Pre-Raphaelite gallery. Cheerful painters
It is not surprising that the very idea of breaking with academicism in painting arose among students, moreover, among students of the British Royal Academy of Arts. The discussion initially arose between three students: Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, and John Evertt Millais. Young and far from mediocre artists reflected on the present and future of painting, shared reform plans and eventually came to the creation of the secret “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” It was in opposition to the official line of the Academy and proclaimed a return to the ideals of the era “before Raphael.” Soon the secret society already included seven artists.
The Brotherhood had its own magazine, Rostock, and Dante Rossetti, for example, signed some paintings with the initials P.R.B, noting his membership in this group. The first postulates of the society were also published in the magazine. Over time, the ideas of the Brotherhood took shape into a single system, which helped develop Pre-Raphaelism in culture.
After several years of existence, the Brotherhood disbanded, and each of its members went their own way. But even after the destruction of the organization, the theses and thoughts of the Pre-Raphaelites excited the public. Their ideas penetrated into many areas of culture: design, illustration, decorative arts and literature.
Provisions of the theory
Initially, the Pre-Raphaelites published theses on reform in art in their own journal. They called for the return of art to reality and naturalness, and also heralded the abandonment of mythological and historical subjects worn out to holes. Beauty should not be abstract, alien to the naturalness of man.
It is logical that one of the main postulates of the direction was working from life. Often in the paintings of artists you can find their relatives or friends. Historians of painting meticulously examine their canvases and find interesting parallels and coincidences.
The Brotherhood also turned to painting techniques. Their task was to move away from the dark tones provided by the bitumen used by artists at that time. They wanted a pure painterly image, high precision in detail and rich colors characteristic of the Quattrocento era. To achieve this effect, they applied a layer of white to the primed canvas, cleaned the canvas of oil, and then worked on top with translucent paints. The technique made it possible to achieve purity of the drawing and extraordinary lightness at that time.
The excessive naturalism and novelty of the approach aroused not only interest, but also rejection in society. However, the authoritative critic John Ruskin became interested in Pre-Raphaelite painting. He formalized the postulates of the “Brotherhood” into a logical and harmonious artistic system, and revealed the Pre-Raphaelites to the world, helping to understand their motives and art.
Ruskin substantiated several principles of this artistic movement and supported them financially. Maximum detail was justified by the artists’ attention to the very essence of things, and their reluctance to be satisfied with generally accepted ideas about nature and man. The Pre-Raphaelites were so attentive to detail that in their desire to paint from life they came to the point of awe at the smallest details, spending an incredible amount of time in the fresh air and working with models.
Another principle highlighted by Ruskin is fidelity to nature, combined with fidelity to spiritual principles. In every branch and leaf, in every drop of water, the artists saw the creation of God, and therefore treated everything with awe and reverence. The return to spirituality was seen as a new birth and a turn to the religiosity of the early Renaissance.
The critic's support influenced the position of the Pre-Raphaelites in society; they became more popular and even became fashionable.
Artists and their creations
John Evert Millais, Ophelia
Millet was one of the founders of the movement. Extremely talented, he became one of the youngest applicants to the Royal Academy of Arts. The painting was created by Millet during many hours of plein air in the fresh air. An artist could spend up to 11 hours a day working! The artist directed all his attention to creating the landscape, so the figure of the girl was the final detail of the canvas. Millais was so obsessed with detail that he forced model Elizabeth Siddal to spend hours in a bathtub filled to the brim. The girl caught a cold, and the story became one of the legends of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Lady Lilith"
The artist spent 2 years painting the first version of the painting, and later he rewrote the girl’s face with a new model. The painting forms a diptych with the work “Sibyl Palmifera”. What is noteworthy is that Rossetti painted sonnets of his own composition on the frames. "Lady Lilith" is an ode to beauty. The spirit of symbolism is strong in the picture: white roses, poppies, the contents of the dressing table. Historians call this work feminist: great power and beauty are concentrated in women.
