(1828–1882), painters William Holman Hunt (1827–1910), John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Thomas Woolner (1825–1892), James Collinson (1825–1881), William Rossetti (1829–1919), George Stevens (1817–1875), having experienced the influence of F. M. Brown and J. Ruskin, sought to revive the “naive religiosity” of medieval and early Renaissance art.
Elder Pre-Raphaelites.
Based on the ideas of the art historian and critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), who proclaimed the principle of "fidelity to Nature", the artists united under the common idea of opposing cold academicism (whose roots they saw in the art of the High Renaissance) "living faith" of the so-called. primitive Italian art Trecento and Quattrocento. The Pre-Raphaelites turned not only to biblical subjects, but also to works of classical poetry and literature, to the work of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), John Keats (1795-1821).
The program of the Brotherhood included a romantic rejection of industrial society and bourgeois culture. Their art was supposed to contribute to the revival of spirituality in man, moral purity and religiosity. Imitation of the artistic tradition of Italian art of the 15th century. led to a combination of scrupulous transmission of nature with stylization and complex symbolism.
The paintings on biblical subjects belong to the first period of the Brotherhood's existence: D. G. Rossetti Maiden Mary (1849), carpentry workshop(1850), C.E. Collins Thoughts of a nun(1850–1851). The Pre-Raphaelites created a new type of female beauty in the visual arts - detached, calm, mysterious, which Art Nouveau artists would later develop: J. E. Milles Bridesmaid(1851). D. G. Rossetti worked especially hard on this topic, portraying his beloved Elizabeth Siddal, after whose death he idealized her image, as medieval knights did, singing the beauty of a beautiful lady: D. G. Rossetti Beata Beatrix(1863–1864), J. E. Milles Marianne(1851), W. Morris Queen Guinevere(1855). In the landscape, the artists were faithful to the accuracy in the transfer of nature: W.H. Hunt sacrificial goat(1854), lost sheep(1855), J. E. Milles Ophelia (1852), blind girl (1856), Autumn leaves(1856), Arthur Hughes (1832–1915) April love (1856).
An important role in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites was played by book graphics (graphics in the Germ magazine, which was edited by D.G. Rossetti, drawings by D.G. Rossetti for the publication of William Ellingham's The Music Teacher (1855).
After the successful first exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites, held in May 1849, a barrage of criticism soon fell upon them. Despite the subsequent recognition of their work, and the success of further exhibitions, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood disintegrates (according to one version in 1853, according to another - in 1855). The aesthetic side of the activities of the Brotherhood was inherited by the younger Pre-Raphaelites.
Younger Pre-Raphaelites.
In 1856, D. G. Rossetti met with William Morris (1834–1896) and Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), and this meeting marked the beginning of a new stage in the development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the main idea of which was aestheticism, stylization of forms, eroticism, cult of beauty and artistic genius. Pre-Raphaelite painting began to develop towards the complication of planar ornamentation and mystical coloring.
The ideas and practice of the Brotherhood largely influenced the development of symbolism in literature (W. Pater, O. Wilde). In turn, Walter Pater's idea of "art for art's sake" was embodied in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites.
The desire to enjoy work, lost in modern industrial society, declared by Ruskin, was reflected in paintings on the theme of work: Henry Wallis (1830-1916) stone crusher(1858), Ford Madox Brown (1821–1893) Work(1852–1865), William Scott (1811–1890) iron and coal (1860).
D. G. Rossetti remained true to the theme of the “beautiful lady”: Blue silk dress(1866). In 1858, W. Morris creates his only easel work Queen Guinevere. In 1889, at the World Exhibition in Paris, Burne-Jones received the Legion of Honor for his painting King Cofetua and a young beggar woman.
In 1890, W. Morris founded the Kelmscott-press publishing house (which existed until 1898), he designed all 66 books published by the publishing house, including fonts, initials, headpieces. Burne-Jones performed most of the illustrations for them.
Out of late Pre-Raphaelism a style grew Ar Nouveau, which later became an international style (in Italy this art is called style English(English style), in Austria - Secessions style, in Germany - Jugendstil, in France - Ar Nouveau, in Russia - style modern).
Characteristic for style Ar Nouveau decorativeness, ornamentality, eroticism, refined line are also found among the late Pre-Raphaelites.
Arts and Crafts Movement.
The activity of W. Morris on the revival of English arts and crafts was of a broader nature; it united many masters, incl. F.M. Brown, A. Hughes, arch. F. Webb, who sought to recreate manual production as opposed to machine production, to bring beauty into everyday life. Morris' main idea was the conviction that the decorative arts were as important as the fine arts, he strove for the unity of art and craft.
A new aspect of activity was born in the quest of the younger Pre-Raphaelites in 1857, when Rossetti received a commission to paint the central debate hall of the Oxford Union with scenes from Life of King Arthur T. Malory. This commission made it possible for seven artists to unite: Morris, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Arthur Hughes Spencer Stanhope, Wal Princer and Hungerford Pollen. The project was not successful, the fresco soon partly crumbled, but everyone liked the social aspect of working together.
