(Most of the following material is from Wikipedia)
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the
Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded
in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. The three founders were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James
Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form the seven-member
"brotherhood".
The group's intention
was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach
first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. Its
members believed the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in
particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art,
hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite".
In particular, the group objected to
the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the English Royal Academy of
Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua". To the Pre-Raphaelites,
according to William Michael Rossetti, "sloshy" meant "anything
lax or scamped in the process of painting ... and hence ... any thing or person
of a commonplace or conventional kind". In contrast, the brotherhood wanted a return
to the abundant detail, intense colours and complex compositions of
Quattrocento Italian art.
Through the PRB
initials, the brotherhood announced in coded form the arrival of a new movement
in British art. The group continued to accept the concepts of history painting
and mimesis, imitation of nature, as central to the purpose of art. The
Pre-Raphaelites defined themselves as a reform-movement, created a distinct
name for their form of art, and published a periodical, The Germ, to promote
their ideas. The group's debates were recorded in the Pre-Raphaelite Journal.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millais's
parents' house on Gower Street, London in 1848. At the first meeting, the
painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt
were present. Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and
had met in another loose association, the Cyclographic Club, a sketching
society. At his own request Rossetti became a pupil of Ford Madox Brown in
1848.
At that date,
Rossetti and Hunt shared lodgings in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, Central
London. Hunt had started painting The Eve of St. Agnes based on Keats's poem of
the same name, but it was not completed until 1867.
St. Agnes' Eve
Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp'd trembling through the
frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman's fingers, while he
told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a
death,
Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his
prayer he saith.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy
man;
Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his
knees,
And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan,
Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
The sculptur'd dead, on each side, seem to
freeze,
Emprison'd in black, purgatorial rails:
Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat'ries,
He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and
mails.
Northward he turneth through a little door,
And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden
tongue
Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor;
But no — already had his deathbell rung;
The joys of all his life were said and
sung:
His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve:
Another way he went, and soon among
Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve,
And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake
to grieve.
That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude
soft;
And so it chanc'd, for many a door was
wide,
From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft,
The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to
chide:
The level chambers, ready with their pride,
Were glowing to receive a thousand guests:
The carved angels, ever eager-eyed,
Star'd, where upon their heads the cornice
rests,
With hair blown back, and wings put
cross-wise on their breasts.
At length burst in the argent revelry,
With plume, tiara, and all rich array,
Numerous as shadows haunting fairily
The brain, new stuff'd, in youth, with
triumphs gay
Of old romance. These let us wish away,
And turn, sole-thoughted, to one Lady
there,
Whose heart had brooded, all that wintry
day,
On love, and wing'd St. Agnes' saintly
care,
As she had heard old dames full many times
declare.
They
told her how, upon St. Agnes' Eve,
Young virgins might have visions of
delight,
And soft adorings from their loves receive
Upon the honey'd middle of the night,
If ceremonies due they did aright;
As, supperless to bed they must retire,
And couch supine their beauties, lily
white;
Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they
desire.
Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline:
The music, yearning like a God in pain,
She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine,
Fix'd on the floor, saw many a sweeping
train
Pass by — she heeded not at all: in vain
Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier,
And back retir'd; not cool'd by high
disdain,
But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere:
She sigh'd for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of
the year.
She
danc'd along with vague, regardless eyes,
Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and
short:
The hallow'd hour was near at hand: she
sighs
Amid the timbrels, and the throng'd resort
Of whisperers in anger, or in sport;
'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and
scorn,
Hoodwink'd with faery fancy; all amort,
Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,
And all the bliss to be before to-morrow
morn.
So,
purposing each moment to retire,
She linger'd still. Meantime, across the
moors,
Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire
For Madeline. Beside the portal doors,
Buttress'd from moonlight, stands he, and
implores
All saints to give him sight of Madeline,
But for one moment in the tedious hours,
That he might gaze and worship all unseen;
Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss — in
sooth such things
have been.
He
ventures in: let no buzz'd whisper tell:
All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords
Will storm his heart, Love's fev'rous
citadel:
For him, those chambers held barbarian
hordes,
Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords,
Whose very dogs would execrations howl
Against his lineage: not one breast affords
Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in
soul.
Ah,
happy chance! the aged creature came,
Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
To where he stood, hid from the torch's
flame,
Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond
The sound of merriment and chorus bland:
He startled her; but soon she knew his
face,
And grasp'd his fingers in her palsied
hand,
Saying, "Mercy, Porphyro! hie thee
from this place;
They are all here to-night, the whole
blood-thirsty race!"
"Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hildebrand;
He had a fever late, and in the fit
He cursed thee and thine, both house and
land:
Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a
whit
More tame for his gray hairs — Alas me!
flit!
Flit like a ghost away." — "Ah,
Gossip dear,
We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair
sit,
And tell me how" — "Good Saints!
not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will
be thy bier."
He follow'd through a lowly arched way,
Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume,
And as she mutter'd "Well-a —
well-a-day!"
He
found him in a little moonlight room,
Pale, lattic'd, chill, and silent as a
tomb.
"Now tell me where is Madeline,"
said he,
"O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom
Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving
piously."
"St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve —
Yet men will murder upon holy days:
Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve,
And be liege-lord of all the Elves and
Fays,
To venture so: it fills me with amaze
To see thee, Porphyro! — St. Agnes' Eve!