Evelyn de Morgan, "Medea"
The artist turns to ancient Greek myths and takes one of the most dramatic images in literature. At the center of the work is the red-haired woman beloved by the Pre-Raphaelites.
Hunt William Holman, “The Hired Shepherd” Holman’s brush was by no means pastoral. In the best traditions of “Brotherhood,” the picture simply glows with bright colors. All plans are carefully worked out, the work is interesting to look at. Historians believe that Holman put into the painting his bewilderment at the contemporary religious debate and the role of priests in it.
Ford Murdoch Brown, Farewell to England
At the center of the work is an absolutely earthly theme – emigration, which was heard with renewed vigor in the artist’s contemporary Britain. In the center is a family looking for a new home. In the picture you can find the artist’s daughter and wife, he painted from life, paying tribute to the ideas of the Pre-Raphaelites. Although Brown was never a member of the Brotherhood, he supported its ideals, which was reflected in this work.
Britain is proud of its Pre-Raphaelite movement, because it is one of the most vibrant artistic movements that originated in England. Despite the fact that the works of these artists were criticized at first, they found their place in world culture and radically influenced both modern art and popular culture.
R. Fenton. Interior of Tintern Abbey, late 1850s
In 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood arose in Great Britain, an association of artists created by William Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Millais. Young painters were against the academic education system and the conservative tastes of Victorian society.
The Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by the painting of the Italian Proto-Renaissance and the 15th century, hence the name “Pre-Raphaelites” - literally “before Raphael” (Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael Santi).
The invention of the wet colloid process, which replaced calotype, by Frederick Scott Archer coincided with the emergence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Members of the fraternity enthusiastically welcomed the emergence of a new method. At a time when most artists considered the amazing precision of photographic images to be a disadvantage, the Pre-Raphaelites, who themselves strived for meticulous depiction of detail in painting, admired precisely this aspect of photography. Pre-Raphaelite art critic John Ruskin spoke of the first daguerreotypes he bought in Venice as “little treasures”: “It was as if a magician had shrunk the real thing (San Marco or the Canal Grande) so that he could carry it away with him.” to an enchanted land."
The Pre-Raphaelites, like many artists at that time, used photographs as a preparatory stage for creating paintings. Gabriel Rossetti took a series of photographs of Jane Morris, which became material for the artist’s future paintings. Rossetti and William Morris painted and photographed this woman many times, finding in her features of the romantic medieval beauty that they so admired.
A few years after the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the movement “For Highly Artistic Photography” appeared in England. The organizers of this movement were the painters Oscar Gustav Reilander (1813–1875) and Henry Peach Robinson (1830–1901), who were closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and shared their ideas. Reilander and Robinson, like the Pre-Raphaelites, drew inspiration from the world of images of medieval English literature, from the works of English poets William Shakespeare and John Milton. In 1858, Robinson created one of his best photographs, “The Lady of Shalott,” close in composition to the Pre-Raphaelite painting “Ophelia” by D. Millais. Being an adherent of photomontage, Robinson printed a photograph from two negatives: on one negative the author took a model in a canoe, on the other he captured the landscape.
Participants in the movement “For Highly Artistic Photography” interpreted the photograph as a painting, in full accordance with the norms of academic painting. In his book Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869), Robinson referred to the rules of composition, harmony and balance necessary to achieve the “pictorial effect”: “The artist who wishes to produce pictures with a camera is subject to the same laws as the artist using paints and pencils."
Oscar Gustav Reilander was born in Sweden, studied painting in Italy and moved to England in 1841. Reilander became interested in photography in the 1850s. He became famous for his allegorical composition “Two Ways of Life,” exhibited in 1857 at the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester. The photograph was taken using the photomontage technique, and Reilander needed 30 (!) negatives to make it. But lack of public recognition led him to abandon his labor-intensive technique and move on to portraiture. In contrast to his allegorical compositions, Reilander's portraits are more advanced in their execution technique. The portrait of Miss Mander is one of Reilander's finest.
