Hardin, Terry. The Pre-Raphaelites: Inspiration From the Past. New York: Smithmark, 1996.
The P.R.B. or Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in Sepember 1848 by a small group of artists who wanted to rebel against the quickly growing industrial revolution in England. The Brotherhood's original members consisted of William Hollman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Although their beliefs towards art were radically different from the mainstream, all three of these artists would become members of the British Royal Academy of Art and eventually transform the style of art produced in England.
The three artists of the Brotherhood were all born one year apart. Hunt, being the oldest of the group, was born in 1827, Rossetti in 1828, and Millais in 1829. Although all three of the initial artists in the Brotherhood were born within close proximity of each other, all came from very diverse backgrounds.
Rossetti, the only member of the group not from English descent, came from a creatively rich Italian family that encouraged Rossetti at an early age to pursue the arts. Rossetti's father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a successful poet in both England and his homeland of Italy from which he was in exile. Rossetti's brother, William Michael, and sister, Christina, would eventually join the Brotherhood; William Michael becoming the movement's chronicler and Christina a successful poet.
Millais, like Rossetti, came from a family that encouraged creativity. With the support of a wealthy family and considerable talent at the age of eleven, he was accepted into the Royal Academy in 1840.
Hunt, unlike Rossetti and Millais, came from a family that viewed his decision to pursue art as a waste of time and begged him to pursue a "proper job." His father was a warehouse manager and wanted desperately to see his son apprenticed. Bending to his fathers wishes, Hunt saved his money to pay for art lessons while working as an apprentice. After time passed, his father reluctantly granted Hunt permission to study art at the Royal Academy. Although Hunt was refused entrance into the academy a number of times, he was persistent in his learning from the paintings on display at the Louvre. He was eventually accepted to the academy where he would meet Rossetti and Millais.
While attending the academy, the members of the brotherhood (though not actually a brotherhood yet), would cause an outrage by their use of bright, flamboyant color in their works. This "overabundance" of color went totally against the fashion and style of that time. The fashion called for dull muddy-brown colors that resembled the effects of age. Paintings that were bright were covered in a brown stained varnish for an aged effect.
In addition to their use of bright colors, the three artists were scoffed at for their beliefs that the works of Raphael, and other renaissance artists, were done with a lack of sincereity and were unnatural in appearance. The name "Pre-Raphaelite" was given to the group after a confrontation between Hunt, Mallias, and Rossetti with other artists from the academy. Hunt defended the works of Giotto and other proto-renaissance artists by stating that their works were richer in feeling and not dulled by the laws perspective, form, and anatomy. Raphael's art was the standard of all art produced by artists of the academy. To not produce, and further, to mock, Raphael's art within the academy was blasphemy.
The first Pre-Raphaelite paintings were exhibited in the 1849 Academy
Exhibition. Three paintings were exhibited, each by a brother. Rossetti
exhibited The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (Figure 1), Millais Lorenzo and
Isabella (Figure 2), and Hunt Rienzi. To the artists' surprise, the
outcome was somewhat of a financial success. Of the three paintings
exhibited, Rossetti's and Millais' had sold. Hunt's however, did not.
In actuality, Rossetti's painting, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin, was,
through independent
dealings on Rossetti's part, the first Pre-Raphaelite painting to be
exhibited. Rossetti had the painting moved to another gallery nearby
to be exhibited a week before the Royal Exhibition. Hunt was outraged
by Rossetti's choice but didn't let his friend become aware of it. This
incident of mistrust and unrest at the very beginning of their movement
was a foreshadowing of the tumultuous atmosphere the Pre-Raphaelites
would see build in the years to come.
On May 13, 1851, two years after the Pre-Raphaelite first exhibited, a renowned art critic by the name of John Ruskin came to the brotherhood's defense. For the first two years of its existence, the brotherhood was met with overwelming ridicule. Critics repeatedly bludgeoned its members with fierce commentary. An excerpt from an article in the Athenaeum, a popular newsletter at the time, accused the Pre-Raphaelites of having a "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."
In the beginning, Ruskin himself was opposed to the Pre-Raphaelite's style saying that he had an "imperpefect sympathy" for the movement. Later Ruskin would write to many critics to reason with them in the Pre-raphaelite's defense. In defense of the artists, Ruskin said, "I believe these young artists to be at a most critical period of their career-at a turning point, from which they may either sink into nothingness or rise to very real greatness; and I believe also, that whether they choose the upward or the downward path, may in no small degree depend upon the character of the criticism which their works have to sustain." Without Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelite movement may have ended in obscurity, but due to his popularity and knowledge of art, Ruskin brought with him many indirect supporters to the Pre-Raphaelite cause.
The original Brotherhood lasted only nine years before disbanding in 1857 as a result of many ill affairs between its original members. Although the formal Brotherhood had separated, each continued to paint in the Pre-Raphaelite manner. In addition to this, the movement lived on through many other artists that picked up where the original members left off. William Morris, a late-comer to the movement, contributed by creating a company specializing in creating elaborate interiors following the Pre-Raphaelite style. His company, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., continued the to create in the Pre-Raphaelite tradition. Everything that was created by the company was created by hand with each family member contributing to the company's output.
Other artists would contribute greatly to the Pre-Raphaelite cause to include: Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, John William Waterhouse, Ford Maddox Brown, John Malhuish Strudwick, Frank Dicksee, John Byam Liston, and Arthur Hughes. All of these artists contributed to the growing popularity of Pre-Raphaelitism which led to a returned appreciation for hand-made crafts and eventually to Art Noveau.
Although often considered a "sidestep" in art history, the Pre-Raphaelite movement changed the style of art produced in England just as Impressionism had in France. It added color, life, and emotion to an artform that was sufficating in its own crippling rules and laws. The Pre-Raphaelites' success can be measured by the fact that the name "Pre-Raphaelite" itself came to mean "All that is good" by a society that, in the beginning, violently opposed the group's debut.