For as long as art has existed, revolutionary movements have constantly changed the way it is created and perceived. Artcore examines the trends that have shaken up the art world of yesterday and today – from the elegance of 18th-century neoclassicism to the daring provocations of the Young British Artists of the 1990s.
In 1854, at a time when divorce was taboo, Effie Gray filed a court petition to annul her marriage to art critic John Ruskin. Gray argued that her separation was due to a breach of her marriage vows and that her husband, a Victorian in the truest sense of the word, had refused to touch her. A year later, she married the painter and illustrator John Everett Millais, by whose side she remained until his death in 1896.
Thomas Richmond, Euphemia (‘Effie’) Chalmers, née Gray, Lady Millais (1851). Photo: National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons.
For art historians, Gray’s marriage to Millais reflects an important shift in British art. Millais, a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, had worked with Gray long before her marriage. Between 1852 and 1853 she was a model for The order of releasea painting that sought to do away with the same stuffy values that characterized Gray’s relationship with Ruskin.
How did the Pre-Raphaelites begin?
The Pre-Raphaelite movement began with the founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Led by Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, this group of painters, poets and critics called themselves Pre-Raphaelites in opposition to the Royal Academy of London’s ongoing obsession with the art of Raphael and his Renaissance colleagues.
Although the Pre-Raphaelites were rebels, they were not revolutionaries. Instead of looking to the future and inventing their own style from scratch in the style of subsequent art movements, they were inspired by the art that before Raphael, to medieval paintings—and, in their opinion, unfairly overshadowed by—the Renaissance.
So the Pre-Raphaelites completely rejected Raphael?
Not quite. Like the Raphaelites, the Pre-Raphaelites also placed value on realism and technique—finely rendered details, lifelike anatomy and natural interplay of light and shadow. They also took inspiration from religion and classical mythology, at least initially. Ruskin, a leading figure in the art establishment of the time, was an ally rather than an enemy and encouraged Millais and his colleagues to experiment.
The Rossetti family based on a photograph by Lewis Carroll. From left to right: Dante Gabriel, Christina, Frances (mother, née Polidori) and William. Photo: Getty Images.
The real difference between the Raphaelites and the Pre-Raphaelites has nothing to do with How they painted, but What they painted. While the Raphaelites favored idealized and arguably sterilized depictions of larger-than-life figures and events, the Pre-Raphaelites infused their works with themes and emotions not often encountered in Renaissance art, such as love, sex, death, motherhood, and adultery. In short, the things that make us human, with all our faults.
Like the Raphaelites, the Pre-Raphaelites enjoyed capturing the natural beauty of female models. Unlike the Raphaelites, however, they did not transform their models into stern, stoic, otherworldly Greco-Roman statues. Instead, they gave them agency and psychological depth, human qualities that sometimes contrasted with their fantastical backdrops.
Sounds interesting. Are there any notable examples of Pre-Raphaelite art?
John Everett Millais, Mariana (1851). Photo: Google Arts & Culture via Wikimedia Commons.
Next to The order of releaseMillais is best known for his painting from 1851-1852 Opheliaa character from William Shakespeare’s hamlet who throws herself into a river after learning that the eponymous prince has murdered her father. Millais was not the first to portray Ophelia, but while earlier painters depicted her after her death, the Pre-Raphaelite shows her in the midst of drowning, with her eyes open and her palms raised: realistic, yet magical and sentimental.
John Everett Millais, Ophelia (ca. 1851). Photo: Google Arts & Culture via Wikimedia Commons.
Millais’ portrayal of Ophelia, based on 19-year-old model Elizabeth Siddal, reflects the rapidly changing gender norms of the late 19th century. Although Ophelia appears to be dressed in period clothing, she is not She wears a corset, the ubiquitous symbol of Victorian oversensitivity. Although the abundance of colorful plants and flowers swirling around her only hints at her blossoming sexuality, critics were quick to condemn Millais’s fantasy as “perverse.”
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Dante’s Dream (1871). Photo: cgfa via Wikimedia Commons.
Also worth mentioning is Dante’s Dream by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s lesser-known work The New Life (“The New Life”) shows him being led into a dream by his eternal lover, Beatrice Portinari. Rossetti viewed his namesake’s poetry as an antidote to the industrialization and commercialization of his time and returned to Dante’s work throughout his career.
What happened to the Pre-Raphaelites?
James Collinson, Back home (1856). Photo: Art UK via Wikimedia Commons.
Despite its success and influence, the Pre-Raphaelite movement was short-lived. The brotherhood disbanded in 1853, just five years after its founding. Weakened by the departure of prominent artists such as James Collinson, who left because he found the increasingly sensual style of art incompatible with his Catholic faith, and Thomas Woolner (who moved to Australia), the brotherhood truly disintegrated when Millais joined the Royal Academy in 1853.
But while the Brotherhood disappeared, Pre-Raphaelite art survived. As a member of the Royal Academy, the institution against which he had rebelled only a few years earlier, Millais was able to promote his previously rejected taste, leading British art institutions out of the Renaissance and into the 20th century.
Are the Pre-Raphaelites still relevant today?
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The daydream (1880). Photo: Google Cultural Institute via Wikimedia Commons.
The Pre-Raphaelites not only paved the way for 20th century art movements such as the Aesthetic Movement, the Decadence Movement, the Arts and Crafts Movement and also the Vienna Secession, but should also be remembered as a serious resistance to the sexuality and gender roles of the Victorian era.
At the same time, it is worth noting, as Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore writes in her review of a Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate, which the guardianthat while “the Pre-Raphaelites challenged the gender norms of their time, new stereotypes emerged from the ashes of the old.” Rossetti’s work in particular praised a particular form of beauty that not all women could or wanted to attain: voluptuous, distant, and—if not quite objectified—fetishized.
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