The painter Roger Fenton (1819–1869) had the highest opinion of photography, and even founded a photographic society in 1853. His early series of photographs of Russia, portraits of the royal family and reports from the Crimean War brought him international recognition. Fenton’s approach to the landscape is associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and their vision: a highly raised horizon line, the absence of such romantic techniques as haze, fog, etc. Fenton, like the Pre-Raphaelites, sought to emphasize his technical skill and glorified the tangible reality of the landscape. The master also shared the Pre-Raphaelite interest in women in exotic costumes, which can be seen in “Nubian Water Bearers” or “Egyptian Dancing Girls”.
Particularly noteworthy are the photographs of children taken by Lewis Carroll (1832–1898). The author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and professor of mathematics at Oxford University, Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was also a gifted amateur photographer. For Carroll, light painting was not just a pastime, but a great passion, to which he devoted a lot of time and to which he dedicated several small essays and even the poem “Hiawatha Photographer” (1857):
On Hiawatha's shoulder is a box made of rosewood: The device is so collapsible, Made of planks and glass, Cleverly tightened with screws, To fit into the box. Hiawatha climbs into the casket and pushes the hinges apart, transforming the small casket into a cunning figure, as if from the books of Euclid. He places it on a tripod and climbs under the black canopy. Crouching, he waves his hand: - Well! Freeze! I beg you! Quite a strange thing to do.
The writer devoted 25 years to this “strange” occupation, during which he created wonderful children’s portraits, showing himself to be a keen expert on child psychology. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, who, in search of ideal and beauty, retreated further and further into the world of their fantasy, Carroll searched for his fairy-tale Alice in the photographic Through the Looking Glass. Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1878) turned to photography in the mid-1860s when her daughter gave her a camera. “I longed to capture all the beauty that passed before me,” Cameron wrote, “and at last my desire was granted.”
In 1874–75, Cameron, at the request of her friend Tennyson, illustrated some of his poems and poems. The composition of the photograph “The Parting of Lancelot and Guinevere” is close to the composition of the paintings of D. G. Rossetti, but Cameron does not have the same precision in conveying details that is inherent in the Pre-Raphaelites. By softening the optical design, Cameron achieves greater poetry in his works.
The work of the Pre-Raphaelites and photographers was very closely related. Moreover, the influence was not one-sided. Julia Cameron, abandoning precise focusing, created magnificent photographic studies. Rossetti, who highly appreciated her work, changed his style of writing, subsequently striving for greater artistic generalization. Gabriel Rossetti and John Millais used photographs to create their paintings, and photographers in turn turned to themes developed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Photographic portraits created by L. Carroll, D. M. Cameron and O. G. Reilander convey not so much the character as the moods and dreams of their models - which is characteristic of Pre-Raphaelism. The approach to depicting nature was the same: the early landscapes of the Pre-Raphaelites and landscapes of photographers such as Roger Fenton are extremely accurate and detailed.
The Pre-Raphaelites are the English artists William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), John Evret Millet (1829-96), poet and artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), who united in 1848 into the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
It also included art historians - Dante Gabriel's brother - William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919) and Frederick George Stevens (1828-1907), poet and sculptor Thomas Uwoolner (1825-92), artist James Collinson (18257-81).
Aesthetic principles of the Pre-Raphaelites
The initials "PB" (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) first appeared in a painting by Hunt at the Royal Academy of Arts exhibition in 1849.
The aesthetic principles of the Pre-Raphaelites are a romantic protest against the cold academicism that dominated English painting of that time.
Their ideal of art is the work of the masters of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance (i.e., the “pre-Raphaelian” period) - Giotto, Fra Angelico, S. Botticelli, which attracted them as an example of a naive, direct relationship between man and nature. 
The Pre-Raphaelites called for depicting nature in its diversity, using the full range of colors, in contrast to the pale greens and browns of academic artists who never left the studio. The religious spirit of pre-Raphaelian painting was contrasted by the Pre-Raphaelites with the individualism, godlessness of high Renaissance artists and modern materialism. In this regard, they were influenced by the Oxford Movement. The moral principle affirmed by the Pre-Raphaelites found expression in religious themes and in symbolic and mystical iconography.