In 1860, the famous "Red House" (Red House) (architect Philip Webb) in Bexleyheath was completed, which received its name because of the color of the brick from which it was built. The house became the center of the literary and artistic circle and the first example of the combination of functional and aesthetic goals that marked the beginning of the Arts and Crafts Movement. W. Morris and his friends painted the ceilings and walls of the house themselves, created sketches of furniture, draperies, stained-glass windows and tapestries. Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. appeared in 1861. Seven partners participated in this venture: Morris, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Webb, the artist Ford Medox Brown, Peter Paul Marshall, an engineer and amateur artist, and Charles Faulkner, a professor of mathematics at Oxford University. The first orders of the company were stained-glass windows, wallpaper-trellises. In 1866, the firm decorates the Armory and Tapestry Halls at St. James's Palace in London. In 1867 W. Morris, Burne-Jones and Webb decorate the Green Dining Room in the South Kensington Museum (Victoria and Albert Museum).
By 1875, the first experiments on dyeing fabrics date back. In the same year, the company is reorganized, called "Morris and Co", due to the fact that Morris becomes its sole director. In 1878, Morris bought a 5-story house in Hammersmith, renamed it Kelmscott House, installed looms there, and began work on tapestries and handmade carpets. In 1881, the company moved to Merton Abbey, an old factory, where they set up workshops for the production of stained glass, dyeing, printing and weaving. In the same year, the firm produces the decoration of the Throne Room of St. James's Palace.
The revival of crafts, the challenge of the traditional hierarchy of the arts, the emphasis on the social significance of the mode of production resulted in the founding in 1883 by W. Crane and L. Day of the Art Workers Guild, which became the center of the London Arts and Crafts Movement. In 1888, Walter Crane defined the goal of the Arts and Crafts Movement as "to transform artists into artisans and artisans into artists." The Society of Arts and Crafts was founded in 1888, and the first exhibition took place in the same year. At the second exhibition of the Society, W. Morris exhibited tapestries and painted cotton fabrics.
The "Arts and Crafts Movement" created a model for the activities of subsequent art groups in the last quarter of the 19th century.
The art of the Pre-Raphaelites absorbed different styles and trends and influenced the artistic life not only of the 19th but also of the 20th centuries.
Details Category: A variety of styles and trends in art and their features Posted on 07/29/2015 14:50 Views: 3029Pre-Raphaelitism is a purely English phenomenon. It manifested itself and developed in English poetry and painting in the second half of the 19th century.
The Pre-Raphaelites believed that modern English painting was in decline. In order to prevent its complete dying and revive it, it is necessary to return to the simplicity and sincerity that distinguished early Italian art.
Meaning of the term
The term "Pre-Raphaelites" literally means "before Raphael", and this is the era of the Early Renaissance. Representatives of the era "before Raphael" (XV-XVI centuries) in painting were Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini. But the Pre-Raphaelites themselves lived much later, in the 19th century. The fact is that the name "Pre-Raphaelites" meant spiritual kinship with the Florentine artists of the Early Renaissance, they desired this and aspired to this.
Goals of the Pre-Raphaelites
The main goal of the Pre-Raphaelites was: to break with academic tradition and blind imitation of the classics. This is reminiscent of the goal of our Wanderers, who were not satisfied with the conservative views and approaches to creativity that operated at the Imperial Academy of Arts. The similarity with the Wanderers, who were called "rebels", lies in the fact that the painting by John Everett Millais "Christ in the parental home" (1850) was also called "revolt in art" for excessive realism.
Let's look at this picture.
John Everett Millais, Christ in the Home of His Parents (1850). Canvas, oil. 83.3 x 139.7 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The painting depicts an episode from the childhood of Jesus Christ: in the foreground of the painting, the Mother of God kneels, looking at the Son with compassion and pain. The boy, complaining, shows her the wound on his arm. Probably, He was hurt by a nail, which Saint Anna pulls out of the table with tongs. At the table, Joseph and his assistants are busy with work. Young John the Baptist brings a bowl of water to Christ. Fresh shavings are scattered on the floor of the workshop, sheep are visible in the paddock behind the door.
This painting is not only simple and realistic, but also full of symbols. The wound in the palm of little Jesus, a drop of blood on his foot and nails symbolize the Crucifixion, a bowl of water - the Baptism of Christ, a dove on the stairs - the Holy Spirit, a triangle on the wall - the Trinity, sheep - an innocent sacrifice.
Why is this picture called "revolt in art"? First, the biblical story is depicted here as a scene from real life. Secondly, the Holy Family is depicted as ordinary people, without an elevated halo, during ordinary earthly labor. Thirdly, Jesus was portrayed as an ordinary village boy.
Criticism sharply negatively responded to this work, and Charles Dickens even called the picture "low, vile, disgusting and repulsive."
And only only John Ruskin(English writer, artist, art theorist, literary critic and poet) spoke positively about her and in general about the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. Since that time, cooperation between the critic and the Pre-Raphaelites began.
The development of British art was determined by the activities of the Royal Academy of Arts (as in Russia, the Imperial Academy of Arts). The traditions of academism were preserved in it with great care. Pre-Raphaelite artists declared that they did not want to depict people and nature as abstractly beautiful, and events far from reality, that they were tired of depicting mythological, historical and religious subjects in their paintings. The Pre-Raphaelites believed that everything must be written from nature. They chose friends or relatives as models. For example, in the painting "Youth of the Virgin Mary" Rossetti depicted his mother and sister Christina.
D. Rossetti "Youth of the Virgin Mary" (1848-1849). Tate Gallery (London)
Rossetti could draw a queen from a saleswoman, a goddess from a groom's daughter. Model artists have become equal partners.
