Pre-Raphaelite Art

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Pre-Raphaelite Art Artists

• English 315
• Victorian Literature
• University of Richmond

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Many of the images in this presentation were
taken from The Pre-Raphaelite Collection, a
web-site maintained by Julia Kerr. http//www.webm
agick.co.uk/prcoll Other sources include Brian
Yoders Art Gallery http//www.primenet.com/byod
er/art.htm Carol Gertens Fine Art
http//cgfa.kelloggcreek.com/ Thomas Tobins The
Pre-Raphaelite Critic http//www.engl.duq.edu/ser
vus/PR_Critic The Rossetti Archive
http//jefferson.village.virginia.edu/rossetti/ros
setti.html The Web Museum http//metalab.unc.edu/
wm/paint/auth/rossetti/
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The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

• William Holman Hunt, b. 1827
• Dante Gabriel Rossetti, b. 1828
• John Everett Millais, b. 1829
• William Michael Rossetti, b. 1829
• Other members James Collinson, Thomas Woolner,
  Fredric George Stephens

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The Immortals

• Jesus
• Shakespeare and the author of Job
• Homer, Dante, Chaucer, Leonardo, Goethe, Keats,
  Shelley, King Alfred, Landor, Thackeray, George
  Washington, Robert Browning
• Others including Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
  Boccaccio, Newton, Poe, etc.

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Principles of Royal Academy Art

• Objects drawn with firm, solid outlines
• Composition in S or triangle shape
• Colors subdued, landscape brown
• LightShadow 13 or 14
• All human figures painted free from deformity,
  dressed in clean new clothes

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Principles of Pre-Raphaelite Art

• Rejecting the mannered formalism of Academy
  Art, of artists following Raphael
• Reclaiming an Italian tradition (suggested by
  Ruskin) of naturalism
• Concern for morality in art
• Mythic/religious/poetic subjects
• Subjects drawn from nature

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Religious Subjects

• Early paintings by the PRB

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John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of his
Parents, 1850
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Girlhood of Mary
Virgin, 1849
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Annunciation, 1850
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William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World,
1853
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William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat, 1854-55
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William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience,
1853
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Literary Subjects The Lady of Shalott
The Lady was a favorite subject of Pre-Raphaelite
artists and others inspired by the PRB. Nina
Auerbach notes that Tennysons poem explored the
mind of a woman/artist these paintings make her
an object of art.
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William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott,
1889-92
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John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shalott,
1888
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Sidney Harold Meteyard, The Lady of Shalott
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More Literary Subjects Ophelia
Ophelia is also a favorite subject of many of the
PRB. In some versions, she is strikingly like
Tennysons Lady.
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Arthur Hughes, Ophelia, 1852
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John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1852. The model
is Elizabeth Siddal.
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The First Madness of
Ophelia, 1864
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John William Waterhouse, Ophelia, 1894
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Rossetti on Women
Two of Rossettis favorite models were his
mistress, fianceé, and later wife, Elizabeth
Siddal, and the wife of his friend William
Morris, Jane Morris (neé Burdon). Other favorites
were Annie Miller (seen in his friend Holman
Hunts painting, The Awakening Conscience), and
Fanny Cornforth (Found, La Ghirlandata, and
many others).
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Found (unfinished), 1854
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'There is a budding morrow in midnight'- So
sang our Keats, our English nightingale. And
here, as lamps across the bridge turn pale In
London's smokeless resurrection-light, Dark
breaks to dawn. But o'er the deadly blight Of
Love deflowered and sorrow of none avail, Which
makes this man gasp and this woman quail, Can
day from darkness ever again take flight? Ah!
gave not these two hearts their mutual pledge,
Under one mantle sheltered 'neath the hedge In
gloaming courtship? And, O God! to-day He only
knows he hold her - but what part Can life now
take? She cries in her locked heart, - "Leave
me - I do not know you - go away!"
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, 1854
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal, 1854
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In an Artists Studio, Christina Rossetti,
1856/1896 One face looks out from all his
canvases, One selfsame figure sits or walks or
leans We found her hidden just behind those
screens, That mirror gave back all her
loveliness. A queen in opal or in ruby dress, A
nameless girl in freshest summer-greens, A
saint, an angel --every canvas means The same
one meaning, neither more nor less. He feeds upon
her face by day and night, And she with true
kind eyes looks back on him Fair as the moon and
joyful as the light Not wan with waiting, not
with sorrow dim Not as she is, but was when hope
shone bright Not as she is, but as she fills his
dream.
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Pen sketch of Jane
Burdon, later Morris, 1858
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Mariana, 1870
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John Everett Millais, Mariana, 1851
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Water Willow, 1871
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Daydream
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine, 1874
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Afar away the light that brings cold cheer Unto
this wall, - one instant and no more Admitted
at my distant palace-door. Afar the flowers of
Enna from this drear Dire fruit, which, tasted
once, must thrall me here. Afar those skies
from this Tartarean grey That chills me and
afar, how far away, The nights that shall be
from the days that were. Afar from mine own
self I seem, and wing Strange ways in thought,
and listen for a sign And still some heart
unto some soul doth pine, Whose sounds mine
inner sense is fain to bring, Continually
together murmuring, - "Woe's me for thee,
unhappy Proserpine!"
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Astarte Syriaca, 1877
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Boca Baciata, 1859
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Venus Verticordia,
1864-1868
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Beloved (The
Bride), 1865-66
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Lilith
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, La Ghirlandata, 1873
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Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel,
1875-78