Authors who inspired the Pre-Raphaelites
Favorite authors who inspired the Pre-Raphaelites - Dante, T. Malory, W. Shakespeare, romantic poets W. Blake, J. Keats, P. B. Shelley, perceived as aesthetes and mystics, A. Tennyson with his medieval plots and the theme of the struggle of the spiritual and sensual principles, and especially R. Browning with his interest in Italy, exaltation of pre-Raphaelian art, with acute psychological subjects.
The Pre-Raphaelites were perceived in 1848-49 as dangerous, arrogant revolutionaries and were harshly criticized. Art theorist John Ruskin (1819-1900), who became a friend of D. G. Rossetti, spoke in their defense. In open letters published in 1851 and 1854 in the Times newspaper, he defended them against accusations of an artificial resurrection of primitive medieval painting, a passion for abstract symbolism and indifference to everything that goes beyond the “beautiful”.
The Pre-Raphaelites were united with Ruskin by their condemnation of the prose and pragmatics of bourgeois relations, and the idealization of the craft way of the Middle Ages. Later he condemned their "aestheticism" and moved away from them. In January-April 1850, the Pre-Raphaelites published a journal (four issues) “The Germ” with the subtitle “Reflections on the nature of poetry, literature and art”; the last two issues have been renamed: “Art and Poetry as Reflections on Nature”; its editor was W. M. Rossetti, who was also the secretary of the Pre-Raphaelites. Artists Ford Madox Brown (1821-93), Edward Cowley Burne-Jones (1833-98), Arthur Hughes (1830-1915), writer, artist, ideologist of English socialism William Morris (1834) joined the Pre-Raphaelites (but were not members of the brotherhood). -96), sister of D.G. and W.M. Rossetti - poetess Christina Rossetti (1830-94), who published her poems in their magazine.
Pre-Raphaelite central figure
The central figure of the Pre-Raphaelite is D. G. Rossetti. His poetry, focused on the duel between the spiritual and the sensual as eternally opposing principles in man, most clearly embodied the oscillation characteristic of the Pre-Raphaelites between mysticism and the glorification of sensuality, an attempt to reconcile mysticism and eroticism on the basis of the deification of the flesh. In D. G. Rossetti, the sensual often defeats the spiritual. He loved to appeal to Dante, his love for Beatrice. Dante's fascination is evident in his published book of translations, The Early Italian Poets (1861). The religious and mystical beginning of Catholicism was often overshadowed in the perception of the Pre-Raphaelites by the purely picturesque.
The splendor of Catholic church ritual and the bizarre forms of Gothic architecture sometimes captivated them, regardless of the ideas embodied in it. The most consistent in expressing religious-Catholic views are Hunt in painting and C. Rossetti in poetry. In 1853 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood disintegrated. Millet went to Scotland, and when he returned, he became a commercial artist, painting commissioned portraits and sentimental paintings. Hunt went to Palestine in 1854 in search of a more realistic background for his religious paintings and throughout his life remained the most consistent. Uwoolner left for Australia, Collinson converted to Catholicism in 1852 and joined the religious community.
The Pre-Raphaelites were connected by personal friendship and aesthetic affinity with A. Swinburne, W. Pater, O. Beardsley, O. Wilde and had a significant influence on “aestheticism” as a direction in literature and painting of the 1880s.
The word Pre-Raphaelites comes from English Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.
Founded in 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood can rightfully be considered the first avant-garde movement in Europe. The mysterious letters "R.K.V.", which appeared in the paintings of young and unknown artists, confused the English public - students of the Royal Academy of Arts in London wanted to change not only the principles of modern art, but also its role in the social life of society.
During the Industrial Revolution, elevated subjects and austere academic painting in the spirit of Raphael fell out of favor with the Victorian middle class, giving way to artistic kitsch and sentimental scenes. Realizing the crisis of the ideals of the High Renaissance, members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood turned to Italian art of the 15th century. The examples were the works of outstanding Quattrocento painters - a bright, rich palette, emphasized decorativeness of their works were combined with vital truthfulness and a sense of nature.
The leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were the artists D.E. Millais (1829-1896), D.G Rossetti (1828-1882), W.H. Hunt, as well as F.M. Brown. At the end of the 1850s, a new group formed around Rossetti, which included W. Morris, E. Burne-Jones (1833-1898), E. Siddal and S. Solomon.
Artists of Rossetti's circle were engaged in painting and graphics, wrote poetry and designed books, developed interior decor and furniture design. Back in the middle of the 19th century, the Pre-Raphaelites began working in the open air, raising the issue of women's rights in society and contributing to the formation of the most important style of the end of the century - Art Nouveau art.
Tasks of the Pre-Raphaelites
The young artists who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood realized that they belonged to a culture in which there were no traditions of religious painting, destroyed in the 16th century, during the Reformation. The Pre-Raphaelites faced a difficult task - to resurrect religious art without resorting to the ideal-conventional images of the Catholic altarpiece.
Unlike the Renaissance masters, the basis for the composition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings was not imagination, but observations and faces taken from everyday life. Members of the Brotherhood rejected the soft, idealized forms characteristic of High Renaissance artists, preferring dynamic lines and bright, rich colors.
None of the Pre-Raphaelites particularly sought to emphasize theological truths in the content of their paintings. They rather approached the Bible as a source of human drama and sought literary and poetic meaning in it. Moreover, these works were not intended for the decoration of churches.
The most devout Christian in the group was Hunt, an eccentric religious intellectual. The rest of the Pre-Raphaelite artists tried to depict the life of the most ordinary people, while simultaneously identifying acute social, moral and ethical themes of modern society. Paintings on religious themes are juxtaposed with images that are relevant and pressing. Plots dedicated to social issues, as interpreted by the Pre-Raphaelites, take the form of modern parables.
Paintings on historical themes
Paintings on historical themes play a key role in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Traditionally, the British were not interested in exciting heroic scenes and idealized classical compositions filled with apathetic nude models. They preferred to study history through the plays of William Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott, and to learn the biography of great figures of the past in the theatrical images of outstanding actors such as Garrick and Sarah Siddons.
The Pre-Raphaelites rejected classical history with its ideas of exemplary virtue, military power and monarchical achievement. Turning to literary and historical subjects, they accurately depicted the costumes and interior of the chosen era, but at the same time strengthened the genre aspect, making human relationships the main motive of the composition. Before filling the picture with people, the artists carefully painted out all the details of the interior or landscape in the background to emphasize the relaxed and realistic atmosphere around the central scene. In an effort to create a believable composition, they found examples of costumes and ornaments in illuminated manuscripts and historical reference books. The features of each character are a meticulously drawn face of a model chosen from among the members of the Brotherhood. This approach rejected the accepted conventions of the high genre, but enhanced the effect of authenticity.
Pre-Raphaelite attitude to nature
The Pre-Raphaelite attitude towards nature constitutes one of the most important aspects of this movement in terms of both artistic theory and style. John Ruskin's call to "turn to nature with all your heart and walk hand in hand with her trustingly and industriously, remembering her instructions and thinking only about comprehending her meaning, without rejecting, without choosing, without ridiculing" had an undoubted influence on the Pre-Raphaelites. The young members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood eagerly studied Ruskin's works on Turner's legacy, but their own style is a unique synthesis of plein air painting, exciting Shakespearean plots and topical themes of modern work. The most successful works combine detailed composition with masterful depiction of figures and complex design that combines all the elements into a coherent whole.
John Everett Millais. Valley of Eternal Peace ("The weary will find peace")
At the same time, the Pre-Raphaelites were fascinated by the latest discoveries in the field of natural sciences, which in the middle of the century were followed with great interest by the entire British society. Artists continued to compete with photography, which both complemented the images of nature they created and encouraged them to paint with even more emotion, using a bright, rich palette. By combining figures and landscape into an intricate composition, the Pre-Raphaelites emphasized the narrative element, appealing to the viewer's senses and creating mood in the painting. This is how painting guarded its borders.