The Pre-Raphaelites wanted to return to the high detail and deep colors of the painters of the Quattrocento era (the designation of the era of Italian art of the 15th century, correlated with the Early Renaissance period). They left the "cabinet" painting and began to paint in nature, made changes to the traditional painting technique - they painted over white, which served as a primer, with translucent paints, removing oil with blotting paper. This technique made it possible to achieve bright colors and proved to be very durable - their works have been preserved in their original form to this day.
But contemporaries did not understand this and continued to criticize the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. D. Rossetti's painting "The Annunciation" was also attacked.
D. Rossetti "Annunciation" (1850). Canvas, oil. 73 x 41.9 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The painting depicts a well-known gospel scene: “In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to the city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to the Virgin, betrothed to a husband named Joseph, from the house of David; the name of the Virgin: Mary. The angel, having entered to Her, said: Rejoice, Blessed One! The Lord is with you; blessed are you among women. She, seeing him, was embarrassed by his words and wondered what kind of greeting it would be. And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for you have found grace with God; and behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and thou shalt bear a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus” (Gospel of Luke; 1:26-31).
Rossetti departed from the Christian canon and thereby attracted the strongest criticism. The Mother of God on his canvas looks frightened, as if she recoiled from an angel with a white lily in her hands (a symbol of Mary's virginity). The picture is dominated by white, and the color of the Virgin is considered blue.
"Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood"
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a secret society. At first, the society consisted of 7 "brothers": John Everett Millais, Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his younger brother Michael Rossetti, Thomas Woolner, Frederick Stevens and James Collinson. All of them were in opposition to official artistic movements.
In 1853, the "Brotherhood" actually breaks up, but in 1856 a new stage in the development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement begins. But their main idea is aestheticism, stylization of forms, eroticism, the cult of beauty and artistic genius. At first, the leader of the movement was the same Rossetti, who, as one of the artists wrote, “was the planet around which we revolved. We even copied his manner of speaking.” Gradually, the leadership passed to Edward Burne-Jones, whose works are made in the style of the early Pre-Raphaelites. In 1889, at the World Exhibition in Paris, he received the Order of the Legion of Honor for the painting "King Cofetua and the Beggar Woman".
Edward Burne-Jones "King Cofetua and the Beggar Woman" (1884). Canvas, oil. 293.4 x 135.9 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The plot of the picture is based on a legend. King Cofetua was not interested in women until one day he met a pale, barefoot beggar girl. She turned out to be very beautiful, and most importantly - virtuous. The king fell in love with her and the beggar woman became queen.
This legend is mentioned in other works, including Shakespeare's plays.
In essence, the plot of this picture is one of the "eternal themes" - the admiration of a beautiful lady, the search for beauty and perfect love.
At this time, Pre-Raphaelism had already ceased to be criticized, it penetrated into all aspects of life: furniture, decorative art, architecture, interior decoration, book design, illustrations.
Of particular note is the creation by the Pre-Raphaelites of a new female image in art.
A new type of female beauty
Among the Pre-Raphaelites, this is a detached, calm, mysterious image, which Art Nouveau artists would later develop. The women in the Pre-Raphaelite paintings are reminiscent of the medieval image of ideal beauty and femininity, which is admired and worshipped. But a mystical, destructive beauty is also shown. For example, the painting by John William Waterhouse "The Lady of Shallot" (1888).
John William Waterhouse, The Lady of Shallot (1888). Canvas, oil. 200 x 153 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The picture is dedicated to the poem of the same name by Alfred Tennyson "The Sorceress Shalot" (translated by K. Balmont).
The poem tells the story of a girl named Elaine, who is cursed to stay in a tower on Shallot and forever weave a long cloth. Shallot is located on the river flowing to Camelot. No one knows about Elaine's existence, because the curse forbids her from leaving the tower and even looking out of the window. She has a huge mirror hanging in her room, which reflects the world around her, and the girl is engaged in weaving a tapestry, depicting on it the wonders of the world that she managed to see. Gradually, the world captures her more and more, and sitting alone in the tower becomes unbearable. One day she sees in the mirror how Sir Lancelot rides to Camelot, and leaves the room to look at him from the window. At that very moment, the curse is fulfilled, the tapestry is untangled, and the mirror is cracked. Elaine flees the tower, finds a boat and writes her name on it. She swims along the river and sings a sad song, but dies before reaching Camelot. She is found by the inhabitants, Lancelot is struck by her beauty.
Waterhouse portrays the Lady of Shallot at the moment when she is already sitting in the boat and holding the chain in her hands, which fastens the boat to the shore. Nearby lies a tapestry that she wove. It is now forgotten, partially submerged in water. Candles and a crucifix make the boat look like a funeral boat. The girl sings a farewell song.
The Pre-Raphaelites were attracted by spiritual purity and tragic love, unrequited love, an unattainable girl, a woman dying for love, marked by shame or a curse, as well as a dead woman of extraordinary beauty. August Egg created a series of paintings "Past and Present", which shows how the family hearth is destroyed as a result of the adultery of the mother. The woman lies on the floor with her face buried in the carpet, in a pose of desperation, and the bracelets on her hands resemble handcuffs. The eldest girl carefully listens to what is happening in the room - she already understands that a misfortune has happened in the family. The man is in despair.
The first painting in the Past and Present series by August Egg (1837). London
The Pre-Raphaelites tried to write out the landscape with maximum reliability.
