary interest, particularly in how England was changing.
'The Awakening Conscience', by William Holman Hunt, 1853
This painting portrays a “fallen” young woman, who is having a secret, and improper affair with this man. We know this because she is not fully dressed, nor is she wearing a wedding ring – her situation is also symbolized by the cat playing with a bird under the table. Luckily, the song the man plays on the piano (Thomas Moore’s Oft on the Stilly Night) reminds her of her childhood and causes her to jump up, finding a newly awakened conscience, so that she will leave the man and save her reputation. The idea of a woman falling into sin and prostitution was a popular subject at this time, but this picture is unique in offering her redemption, whereas most women were ostracized by their families and died young, in the cold. Hunt was a religious man, and presented morals in his work.
'Nameless & Friendless', by Emily Mary Osborn, 1857
This work shows a young painter with her little brother, in an art dealer’s shop. He’s looking at one of her works, appraising it, and considering whether to try selling it. As the two siblings are dressed in black, they’re likely orphans. Several clues indicate she will be rejected. While the dealer has a free chair, he doesn’t offer her a seat. A similar boy and girl walk out the door behind them, into the rain, likewise rejected. Most of the perspective lines in the work point to the door. The title of the work also suggests rejection. This work shows the hard times women artists had being taken seriously in a male-dominated art world.
'The Lady of Shalott', by John William Waterhouse, 1888
This work was seen as a Pre-Raphaelite revival. Waterhouse was inspired by them, viewing a retrospective of their works in 1886. The Lady of Shalott was actually the subject of two poems by Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, a favourite of the Pre-Raphaelites. In the story, the young woman is cursed, never allowed to leave her room nor look out the window. Instead, she looks out through the reflection of a mirror, and weaves what she sees into a tapestry. One day, she spies Sir Lancelot through her mirror, and falls in love. So, she decides to leave her castle and hop in a boat on a river down to Camelot to be with him. Unfortunately, she dies in her boat along the way, fulfilling the curse.
One way in which this work differs from the Pre-Raphaelites is in Waterhouse’s looser, more impressionist brushwork, leaving many details unfinished. This “Frenchification” of English artists was a growing trend that worried English critics.
No comments:
Post a Comment