Aestheticism movement, the purpose of art
At the beginning of the 1860s, a new stage began in the work of Rossetti and his associates. Young painters who joined the circle of former Pre-Raphaelites sought to realize their talent in various fields of art. However, the works created by the new group of artists and writers turned out to be no less innovative. By the mid-1860s, Pre-Raphaelism had transformed into the Aestheticism movement. The works in this section are dedicated to beauty as such.
Striving towards it, this “sole absolute goal” of art, according to Rossetti, characterizes the second decade of Pre-Raphaelite painting.
Rossetti also strove for beauty, but his goal was to create a new aesthetic ideal. During this period, the artist performed a series of works that glorify full-blooded, healthy, emphatically sensual female beauty.
The elaborate brushwork and broad strokes of paint applied with hard brushes deliberately imitate 16th-century Venetian painting and, in particular, the technique of Titian and Veronese.
Deep and rich greens, blues and dark reds replaced the Gothic stained glass transparency of the early Pre-Raphaelite palette.
Despite the relationship with the paintings of the old masters, the paintings shocked contemporaries, who furiously accused Rossetti of immorality. At the same time, the artistic interpretation of images and the semantic content of these works had a significant influence on the formation of the stylistics of Art Nouveau art.
Poetic painting of the Pre-Raphaelites
In the mid-1850s, Rossetti temporarily stopped painting and, turning to watercolor techniques, created a series of colorful and complex compositions. In these works, the artist’s passion for the Middle Ages was especially clearly demonstrated - many watercolors were created under the impression of illuminated manuscripts.
In the appearance of the tall, pale and slender heroines of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's watercolors, one can often discern the figure and features of Elizabeth Siddal.
Watercolors by a representative of the new generation of artists in Rossetti's circle, Edward Burne-Jones, resemble cloisonne enamel, reflecting their author's interest in various techniques and types of art.
Almost all watercolors were inspired by chivalric poetic novels, ballads or the work of romantic poets. At the same time, the independent nature of these works does not allow us to see in them only an illustration of a literary work. In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Rossetti created a number of works on religious subjects. The rich color palette and general arrangement of the figures reflect the influence of Venetian art, which during this period replaced the artist’s early passion for Florentine Quattrocento painting.
Pre-Raphaelite Utopia, design
Thanks to William Morris and the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co., founded by him together with E. Burne-Jones, D. G. Rossetti and F. M. Brown, works of applied art had a significant impact on the development of European design in the second half of the 19th century, influenced the development of British aestheticism and gave rise to the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Morris and his associates sought to elevate the status of design to the same level as other forms of fine art. Initially, they emphasized the collective and guild nature of labor, taking as a model idealized ideas about medieval artisans. The company produced furnishings and decorations for home and church interiors: tiles, stained glass, furniture, printed fabrics, carpets, wallpaper and tapestries. Burne-Jones was considered the main artist, and Morris was responsible for the design of the ornaments. The heroes of Burne-Jones's later works do not show any emotions, their figures are frozen in motionless impassivity, so that the meaning of the plot is unclear and, as it were, hidden in dense layers of paint.
Edward Burne-Jones. Sidonia von Bork, 1560. 1860
This artist's dreamy imagery and abstract compositions provide an imaginative alternative to the extreme materialism of Victorian Britain. In this, his art undoubtedly seemed like a utopia, but a completely abstract utopia. As he himself said: “I am a born rebel, but my political views are a thousand years out of date: these are the views of the first millennium and, therefore, have no meaning.”
"Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood"
In 1848, an association of artists arose in England, called the “Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.” It included William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Ford Madox Brown(1821-1893) and John Everett Millais(1829-1896). Since most of the Brotherhood's representatives were not only artists, but also poets and writers, they dreamed of combining the art of words with the visual arts. Later the artist joined the Pre-Raphaelites James Collinson(1825-1881), sculptor Thomas Woolner(1825-1892) and writers and critics Frederick George Stevens(1829-1907) and William Michael Rossetti (1829-1919).
