Rediscovering the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Romanticism in 19th Century England

At a time of great industrial and social upheaval, a group of artists emerged from the smog of rapid modernization with a romantic interpretation of pre-Renaissance art. Together in 1848, they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and created a new British art that revived medieval aesthetics, rebelled against the mechanization of the day, and challenged convention to create a timeless celebration of beauty, truth, and imagination.  

In the mid-19th century a group of English artists made it their mission to return to the lavish detail, intense colors and complex compositions of 15th century Italian art. The seven-member Brotherhood stood in direct opposition to the systematic approach of artists who followed Raphael and Michelangelo, and believed the classical poses and compositions of Raphael had been a corrupting influence on academic art teaching, and so the name Pre-Raphaelite was born.

This was Romanticism that pined for the purity and authenticity of pre-Renaissance art, and it did so by revitalizing romantic ideals within 19^th century painting with intense detail and vibrant color. The seven-member Brotherhood was established by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who were later joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens, and Thomas Woolner. Collectively they shared a disenchantment with contemporary academic painting and instead looked to the late-medieval period for a model to depict nature and the human body realistically.

Challenging the indulgences of the day, the Brotherhood’s influence is of such significance that it is considered the first avant-garde movement in British art. Drawing inspiration from Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer, Pre-Raphaelite art is characterized by a devotion to detail, a bright color palette reminiscent of medieval art, and a noble or religious subject matter. The Brotherhood did this against the backdrop of a rapidly changing English landscape, as social reform, political upheaval, and mass industrialization transformed life in the Victorian era.

The choice of art from the medieval period was the group’s reaction to the impact of industrialization in England at the time. Providing a stylistic model, the Pre-Raphaelite revival of medieval aesthetics, stories, and production methods influenced the development of the Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau movements. Similarly, Naturalism was central to the Pre-Raphaelite art that celebrated detailed studies of nature, natural forms, and offered an antidote to the industrial designs of the new machine age.

Cryptic Unveiling

This new approach was revealed at London’s Royal Academy in 1849, where several paintings were cryptically exhibited with the initials P.R.B. along with the artist’s signature. William Holman Hunt’s Rienzi Vowing to Obtain Justice for the Death of His Young Brother, Slain in a Skirmish between the Colonna and Orsini Factions was one of the PRB initialed paintings, alongside Isabella by John Everett Millais, and The Girlhood of Mary Virgin by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Diverse in subject but filled with moral issues and purity, the paintings reflected challenges within society at the time.

John Millais’s parents’ house on Gower Street, London provided the unassuming setting for the formation of a transformative art movement that challenged conventions and paved the way for avant-garde movements. Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt were all present at the creation of the reform movement, and collectively they published a periodical called The Germ to promote their ideas over four issues between January and April 1850.

Industrialization and Romanticism

England was rapidly changing in 1848. Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto was published in the same year and revolutions broke out across Europe, as England was thrust forward into the modern age by mechanization and the industrial revolution, with industry changing skylines across the country. As Britain expanded its empire it welcomed rapid advancements in science, industry and the arts, and saw significant political and social reform, as the Chartist movement gave working men the vote.

Many of those advances brought about significant social change and the birth of political movements like socialism, liberalism, and organized feminism. Prosperity was on the rise, but debilitating undernutrition persisted, while literacy and childhood education became near universal in Great Britain for the first time.

Set against this rapid change, art and culture can reflect either a celebration of progress or a longing for an idyllic past. Romanticism was the latter as it emphasized emotion, nature, and the sublime. The Brotherhood sought to challenge the supremacy of academic tradition with revived Romantic ideals and integrated them with a meticulous realism inspired by early Renaissance artists.

The Artists

John Everett Millais

Known for his meticulous attention to pictorial realism, John Everett Millais was pious in his devotion to detail, as he sought inspiration from nature and the works of Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer.

Noted for his ability to capture the emotional state of women in his art, Millais’ romantic paintings were often set against the backdrop of real political events. However, Ophelia, his most famous work – and perhaps the famous of all the early Pre-Raphaelite paintings – depicts a moment from Shakespeare when Hamlet’s lover drowns herself in a stream.

A child prodigy, Millais was the youngest student to enter the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 11 and his commercially successful career culminated as President of the Royal Academy in 1896. He was also noted as one of the first Academy artists to look beyond the confines of the canvas and expand his repertoire through newspaper illustration, and lucrative reproduction prints and adverts.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

A provocative nonconformist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was perhaps the greatest exponent of the Brotherhood’s rebellion against the decadent indulgences of the day. Looking for inspiration and religious guidance in medieval and religious fables in 15^th century Florentine and Sienese painting, he lived a lifestyle of lust and addiction that shone through in the controversial eroticism of religious figures in his paintings.

