Pre-Raphaelites Flashcards
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
- 1848 - founded by 3 young painters studying at Royal Academy of Arts, London, joined by sculptors, poets and critics
- founding members
— William Holman Hunt
— Dante Gabriel Rossetti
— John Everette Millais - 1851- John Ruskin Wrote a pamphlet “Pre-Raphaelitism” for their exhibition - began to be accepted by the public
John Ruskin
- Precursor of Pre-Raphaelites
- writer, art-critic, and painter
- distaste for materialism and ugliness of industrializing world in England
- author of :Modern Painters”
- developed a taste for Romanticism (medieval culture, nature in landscape), Anti-Classicism (idealization) and anti-Baroque( Drama, eroticism) attitude towards art
- study of nature is a science, when treated with absolute truthfulness can teach moral lessons
John Everette Millais - John Ruskin
- mentor of Millais
- Author of “modern Painters”
- beauty = truthful study of nature
John Everette Millais - John Ruskin
- mentor of Millais
- Author of “modern Painters”
- beauty = truthful study of nature
Theoretical stand of the pre-raphaelite bortherhood
- against the trend of classicism of the royal academy, whose founder, Joshua Reynolds, admired Raphael the most
- medievalism - appreciated the spirituality and idealism of Italian primitives - artists of late Gothic and early renaissance before Raphael
- praised the naturalism and meticulous realism of Flemish painting
- rediscovered Florentine linearism (especially works of Sandro Botticelli - circulated in British and German art market in 19th c)
- created art of noble, religious and moralizing nature - focused on biblical and literary (e.g. shakespeare) themes
William Holman Hunt
- entered the Royal Academy at 17
- followed faithfully the idea of meticulous realism and naturalism of ruskin throughout - treated his subjects with miniature-like details
- faithful to medieval spirituality - his art has heavy moral and religious messages
- 1854 - travelled to Egypt and then the Holy Land
William Holman Hunt - Light of the World
- an allegory of Christ knocking at the door of the human soul
- details
— light of salvation
— light of conscience
William Holman Hunt - Awakening Conscience
- subjects taken from Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield
- story about a seducer and a fallen woman - a gentleman kept a mistress in a house, she suddenly had a spiritual revelation
- mirror - her lost innocence
- ray of light cast on her - redemption
- extremely rich in symbols
- theme of fallen woman - popular in Victorian art
William Holman hunt - Our english coasts
- naturalistic study - breakdown of light into prismatic colours
- subtitle - has symbolic religious meaning
- ruskin’s comment: absolutely faithful balances of colour and shade, sensation of the actual sunshine
William holman Hunt - Scapegoat
- in a pilgrimage journey, the painter went to Osdoom, coast of the dead sea
- captured the new sensation of light there
- Jewish ritual of leaving a goat in the wilderness - symbolically bearing away the sins of the people - redemption is obtained
— goat - a sacrifice and also a saviour - details
— sunset scene in an abandoned landscape with bones of dead animals on the bare ground, captured the strange landscape and violet light of the place
— decontextualized weirdness of the scene - precursor to surrealism
Dante Gabiel Rossetti
- son of an italian scholar in england, admitted to the royal academy at 17
- painter and poet, translator of early italian poetry, compared himself to the great medieval italian poet Dante Alighieri
- attracted by the writings of William Blake
- moved away from meticulous realism to establish his own style eventually
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Girlhood of Mary Virgin
- Medievalism - tries to revive medieval spirituality with religious art and strong symbolism
- lily - purity, immaculate conception
- palm leaves and thorn - sacrifice of her son
- books - virtues
- figures - stiffened, lack of expressions - recalled 15th century early renaissance art
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Ecce Ancila Domini! (here’s the lord’s servant!) (annunciation)
- fond of using latin titles - medievalism upheld by the brotherhood
- contrary to the conventional representation of mary kneeling in front of Archangel Gabriel, Rossetti’s Mary is rising strangely from a low bed
- dream-like expression on Mary’s face
4/ symols: dove, lily
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Beata Beatrix (Blessed Beatrice)
- Rosseti identified himself with the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri
- Dante described Beatrice being mystically transported to Heaven in his writing
- a parallel between Dante’s love for beatrice and Rossetti’s for his wife Elizabeth Siddal
- Siddal committed suicide by taking opium - portrayed in a death trance
- sfumato - turned away from meticulous realism
- red dove - holy spirit, love, messenger, white poppy - purity, (opium)death
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Proserpine