D. Millet "Autumn Leaves" (1856)
D. Ruskin said about this picture: “For the first time, twilight is depicted so perfectly.”
Painters made sketches of tones from nature, reproducing them as brightly and distinctly as possible, so the Pre-Raphaelite landscape was not widely used, and then it was replaced by impressionism.
Pre-Raphaelite poetry
Many of the Pre-Raphaelite artists were also poets. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his sister Christina Rossetti, George Meredith, William Morris and Algernon Swinburne left a significant mark on English literature. Rossetti was fascinated by the poetry of the Italian Renaissance, especially the works of Dante. Rossetti created the cycle of sonnets "House of Life", which is the pinnacle of his work.
It was under the influence of Pre-Raphaelite poetry that the British decadence of the 1880s developed. Its most famous representative is Oscar Wilde.
Poet Algernon Swinburne experimented in versification, was a playwright and literary critic.
The value of the work of the Pre-Raphaelites
This artistic direction is known and popular in the UK. But it was distinguished by refined aristocracy, retrospectism (turning to the art of the past) and contemplation, so its impact on the broad masses was insignificant. Although the Pre-Raphaelites turned to the past, they contributed to the establishment of the Art Nouveau style in the visual arts, they are even considered the forerunners of the Symbolists. Especially the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites influenced the work of the French symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé. It is believed that Burne-Jones' painting greatly influenced the young Tolkien.
In Russia, the first exhibition of works by the Pre-Raphaelites was held May 14-18, 2008 at the Tretyakov Gallery.
R. Fenton. Interior of Tintern Abbey, late 1850s
In 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood arose in Great Britain - an association of artists created by William Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Milles. Young painters were against the system of academic education and the conservative tastes of Victorian society.
The Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by the painting of the Italian Proto-Renaissance and the 15th century, hence the very name "Pre-Raphaelites" - literally "before Raphael" (Italian High Renaissance artist Rafael Santi).
Frederick Scott Archer's invention of the wet colloid process, which replaced calotype, coincided with the rise of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Members of the fraternity enthusiastically welcomed the emergence of a new method. At a time when most artists considered the amazing accuracy of the photographic image to be a disadvantage, the Pre-Raphaelites, who themselves strove for scrupulous rendering of details in painting, admired this particular aspect of photography. An art critic who supported the ideas of the Pre-Raphaelites, John Ruskin, spoke of the first daguerreotypes he bought in Venice as “little treasures”: “As if a magician reduced a real object (San Marco or Canal Grande) so that he could take it with him to an enchanted land.
The Pre-Raphaelites, like many artists of that time, used photographs as a preparatory stage for creating paintings. Gabriel Rossetti took a series of photographs of Jane Morris, which became the material for the artist's future canvases. Rossetti and William Morris painted and photographed this woman many times, finding in her the features of the romantic medieval beauty that they so admired.
A few years after the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England, the “For highly artistic photography” movement appeared. The organizers of this movement were the painters Oscar Gustav Reilander (1813–1875) and Henry Peach Robinson (1830–1901), who were closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and shared their ideas. Reilander and Robinson, like the Pre-Raphaelites, drew inspiration from the world of images of medieval English literature, from the works of the English poets William Shakespeare and John Milton. In 1858, Robinson created one of his best photographs, The Lady of Shalott, close in composition to the Pre-Raphaelite painting Ophelia by D. Milles. Being an adherent of photomontage, Robinson printed a picture from two negatives: on one negative the author took a model in a boat, on the other he captured a landscape.
Members of the movement "For highly artistic photography" interpreted the picture as a picture, in full accordance with the norms of academic painting. In his book Pictorial Effect in Photography (1869), Robinson referred to the rules of composition, harmony, and balance necessary to achieve "painterly effect": using paint and pencil.
Oscar Gustaf Reilander was born in Sweden, studied painting in Italy and moved to England in 1841. Reilander became interested in photography in the 1850s. Fame brought him the allegorical composition "Two Ways of Life", exhibited in 1857 at the Exhibition of Art Treasures in Manchester. The photograph was made using the photomontage technique, and Reilander needed 30 (!) negatives to make it. But the lack of public recognition led him to abandon his laborious technique and move on to shooting portraits. Unlike his allegorical compositions, Rejlander's portraits are more perfect in terms of technique. Miss Mander's portrait is one of the finest Reilander's.
The painter Roger Fenton (1819–1869) had the highest opinion of photography, even founding a photographic society in 1853. His early photographic series with views of Russia, portraits of the royal family and reporting from the Crimean War brought him international recognition. Fenton's approach to the landscape is connected with the Pre-Raphaelites and their vision: a high horizon line, the absence of such romantic devices as haze, fog, etc. Fenton, like the Pre-Raphaelites, sought to emphasize his technical skill and sang the tangible reality of the landscape. The master also shared the Pre-Raphaelite interest in women in exotic attire, which can be seen in the "Nubian Water Carriers" or "Egyptian Dancing Girls".
Of particular note are the photographs of children taken by Lewis Carroll (1832–1898). Author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Carroll (real name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was also a gifted amateur photographer. For Carroll, light painting was not just a pastime, but a great passion, to which he sacrificed a lot of time and to which he devoted several small works and even the poem “Hiawatha the Photographer” (1857):
On Hiawatha's shoulder - A box of rosewood: The device is collapsible, Of planks and glass, Deftly tightened with screws, To fit in a chest. Hiawatha climbs into the casket And opens the hinges, Turning the small casket Into a cunning figure As if from the books of Euclid. Puts it on a tripod And climbs under the black canopy. Crouching, he waves his hand: - Well! Freeze! I beg you! A very strange activity.