They called for abandoning academicism in art and returning to the aesthetics of the Early Renaissance - pre-Raphaelian art and even to the Middle Ages. They were attracted by the spirituality and deep religious feeling inherent in the works of that time. That is why the name “Pre-Raphaelites” appeared. Their fascination with the Middle Ages led not only to the fact that they drew heavily from medieval English literature, but also to the fact that the Brotherhood positioned itself as a closed society, similar to a monastic order. The ideologist of this movement was John Ruskin(1819-1900) - writer, historian, art critic, philosopher, who demanded the return of beauty to everyday life as opposed to impersonal machine production. He appreciated the religious and symbolic motives of the Brotherhood's artists and supported them. Largely thanks to him, the Pre-Raphaelites very soon gained recognition among the general public.
The Pre-Raphaelites abandoned many of the principles of academic art. In particular, they worked from life, and chose only people close to them as models. Their painting technique also changes. They applied a layer of white to the primed canvas, marked out the composition and painted over the white with translucent paints, using only pure colors. This allowed them to achieve bright, fresh tones that have survived in their paintings to this day. But at the same time they did not take into account the laws of aerial perspective and neglected the plein air.
The brotherhood united very different artists and poets. And although they had common ideas, each author had his own embodiment of them. Thus, Millet knew how to combine the apparent ordinariness of his subjects with deep symbolism (“Christ in his parents’ house”, 1850). His paintings are characterized by accuracy and truthfulness of the image. So, to paint his “Ophelia” (1852), which depicts the floating body of the drowned Ophelia, he forced the model to pose in a bathtub of water in a brocade dress.
Hunt’s paintings can easily be called parables, so often they contain allegories and symbols (“The Scapegoat”, “Lamp of the World” and “The Lady of Shalott”).
One of the most versatile figures was Dante Rossetti. Mysticism and eroticism were intertwined in his work. He is famous for his graphic illustrations for the works of Tennyson and sketches for Dante's Divine Comedy. He also painted pictures based on scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary, which, however, the public did not like. He also owns several watercolors, including “The Wedding of St. George and Princess Sabra.”
The first stage of Pre-Raphaelite history ended in 1853, after Millais, Woolner and Hunt left the Brotherhood. A new stage began with Dante Rossetti's acquaintance with William Morris(1834-1896) and Edward Burne-Jones(1833-1898), then still students at Oxford. In 1857, Rossetti and other artists painted the walls of one of the new buildings in Oxford with scenes from the book Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory.
Under the influence of this work, Morris (who was a mediocre artist, but at the same time one of the founders of design, as well as a utopian writer) painted the painting “Queen Guinevere”, in which he presented his ideal of beauty (his future wife Jane Burden acted as the model), which then became the ideal of beauty of the entire Art Nouveau era. In 1859 he married Jane Burden (who was also Rosseti's muse) and they built themselves the "Red House". This house, medieval in its philosophy, differed sharply in style from the exuberant Victorian pseudo-Gothic style that was very popular at the time. Everything in this house is quite simple and practical.
In 1861, Morris founded the company Morris and Co., which dealt with all types of design. He tried to transform society through design and art. Not wanting to face the approaching progress, industrialization, which, as it seemed to him, would level man down to the level of a machine, Morris tried to escape from it into the past and take people with him. He preached the value of honest, creative manual labor as opposed to factory labor, and wanted to free people from factories. The masters of the Morris company produced furniture, stained glass, fabrics, wallpaper, books, and entire interiors. Easily recognizable "Morris style" popular in England even now, it combined the influences of medieval and oriental arts and crafts.
In 1891, Morris founded the Kelmscott Press, which had a huge impact on the revival of high-end printing.
In the 1870s, after Rossetti’s illness, the Brotherhood was headed by Burne-Jones, author of the watercolor “Sidonia von Borck. The Monastery Witch,” the painting “The Mirror of Venus” and paintings about King Arthur. After the death of Burne-Jones, the history of the Pre-Raphaelites ended.
