The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites by Elizabeth Prettejohn

Swinburne, William Morris, and Walter Pater. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the original founders of the PRB, was also a poet, and aspects of Pre-Raphaelitism can likewise be seen in the work of authors such as Tennyson, Christina Rossetti, A. C. While the origins of Pre-Raphaelitism are in painting, the ideas behind the movement quickly spread to literature, especially poetry. In the 1860s Pre-Raphaelitism underwent a second wave, associated mainly with the work of Edward Burne-Jones, which departed from the realism of early pre-Raphaelite works and moved instead toward myth and aestheticism. Together with Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites were instrumental in spreading a taste for medievalism in evidence in several aspects of Victorian literature and arts.

The innovations championed by the Pre-Raphaelites immediately attracted widespread condemnation, but they won the important support of John Ruskin, who played an important role in promoting the movement. Other principles they followed in their art included rejecting academicism, representing nature faithfully, and stressing the interconnections between literature and painting. The name Pre-Raphaelitism derives from these artists’ controversial admiration for painting before the era of Raphael (b. It originated with the foundation, in 1848, of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB) by, among others, the artists John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt. Pre-Raphaelitism was a countercultural movement that aimed to reform Victorian art and writing.

The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites by Elizabeth Prettejohn