The writer devoted 25 years to the "strange" occupation, during which he created wonderful children's portraits, showing himself to be a fine connoisseur of child psychology. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, who moved farther and farther into the world of their fantasy in search of ideal and beauty, Carroll was looking for his fabulous Alice in the photographic Looking Glass. Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1878) turned to photography in the mid-1860s when her daughter gave her a camera. “I longed to capture all the beauty that passed before me,” Cameron wrote, “and finally my desire was granted.”
In 1874–75, Cameron, at the request of her friend Tennyson, illustrated some of his poems and poems. The composition of the photograph "The Parting of Lancelot and Guinevere" is close to the composition of the paintings of D. G. Rossetti, but Cameron does not have the accuracy in conveying details that is inherent in the Pre-Raphaelites. By softening the optical pattern, Cameron achieves greater poetry in his works.
The work of the Pre-Raphaelites and photographers was very closely connected. And the influence was not one-sided. Julia Cameron, abandoning precise focusing, created magnificent photographic studies. Rossetti, who highly appreciated her work, changed his style of writing, subsequently striving for greater artistic generalization. Gabriel Rossetti and John Milles used photographs to create their paintings, and the photographers in turn turned to themes developed by the Pre-Raphaelites. Photo portraits created by L. Carroll, D. M. Cameron and O. G. Reilander convey not so much the character as the moods and dreams of their models - which is typical of Pre-Raphaelism. The approach to depicting nature was the same: the early landscapes of the Pre-Raphaelites and the landscapes of photographers such as, for example, Roger Fenton, are extremely accurate and detailed.
Mock, Rousseau and Voltaire, everywhere boldly drop Your mocking, laughing, eternally mocking look, Against the wind you throw a handful full of sand, The same wind will immediately throw it back to you. Having reflected the patterns in the grains of divine light, He will be able to turn them all into precious stones, And, throwing back the sand, he will blind the shameless eyes, And the roads of Israel shine and will shine. Democritus atoms, points that rush about, arguing, Light particles of Newton's child's play, These are only grains of sand on the shore of the Red Sea, Where Israel spread their golden tents. William Blake
Pre-Raphaelite Painting
Second half of the 19th century. Art is becoming more and more realistic.
The main theme of art is visible, audible, tangible..
But in the middle of the century, more precisely in 1849, in rationalistic Victorian England, whose atmosphere was very conducive to this state of affairs, an association of artists arose who opposed it with worlds of their own imagination, similar to a fairy tale.
It was during this era that the English professor of mathematics Lewis Carroll came up with the world of the Looking Glass
SIR JOHN EVERETT MILLES
called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, as opposed to the academic artists who considered themselves followers of the great Italian.
The very name of this society, which at first was secret, says a lot about the ideals and goals of these young people. No wonder they called their circle "Brotherhood" - as a kind of monastic or knightly order, expressing their desire for purity and spiritual tension of medieval art, and from the definition of "Pre-Raphaelites" it is clear which period they were guided by - before Raphael.
Members of the fraternity rushed to a different era, to the beautiful world of border art, the world of dying Gothic and the emerging Renaissance, when artists were "honest before God" artisans, by the time when the pursuit of the ideal had not yet deprived art of the main thing, in their opinion, - sincerity .
They believed that it was necessary to return to the pious, simple, natural and naturalistic style of the artists of the XIV-XV centuries. and, more importantly, return to nature itself
Later, Pre-Raphaelites began to be called not only direct members of the fraternity, but also other artists, as well as poets and writers of Victorian England, who professed similar aesthetic views.
Following the romantics of the beginning of the century, they drew inspiration from the images of the Middle Ages. In legends, chivalric romances, songs and sagas. And from the very beginning, next to the magical images of medieval legends, beautiful faces of Christian saints and martyrs arose.
A little later, antique motifs came into their work, but their interpretation was strikingly different from the usual.
They did not copy the medieval style, but tried to reproduce the spirit of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
What was the most important thing for them? There is only one answer - beauty.
It is not for nothing that they counted the creation of absolutely beautiful works of art among the main tasks of their association. In all the objects they took from reality, to construct their world, they found beauty, which in turn was evidence of divine greatness and nature, which had a transcendent origin. Beauty for them was the thread of Ariadne that connected our world and the Divine world.
The early romantics of the Victorian era.
Between 1848 and 49 the Pre-Raphaelites produced many paintings, easily distinguished by their bright colors and many carefully painted details. They turned to subjects that were not characteristic of academics: biblical scenes, medieval poetry (ballads, Chaucer), Shakespeare, folk ballads, the work of contemporary poets (for example, John Keats), etc.
Each painting was marked with a secret PRB sign. Their paintings can be called naturalistic, but they did not put into this word a modern meaning, but the idea that in imitation of the artists of the trecento and quattrocento, you need to write simply, without rules, without theory.
The famous "Annunciation" by Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Annunciation. 1850. Tate Gallery
The masters of the Italian Renaissance portrayed the Madonna as a saint who had nothing to do with everyday life.
By presenting the Annunciation realistically, Rossetti broke all traditions. His Madonna is an ordinary girl, embarrassed and frightened by the news brought to her by an Angel. This unusual approach, which infuriated many art lovers, was consistent with the intention of the Pre-Raphaelites to paint pictures truthfully.
