Pre Raphaelites

Pre-Raphaelite was a British movement in the mid nineteenth century of artist as well as poets. The secret group’s  aim was to move away from the conventional way of art (“the mechanistic approach”).The group was made up of 7 members: James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens, William Holman Hunt, John Evertt Millais, William MIchael Rossetti, Thomas Wooler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. They named the brotherhood Pre-Raphaelite as they wanted to remove the influence in the art composition left by Raphael. They were revolting against the art establishment  of the time the British Royal Academy and their formulaic approach to art instruction.They wanted to reform art back to the time where art had a vibrancy in colors, interesting compositions and a very detailed approach.

Although the aim of the group was to stay secret, one every painting they did they left the initials PRB. 

William Holman Hunt  painted a Painting which he named the scapegoat where he depicts  a scene taken from the book of leviticus. He paints a goat with it’s horns wrapped in red cloth representing the sins of humanity on the day of atonement.

John Everett Millais’s “Christ in the house of his parents” is a painting which at the time received a lot of negative critique as it was found to be controversial. Infact it was one of the paintings which pushed the PRB movement from obscurity and into the lime light. Making way to the debate on the “Realism” in art.

Dante's Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice was painted in the 1871 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It was inspired by a poem written by Dante Alighieri name “La Vita Nuova” literally meaning  “The New Life”.The painting shows the beatrice deing and Dante overlooking. An angel is seen in the middle

  

The works of the Pre-Raphaelites  was met with a lot of  opposition to their Stress on the emotional and personal aspects of religion, archaizing compositions,  the realism, the lack of shadows, flat depiction of forms as well as the coloration that they achieved by painting on a wet white ground. The movement however had several important supporters . Notably  was the writer John Ruskin (1819–1900), a passionate supporter of painting from nature and a leading exponent of the Gothic Revival in England. Ruskin particularly admired the Pre-Raphaelites' significant innovations to English landscape painting: their dedication to working en plein air, strict botanical accuracy, and minute detail. Whilst  he did not initially admire the brotherhood's goals, he later wrote that they "may, as they gain experience, lay in our England the foundation of a school of art nobler than the world has seen for three hundred years." Experience, in fact, served less to unify the Brotherhood and promote its founding ideals than to foster individual identities and styles. By the early 1850s, the Brotherhood dissolved, though several of the artists remained close friends and collaborators for the rest of their careers.

Bibliography 

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2013. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood. [Accessed 09 April 2013].

National Gallery of Art – Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900. 2013. National Gallery of Art – Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/preraphaelites.shtm. [Accessed 09 April 2013].

The Pre-Raphaelites | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2013. The Pre-Raphaelites | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/praf/hd_praf.htm. [Accessed 09 April 2013].

What is Pre-Raphaelite Art? | Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. 2013. What is Pre-Raphaelite Art? | Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. [ONLINE] Available at:http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/what-is-pre-raphaelite-art/. [Accessed 09 April 2013]