Recognized predominantly as a portraitist, his preference was for religious subject-matter like in The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849), which was completed the year after he co-founded the Brotherhood, as well as Ecce Ancilla Domini (The Annunciation) (1850), Prosperine (1874), and Stained Glass Panel No.4 in Rossetti’s St George and the Dragon(1862) for Morris & Co.

The stained-glass panel shows the breadth of Rossetti’s ability, as he also produced poetry, and was a founding member of the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. furnishing company in 1861, but as he lost interest in decorative arts, his relationship with William Morris soured. An affair with Morris’s wife didn’t help. Rossetti’s reputation remains intact though as a tangible link between the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Morris’s Arts and Crafts that followed.

William Holman Hunt

Staying true to the principles of the Brotherhood throughout his long career, William Holman Hunt believed that he was blessed with divine genius and a devotion to producing “higher meaning” through his work, rather than what he called “good pictures”.

The son of devout parents, Hunt was committed to honest rather than romantic depictions in his art, in which he often used real locations – some in the Middle East – to restage biblical parables. Greatly influenced by the writing of John Ruskin, Hunt shared Ruskin’s belief that an artist’s role was to represent things truthfully and uphold moral integrity. While they shared an artistic philosophy, this is where Hunt’s and Rossetti’s lifestyles dramatically diverged.

Bringing him international fame, The Light of the World (1853) was a contemporary portrayal of Christ, which had higher meaning for Hunt, as its popularity led him to believe that the painting’s spiritual symbolism connected with a public consciousness and therefore vindicated his artistic mission.

Realistic Radicalism

Striving to depict nature and people realistically rather than idealistically was a radical and alternative vision of art in the mid-19^th century. This devotion to naturalism fused with symbolic meaning was evident in all work by the Brotherhood. Achieving near perfect objectivity in their depictions of nature was an early Pre-Raphaelite objective and can be seen in the blades of grass and flowers in Millais’ Ophelia (1851-2) and Hunt’s detailed portrayal of Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep) (1852). Unvarnished, honest, and real, Millais’s Christ in the House of his Parents even showed St. Anne’s swollen, elderly hands.

The English critic John Ruskin wrote in his essay, The Nature of Gothic (1853) that individual creativity enjoyed by medieval craftsmen was preferable to the “slavery” inherent in modern industrial systems. And this is evident in the Brotherhood’s fascination with legends from early Christian and Gothic art. Late medieval and early Renaissance art from Italy and northern Europe captured Rossetti and Morris, while Edward Burne-Jones designed tapestries that revitalized embroidery and weaving for a new generation.

Similarly, works by the Brotherhood explored spiritual or moral themes through complex symbolism, such as in Hunt’s The Light of the World, which symbolizes a neglect of faith through Christ knocking on a door that’s overgrown with weeds. Love and femininity were also explored in detail, particularly by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose depictions of women, like in Beata Beatrix, were idealized as well as personal, reflecting his relationships and emotions.

For Art’s Sake

Despite the Brotherhood staying together for no more than five years, its influence has endured through underappreciation and a mixed critical reception. Originally derided for their overly-detailed work by critics and Charles Dickens (of all people), John Ruskin become one of the movement’s most vocal supporters, while Salvador Dalí praised Pre-Raphaelite paintings of women as “carnal fantasies,” and the “gelatinous meat of the most guilty of sentimental dreams.”

Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris followed in the footsteps of the original Brotherhood artists, as they incorporated these themes into the Arts and Crafts Movement. Morris, in particular, emphasized the connection between art and daily life, advocating for handcrafted and beautiful objects. And these aesthetically beautiful objects foreshadowed movements like Aestheticism, European Symbolism, and Art Nouveau. The decadent approach to life of Rossetti was integral to artists and poets like Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde, who championed the idea of art for art’s sake.

The integration of medievalism, spirituality, and personal expression resonated with later Romantic movements in literature and art. Their revival of early Renaissance techniques influenced 20th-century illustrators and fantasy artists, from Arthur Rackham to contemporary creators.

Today, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is celebrated for its place in Victorian art history, with major collections housed in the Tate Britain and the Ashmolean Museum. Its impact though isn’t confined to the art world, as while the movement showcased the enduring power of Romantic ideals in an ever-changing world, the group’s rebellious approach would also influence wider society thanks to their progressive views on gender, nature, and spirituality – ensuring their legacy lives on beyond the canvas.