The public did not like the painting "The Annunciation": the artist was accused of imitating the old Italian masters. The realism of the image caused strong disapproval (including Charles Dickens),
Rossetti was suspected of sympathizing with the papacy.
But the Pre-Raphaelites soon gained numerous admirers, especially among the growing middle class of central and northern England. Members of the "Brotherhood" expressed their ideas in articles, stories and poems published in their journal "Rostok", and by the end of 1850 they were known outside the academy.
"Beata Beatrix", a "monument" to the love of a lost wife...
Beata Beatrix. Day dreams.
The marriage and subsequent suicide of his wife, poetess and artist Elizabeth Siddal, also had a huge impact on his life and work. She was his student, model, lover and main source of inspiration. Rossetti loved her for almost 10 years, and made many sketches with Elizabeth, some of which later served as sketches for his paintings.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Beata Beatrix. 1864-1870.
Melancholic and ill with tuberculosis, Lizzie died two years after her marriage from an opium overdose.
"Ophelia" by John Millais, another tragic love story
John Milles. Ophelia. 1852. Tate Gallery
The stained-glass window in the window was painted from nature, and each dry leaf was painted with amazing care. Then Lizzy Siddell posed for this picture, which Milles forced to lie in the bath in order to paint wet fabric and hair in the most plausible way (Lizzie, of course, caught a cold).
The flowers depicted in the painting with stunning botanical accuracy also have a symbolic meaning - they refer to the text of the play. Stream and flowers Milles painted from nature. At first he included daffodils in the picture, but then he found out that at this time of the year they no longer bloom, and painted over them.
And again Shakespearean heroes, this time "Claudio and Isabella" (heroes of the play "Measure for Measure") by Holman Hunt ...
Shakespeare's Claudio and Isabella from Measure for Measure 1850
The plot of the play goes back to the popular in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
story, very common not only in the form of oral tradition, but also in
novelistic and dramatic processing. It basically boils down to
the following: the beloved or sister of a person sentenced to death asks
judges for his pardon; the judge promises to comply with her request, provided that
she will sacrifice her innocence to him for this. Having received the desired gift, the judge
no less orders to carry out the sentence; according to the complaint of the victim,
the ruler tells the offender to marry his victim, and after the wedding ceremony
execute him
On proper English soil, they were based on the views of William Blake and John Ruskin.
John Ruskin
Ruskin - art theorist
The art historian Raskin urged to look for God in nature and was also afraid that nature would soon disappear due to industrialization, and it was necessary to capture it the way God created it and "find His signature in it." He himself was not an outstanding artist, but he provided the Pre-Raphaelites with an ideological base. He liked the aspirations of the Pre-Raphaelites and he defended their methods from the attacks of academics.
In the religious and symbolic motifs of young Pre-Raphaelite artists, John Ruskin saw an important discovery in art. He proposed a set of unshakable rules calling for studying nature and using the achievements of science.
Ruskin:
“Is it not because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glass, not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of Him ... we imagine that we will be forgiven for shameful neglect of hills and streams, with which He endowed our habitation - the earth "
Thomas Phillips Portrait of William Blake 1807
William Blake - the harmony of nature, in his opinion, was only an anticipation of more
high harmony, which should be created by a holistic and spiritualized
personality. This conviction predetermined the creative principles of Blake.
For romantics, nature is a mirror of the soul, for Blake it is rather a book of symbols.
He does not value either the brilliance of the landscape or its authenticity, just as he does not value psychologism.
Painting by William Blake.
Everything around him is perceived in the light of spiritual conflicts,
and above all through the prism of the eternal conflict of mechanistic and free
visions. In nature, he reveals the same passivity and mechanism that
and in social life.
Hear the voice of the Singer! His song will wake your hearts with the Word of the Creator - the Word was, and is, and will be. Lost souls It calls, Crying over the evening dew, And the black firmament - Again the stars will light up, The world will tear out of the child's darkness! "Come back, O Light Earth, Shaking off the dewy darkness! The night is decrepit, Dawn haze Creeps in the inert quagmire. Never disappear!
In 1850, the Pre-Raphaelites published the magazine "Rostok" (The Germ), where they published literary experiments, their own and their friends - in fact, through this magazine they learned about them. But they never had a formal program, and all the artists, united by a common idea, were very different. Suffice it to say that by the mid-1850s they had actually gone their separate ways.
The first works of the Brotherhood are two paintings:
Isabella (1848-9, Milles) and the Childhood of Mary (1848-9, Rossetti).
Both are quite unusual for that time.
Isabella John Everett Millais.
For example, there is no perspective in Isabella: all the figures sitting at the table are the same size. An unconventional plot is used (a rather dark short story by Boccaccio, retold by Keats, about two lovers, Lorenzo and Isabella: Lorenzo was a servant in the house where Isabella lived with her brothers, and when the brothers found out that Lorenzo and Isabella were in love with each other, they the young man was killed; his spirit appeared to the girl and indicated where the body was buried, and Isabella went there, dug up her lover's head and hid it in a pot of basil; however, his brothers took it away from her, and in the end she died) and numerous symbols (on There is a pot with the same basil in the window, and two passionflowers, the “flower of suffering”, are intertwined near it; Lorenzo serves Isabella an orange on a plate, which depicts a biblical scene with a beheading).
Childhood of the Virgin Mary.