God's help! my lady fair the conjuror plays
This very night: good angels her deceive!
But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to
grieve."
Feebly she laugheth in the languid moon,
While Porphyro upon her face doth look,
Like puzzled urchin on an aged crone
Who keepeth clos'd a wond'rous riddle-book,
As spectacled she sits in chimney nook.
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she
told
His lady's purpose; and he scarce could
brook
Tears, at the thought of those enchantments
cold
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown
rose,
Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
A stratagem, that makes the beldame start:
"A cruel man and impious thou art:
Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and
dream
Alone with her good angels, far apart
From wicked men like thee. Go, go! — I deem
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou
didst seem."
As an aspiring poet, Rossetti wished to develop the links
between Romantic poetry and art. By autumn, four more members, painters James
Collinson and Frederic George Stephens, Rossetti's brother, poet and critic
William Michael Rossetti, and sculptor Thomas Woolner, had joined to form a
seven-member-strong brotherhood.
Ford Madox Brown was
invited to join, but the more senior artist remained independent but supported
the group throughout the PRB period of Pre-Raphaelitism and contributed to The
Germ. Other young painters and sculptors became close associates, including
Charles Allston Collins, Thomas Tupper, and Alexander Munro. The PRB intended to
keep the existence of the brotherhood secret from members of the Royal Academy.
The brotherhood's early doctrines were expressed in four
declarations:
1.to have genuine
ideas to express
2.to study nature
attentively, so as to know how to express them
3.to sympathise with
what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of
what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote
4.most indispensable
of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues
The principles were
deliberately non-dogmatic, since the brotherhood wished to emphasise the
personal responsibility of individual artists to determine their own ideas and
methods of depiction. Influenced by Romanticism, the members thought freedom
and responsibility were inseparable. Nevertheless, they were particularly
fascinated by medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual and
creative integrity that had been lost in later eras. The emphasis on medieval
culture clashed with principles of realism which stress the independent
observation of nature.
In its early stages, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
believed its two interests were consistent with one another, but in later years
the movement divided and moved in two directions. The realists were led by Hunt
and Millais, while the medievalists were led by Rossetti and his followers,
Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. The split was never absolute, since both
factions believed that art was essentially spiritual in character, opposing their
idealism to the materialist realism associated with Courbet and Impressionism.
The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood was greatly influenced by nature and its members used great detail
to show the natural world using bright and sharp focus techniques on a white
canvas. In attempts to revive the brilliance of colour found in Quattrocento
art, Hunt and Millais developed a technique of painting in thin glazes of
pigment over a wet white ground in the hope that the colours would retain
jewel-like transparency and clarity. Their emphasis on brilliance of colour was
a reaction to the excessive use of bitumen by earlier British artists, such as
Reynolds, David Wilkie and Benjamin Robert Haydon. Bitumen produces unstable
areas of muddy darkness, an effect the Pre-Raphaelites despised.
The Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood
James Collinson
(painter)
William Holman Hunt
(painter)
John Everett Millais
(painter)
Dante Gabriel
Rossetti (painter, poet)
William Michael
Rossetti (critic)
Frederic George
Stephens (critic)
Thomas Woolner
(sculptor, poet)
Associated
artists and figures
John Brett (painter)
Ford Madox Brown
(painter, designer)
Richard Burchett
(painter, educator)
Edward Burne-Jones
(painter, designer)
Charles Allston
Collins (painter)
Frank Cadogan Cowper
(painter)
Fanny Cornforth
(artist's model)
Henry Holiday
(painter, stained-glass artist, illustrator)
Walter Howell
Deverell (painter)
Arthur Hughes
(painter, book illustrator)
Robert Braithwaite
Martineau (painter)
Annie Miller
(artist's model)
Jane Morris (artist's
model)
Louisa, Marchioness
of Waterford (painter and artist's model)
May Morris
(embroiderer and designer)
William Morris
(designer, writer)
Christina Rossetti
(poet and artist's model)
John Ruskin (critic)
Anthony Frederick
Augustus Sandys (painter)
Thomas Seddon
(painter)
Frederic Shields
(painter)
Elizabeth Siddal
(painter, poet and artist's model)
Simeon Solomon
(painter)
Marie Spartali
Stillman (painter)
Algernon Charles
Swinburne (poet)
Henry Wallis
(painter)
William Lindsay
Windus (painter)
Loosely
associated artists
Sophie Gengembre
Anderson (painter)
Wyke Bayliss
(painter)
George Price Boyce
(painter)
Joanna Mary Boyce
(painter)
Sir Frederick William
Burton (painter)
Julia Margaret
Cameron (photographer)
James Campbell
(painter)
John Collier
(painter)
William Davis
(painter)
Evelyn De Morgan
(painter)
Frank Bernard Dicksee
(painter)
John William Godward
(painter)
Thomas Cooper Gotch
(painter)
Charles Edward Hallé
(painter)
Edward Robert Hughes
(painter)
John Lee (painter)
Edmund Leighton
(painter)
Frederic, Lord
Leighton (painter)
James Lionel Michael
(minor poet, mentor to Henry Kendall)
Charles William
Mitchell (painter)
Joseph Noel Paton
(painter)
John William
Waterhouse (painter)
Daniel Alexander
Williamson (painter)
James Tissot
(painter)
Elihu Vedder
(painter)
James Abbott McNeill
Whistler (painter)