- Greek Mythology: unwilling wife of Hades, ruler of the underworld, could not return to earth because she had consumed one grain of a pomegranate there
- model: Jane Morris (wife of William Morris)
- Rossetti’s ideal female beauty - long neck, souful eyes, sensuous rosebud mouth and luxuriant, flowing hair
- victorian beauty - sensually alluring but aloof
Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Astarte Syriaca
- model was also Jane Morris
- theme of Romantic mysticism - love goddess of Syria abandoned the world of light to live in the underworld - an act of self-sacrifice
- worshipped for her power over nature
- the occult underworld - special appeal to Rossetti
- woman- half-threatening and half-alluring
— composition modelled on the 6th century Byzantine, though simplified
Aubrey Beardsley - Salome with the head of St.John the Baptist “J’ai Baise ta Bouche lokanaan”
- heavily indebted to the Pre-Raphaelites
- representative of Art Nouveau
John Everette Millais
- talented painter - admitted into Royal academy at the age of 11
- protege of John ruskin - followed Ruskin’s urge for realism in his early works
- Charles Baudelaire called him the “poet of meticulous detail”
- later broke away from Ruskin and went into the academic stream
- president of Royal Academy of Arts, London
John Everett - Christ in the house of his parents
- Christ is put into a realistic situation of a carpenter’s workshop; Christ is showing his stigmata - hints to crucifixion
- child with bowl of water - st John the Baptist, Christ’s cousin
- recalls the coolness, stiffness and unnatural expressions of medieval painting; symbolism:sheep - christ is a shepherd, red flower - passion of christ
John Everett Millais - Ferdinand Lured by Ariel
- illustratoin for Shakespeare’s tempest
- ferdinand heard his singing of Ariel but could not see the supernatural creature - Romantic mysticism
- fairies - frequently painted in 19thc Victorian art - believed to be existent by scientists
- a real depiction of an elaborate landscape treated with extremely fine realism
John Everett Millais - Ophelia
- tragic-romantic theme from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
- Ophelia went mad when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, drowned herself in a stream
- admired for the extremely accurate depiction of a natural landscape captured on-site and the image of the drowning girl - the model stayed in water for hours
- model: Elisabeth siddal, popular within the circle of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood, future wife of Rossetti
Edward Burne-Jones
- Followers of the Pre-Raphaelites
- mid 1850s - become Rossetti’s pupil
- travelled to Italy, strongly impressed by Botticelli’s work in Florence
- influence of Botticelli - women with pale ivory skin, graceful and elegant poses, melancholic goddesse without any expression
- dense vegetative decoration - taken from medieval and early renaissance tapestry
- typical themes of his art - myths and dreams
Edward Burne-Jones - sleeping beauty
- story from Grimm Brothers’ fable - series of 4 paintings
- typical beauty - attractive, cool and unreachable females placed in settings excessively decorated with botanical details - an idealized medieval world
Edward Burne-Jones - The unicorn in captivity (from the Unicorn Tapestries)
- example of he millefleurs background of flemish tapestry art
- flowers and plants carry symbolic meanings
Edward Burne-Jones - Laus Veneris (Praise of Venus)
- dreamy, languorous and remote in mood and setting; plae and sickly women with typical ivory flesh colour imitating the temperas of Sandro Botticelli
- venus is being praised by music-making maidens
- victorian beauty - objects of dream, and desire, but chaste and remote
William Morris
- followers of the Pre-Rapaelites
- poet, writer, painter and designer, shared the admiration of Botticelli’s art with Jones
- founded a textile design firmw th Jones and Rossetti
- keen promoter of the Arts and Crafts Movement, england
- bg: england held the frist world exposition in london, the bad quality and low aesthetic standard of industrial products irritated artists and scholars
Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris - “Pomona” Tapestry
- pomona - roman goddess of fruits from trees; elegant pose
- plants in the background - like a “herbarium” -medieval illustration for botanical studies
- repetitive, purely decorative
- latin inscription
Edward Burne-Jones and John Hentry - Pomona
- arts and crafts movement - bring back high quality medieval craftsmanship to industrial productions
- morris’s company was responsible for the spread of the brotherhood’s style to applied arts
William Morris - Failure of Sir Gawain
- inspired by the Legend of King Arthur - medieval literature
- idealized medieval world - highly spiritual, uncorrupted
- figures are elongated like gothic statues
William Morris - Failure of Sir Gawain
- inspired by the Legend of King Arthur - medieval literature
- idealized medieval world - highly spiritual, uncorrupted
- figures are elongated like gothic statues
William Morris - Texture design and furniture
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