The term Pre-Raphaelite is associated with a group of English painters poets and critics, that was founded in 1848. The painters William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were the three founders. Eventually the group formed into a brotherhood with the addition of several others.
As the name implies the artists of the group were most interested in doing art in the style that pre-dates Raphael whom they believed started the trend toward "mechanical" and "unnatural" ways of painting which were most clearly seen in the art academies prevalent in the middle half of the nineteenth century.
The Pre-Raphaelites aim was to paint in a more primitive way like the masters of the fifteenth century. Above all they believed art was spiritual in nature and it could reform the ills of modern society.
Subject Matter & Influences of Pre-Raphealite Art
Despite this general idea, not all Pre-Raphaelites painted the same subject matter. Some of them like Hunt and Millais chose to paint more realistically, often imbuing their work with underlying social commentary as in The Awakening Conscience (1853)by William Holman Hunt. Others like Rossetti and later Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris choose to paint Medieval subject matter. Often the social commentary in these paintings was accomplished by allegory such as in Jones' The Wheel of Fortune (1877-83).
Other Medieval subject matter consisted of the noteworthy work Beata Beatrix (1872) by Rossetti. The painting itself is a personal expression of Rossetti's love for his deceased wife, Elizabeth Siddal. Dante Alighieri, an Italian Poet of the middle ages, writes frequently about Beatrice and uses her has metaphor for love in its purest form.
Critics and Supporters of the Artistic Movement
Critics of the Pre-Raphaelites found the painting to be backward, and not in a good way. Even their extreme devotion to detail was condemned as too jarring to the eye. Charles Dickens even commented on the work of Christ in The House of His Parents (1850) by John Everett Millais, to be ugly, in particular he thought the Holy Family looked like "slum dwellers."
However, the Pre-Raphaelites were not without their admirers. They found support from the critic John Ruskin who liked their unconventional methods of composition and natural style.
Influence and Re-emergence of the Pre-Raphaelites
Many artists were influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. They most directly influenced the works of Edward Burne-Jones, but also those of Gustave Moreau, John William Waterhouse, and William Morris who headed his own art movement; The Arts and Crafts Movement.
Once shunned in the twentieth century as being backward, Pre-Raphaelite art is now seen with renewed interest. This may be due to their belief in ideal beauty and a natural style or the general creative integrity found throughout their work. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the Pre-Raphaelites where an important and influential art movement.
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