The Pre-Raphaelites
origins of a brotherhood of English 19th century artists
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England began with Dante Rosetti, Holman Hunt and John Millais, who advocated a 'Truth to Nature' approach to art.
Nazarenes
In 1811 an earnest group of young German painters of deep religious conviction settled in Rome. Led by Johann Friedrich Overbeck and Peter von Cornelius, their aim was to capture the devout spirit of the Middle Ages. Calling themselves the Nazarenes, they regarded the works of Raphael (1483–1520) as insincere and too worldly, and asserted that art before Raphael had an austerity and purity that better conformed to the notions of religious faith.
William Dyce
William Dyce, a Scots-born painter, was an apostle of the High Church movement in England, which sought the return of the ‘old catholicism’ together with its purity of form and spirit. In 1825 he visited Rome, arriving back in England two years later inspired by the German Pre-Raphaelite idea.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
In 1848 a group of young English poets, painters and sculptors met and declared themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Yearning for a lost era of pageantry and romance, their main aim was Truth to Nature, characterised by exact and precise detail. The driving force behind the Brotherhood was poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rosetti (1828–1882), whose first recruit was William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), a London-born painter who expressed his religious belief through art. Rosetti and Hunt were then joined by John Everett Millais (1829–1896), who became the youngest ever student at the Royal Academy in 1840. This trio invited four others into the Brotherhood: William Michael Rosetti (Dante’s brother); sculptor Thomas Woolner; James Collinson, a painter; and Frederic George Stephens, a friend but not an artist.
Truth to Nature
The Pre-Raphaelite dedication to detail, such as capturing every leaf with botanical accuracy, may have helped to consolidate the notion of disciplined toil towards a higher goal. As John Ruskin had said, ‘All great art is Praise.’ However, different people migh understand ‘Truth to Nature’ in different ways. For example, Claude Monet, arguably the most consistent Impressionist of the Impressionists sought to capture atmosphere and general effect as essential components of an accurate rendition of nature. In contrast Holman Hunt, the most consistent Pre-Raphaelite painter, strove to capture detail rather than ‘atmosphere’, and felt that all Impressionists were not only incompetent but insincere.
Demise
By 1854 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had broken up. However, it had inspired something that was latent in the spirit of the times and the movement spread beyond painting. For example, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Blake provided poetic inspiration, and William Morris (1834–1896) was a master-craftsman, poet and socialist whose Utopian ideals had a distinct basis in Pre-Raphaelite philosophy.
