In the middle of the 19th century, the industrial revolution is in its peak and the British Empire's economy was flourishing. As urban development spread, the classical representations that had been predominant in England were no longer able to reflect the socio-cultural changes that were affecting the empire, and new artistic trends, more in line with the changing times, took over.
In response to industrialisation and to break away from the academic style that had been imposed for decades, many artists, in their quest for inspiration, turned to the masters of the early Renaissance and the Middle Ages. Indeed, the return to a less formal style the return to a less formal style than that of the Renaissance masters, especially Raphael, awakened in many British people the memory of an exemplary society, renowned for its artistic freedom and humanism.
This unstable environment gave rise to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. The movement founders, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, all rejected the official style in which they had been mired for generations and turned to the realism of the Flemish Primitives (active in the 15th-16th centuries). Despite stylistic differences within the group, and although their themes were mostly fictional, they all stressed an uncompromising naturalism.
In 1850, the group published the first number of its periodical, The Germs, in which it laid down the movement's main guidelines: They promoted original ideas. A careful study of nature. The use of a single model for each character. Attention to detail. The use of simple colour schemes and a smooth depiction of the figures.
Through their biblical, mythological, and poetic representations, the Pre-Raphaelite artists freed themselves from the dictates of the old world and offered a new perspective on their own changing society.
Nathan
1. John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851-1852, Oil on canvas, 76.2×111.8 cm, Tate, National Gallery
des Cars, Laurence. Les Préraphaélites : un modernisme à l'anglaise. Paris : Gallimard 1999.
Lesage, Anne-Sophie and 50 minutes. Dante Gabriel Rossetti et la Volupté Féminine : Le Héros du Préraphaélisme. Lemaitre Publishing, 2014.
de la Sizeranne, Robert. Le Préraphaélisme. New York : Parkstone International, 2008.