There is also no perspective in Mary's Childhood: the figures of the Virgin Mary and her mother Anna in the foreground are actually the same size as the figure of Joachim, Mary's father, in the second. It is interesting that the sacred plot is presented as quite everyday, and if it were not for the presence of an angel and halos above our heads, we might not understand that we have a scene from the life of the Mother of God before us. This picture is also filled with symbols that Rossetti was very fond of in general: a dove sits on a lattice, a symbol of the Holy Spirit and the future Annunciation; books - a symbol of virtue, a lily - purity, intertwined branches of a palm tree and a wild rose symbolize the seven joys and seven sorrows of the Virgin, grapes - communion, a lamp - piety. Many symbols, especially those of Rossetti, were not traditional, so the artists had to explain them to the audience; here, for example, a sonnet is written on the frame.
To be continued…
The name "Pre-Raphaelites" (eng. Pre-Raphaelites) was supposed to denote a spiritual relationship with the Florentine artists of the early Renaissance, that is, the artists "before Raphael" and Michelangelo: Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini.
The most prominent members of the Pre-Raphaelite movement were the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the painters William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, Arthur Hughes, Walter Crane, John William Waterhouse.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The first stage in the development of Pre-Raphaelism was the emergence of the so-called "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood", which initially consisted of seven "brothers": J. E. Millet, Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his younger brother Michael Rossetti, Thomas Woolner and painters Stevens and James Collinson.
D. G. Rossetti - Youth of the Virgin Mary, 1848-1849
The history of the Brotherhood begins in 1848, when at the exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, students of the Academy met Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had previously seen Hunt's work and admired them. Hunt helps Rossetti complete the painting Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1848-49), which was exhibited in 1849, and he also introduces Rossetti to John Everett Millais, a young genius who entered the Academy at the age of 11- and years. They not only became friends, but discovered that they shared each other's views on modern art: in particular, they believed that modern English painting had reached a dead end and was dying, and the best way to revive it would be to return to the sincerity and simplicity of early Italian art (then there are arts before Raphael, whom the Pre-Raphaelites considered the founder of academism).
Augustus Egga - Past and Present, 1837
This is how the idea of creating a secret society called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was born - a society that is in opposition to official artistic movements. From the very beginning, James Collinson (a student of the Academy and fiance of Christina Rossetti), the sculptor and poet Thomas Woolner, a young nineteen-year-old artist and later critic Frederick Stevens, and Rossetti's younger brother William Rossetti, who followed in the footsteps of his older brother entered art school, were also invited to the group from the very beginning. but he did not show a special vocation for art and, in the end, became a famous art critic and writer. Madox Brown was close to the German Nazarenes, so he, sharing the ideas of the Brotherhood, refused to join the group.
In Rossetti's painting "The Youth of the Virgin Mary", three conditional letters P. R. B. (eng. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) first appear, the same initials marked "Isabella" by Millet and "Rienzi" (eng. Rienzi) by Hunt. Members of the Brotherhood also created their own magazine, called The Sprout, although it lasted only from January to April 1850. Its editor was William Michael Rossetti (brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti).
Pre-Raphaelites and academicism
Before the advent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the development of British art was determined mainly by the activities of the Royal Academy of Arts. Like any other official institution, it was very jealous and cautious about innovations, while maintaining the traditions of academicism. Hunt, Millais and Rossetti stated in the Rostok magazine that they did not want to depict people and nature as abstractly beautiful, and events far from reality, and, finally, they were tired of the conventionality of official, "exemplary" mythological, historical and religious works.
D. G. Rossetti - The Holy Grail, 1860
The Pre-Raphaelites abandoned the academic principles of work and believed that everything must be written from nature. They chose friends or relatives as models. So, for example, in the painting "Youth of the Virgin Mary" Rossetti depicted his mother and sister Christina, and looking at the painting "Isabella", contemporaries recognized Millet's friends and acquaintances from the Brotherhood. He, during the creation of the painting "Ophelia", forced Elizabeth Siddal to lie in a filled bath for several hours. It was winter, so Siddal caught a bad cold and later sent Milla a £50 doctor's bill.
D. E. Millais - Ophelia, 1852
Moreover, the Pre-Raphaelites changed the relationship between the artist and the model - they became equal partners. If the heroes of Reynolds' paintings are almost always dressed according to their social status, then Rossetti could draw a queen from a saleswoman, a goddess from a groom's daughter. The prostitute Fanny Cornforth posed for him for the painting "Lady Lilith".
D. G. Rossetti - Lady Lilith, 1868
Members of the Brotherhood have been irritated from the beginning by the influence on contemporary art of such artists as Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Wilkie and Benjamin Haydon. They even nicknamed Sir Joshua (the president of the Academy of Arts) “Sir Slosh” (from the English slosh - “to spank in the mud”) for his sloppy painting technique and style, which they considered to be completely borrowed from academic mannerism. The situation was aggravated by the fact that at that time artists often used bitumen, and it makes the image cloudy and dark. In contrast, the Pre-Raphaelites wanted to return to the high detail and deep colors of the painters of the Quattrocento era. They abandoned "armchair" painting and began to paint in nature, and also made changes to the traditional painting technique. On a primed canvas, the Pre-Raphaelites outlined the composition, applied a layer of white and removed oil from it with blotting paper, and then wrote over the white with translucent paints. The chosen technique made it possible to achieve bright, fresh tones and proved to be so durable that their works have been preserved in their original form to this day.
Fighting criticism
At first, the work of the Pre-Raphaelites was received rather warmly, but harsh criticism and ridicule soon fell. Millet's overly naturalistic painting "Christ in the Parental Home", exhibited in 1850, caused such a wave of indignation that Queen Victoria asked to be taken to Buckingham Palace for self-examination.
