Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Beloved (“The Bride”), 1865-6

London, Tate Collection, N03053

Image here via Creative Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dante_gabriel_rossetti,_l%27amata_(la_sposa),_1865-66FXD.jpg

In the summer of 1848, three young students at the Royal Academy in London, pledged themselves to a cause: to reject all that was second-rate and unoriginal in the stultifyingly traditional art of the mid nineteenth century; and instead seek out the beauty and truth that resides in all things - above all, in nature.

Inspired by the mystical purity of late medieval and early renaissance art, they styled themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Raphael, for them, had heralded the end of all that had been truly sacred in early western art. His obsession with perfection of form and structure had made those qualities the sole objective of the artist - even down to their own time. These young rebels lamented all this, and resolved to embrace the world around them with a passion and a piety that can be felt immediately in their bold, strong colours and intense realism.

They had few early champions, but eventually attracted other artists and in particular the art critic and historian John Ruskin to their cause. Although the Brotherhood itself only lasted three years, their work eventually became so celebrated and familiar that the term “Pre-Raphaelite” has become a byword for an entire genre of British art which endured right up to the Great War.

We shall explore the early work of the Brotherhood, as well as the broader trends it inspired.

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