D. E. Millais - Christ in the parental home, 1850
Public opinion was also attacked by Rossetti's painting "The Annunciation", made with deviations from the Christian canon. At an exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1850, Rossetti, Hunt and Millais failed to sell a single painting. In a review published in the weekly Ateneum, critic Frank Stone wrote:
“Ignoring everything great that was created by the old masters, this school, to which Rossetti belongs, trudges with uncertain steps towards its early predecessors. This is an archeology devoid of any usefulness and turned into doctrinairism. People belonging to this school claim to follow the truth and simplicity of nature. In fact, they slavishly imitate artistic ineptitude."
The principles of the Brotherhood were criticized by many respected painters: the president of the Academy of Arts, Charles Eastlake, the group of artists "Clique", which was headed by Richard Dadd. As a result, James Collinson even renounced the Brotherhood, and the engagement with Christina Rossetti was broken off. Subsequently, his place was taken by the painter Walter Deverell.
The situation was saved to some extent by John Ruskin, an influential art historian and art critic in England. Although he was only thirty-two in 1850, he was already the author of well-known works on art. In several articles published in The Times, Ruskin gave the works of the Pre-Raphaelites a flattering assessment, emphasizing that he did not personally know any of the Brotherhood. He proclaimed that their work could "form the foundation of an art school greater than anything the world had known for the previous 300 years." In addition, Ruskin bought many of the paintings of Gabriel Rossetti, which supported him financially, and took Millet under his wing, in whom he immediately saw an outstanding talent.
John Ruskin and his influence
D. E. Millais - John Ruskin in a portrait, 1853-1854
The English critic John Ruskin put the Pre-Raphaelite ideas about art in order, arranging them into a logical system. Among his works, the most famous are Fiction: Fair and Foul, The Art of England, Modern Painters. He is also the author of the article "Pre-Raphaelitism" (Eng. Pre-Raphaelitism), published in 1851.
“Today's artists,” wrote Ruskin in Contemporary Artists, “depict [nature] either too superficially or too embellished; they do not try to penetrate [her] essence.” As an ideal, Ruskin put forward medieval art, such masters of the Early Renaissance as Perugino, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, and encouraged artists "to paint pictures with a pure heart, focusing on nothing, choosing nothing and neglecting nothing." Similarly, Madox Brown, who influenced the Pre-Raphaelites, wrote about his painting The Last of England (eng. The Last of England, 1855): “I tried to forget all existing artistic currents and reflect this scene as it should to look like". Madox Brown specifically painted this painting on the coast in order to achieve the effect of "lighting from all sides" that happens at sea on cloudy days. The Pre-Raphaelite technique of painting pictures involved the study of every detail.
M. Brown - Farewell to England, 1855
Ruskin also proclaimed the “principle of fidelity to Nature”: “Isn’t it because we love our creations more than His, we value colored glasses, and not bright clouds ... And, making fonts and erecting columns in honor of Him ... we imagine that we will be forgiven our shameful neglect of the hills and streams with which He endowed our habitation - the earth. Thus, art was supposed to contribute to the revival of spirituality in man, moral purity and religiosity, which also became the goal of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Ruskin owns a clear definition of the artistic goals of Pre-Raphaelism:
It is easy to control the brush and write herbs and plants with sufficient fidelity to the eye; anyone can achieve this after a few years of work. But to depict among herbs and plants the secrets of creation and combinations with which nature speaks to our understanding, to convey the gentle bend and wavy shadow of the loosened earth, to find in everything that seems the smallest, a manifestation of the eternal divine new creation of beauty and greatness, to show it to the unthinking and unseeing - such is appointment of the artist.
Ruskin's ideas deeply touched the Pre-Raphaelites, especially William Holman Hunt, who infected Millais and Rossetti with his enthusiasm. In 1847, Hunt wrote of Ruskin's Modern Painters: "More than any other reader, I felt that the book was written especially for me." Defining his approach to work, Hunt also noted that it was important for him to start from the subject, "and not only because there is a charm of completeness of the subject, but in order to understand the principles of design that exist in Nature."
Decay
After Pre-Raphaelism received the support of Ruskin, the Pre-Raphaelites were recognized and loved, they were given the right to "citizenship" in art, they become fashionable and receive a more favorable reception at the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, they are successful at the World Exhibition of 1855 in Paris.
Arthur Hughes - April Love, 1855-1856
In addition to the already mentioned Madox Brown, the Pre-Raphaelite style was also interested in Arthur Hughes (best known for the painting April Love, 1855-1856), Henry Wallis, Robert Braithwaite Martineau, William Windus ) and others.
D.E. Millais - Huguenot, 1852
However, the Brotherhood is falling apart. Apart from a young revolutionary romantic spirit and a fascination with the Middle Ages, there was little that united these people, and of the early Pre-Raphaelites, only Holman Hunt remained true to the doctrine of the Brotherhood. When Millais became a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1853, Rossetti declared this event the end of the Brotherhood. “The Round Table is now dissolved,” concludes Rossetti. Gradually, the rest of the members leave. Holman Hunt, for example, went to the Middle East, Rossetti himself, instead of landscapes or religious themes, became interested in literature and created many works on Shakespeare and Dante.
Attempts to revive the Fellowship as the Hogarth Club, which existed from 1858 to 1861, failed.
Further development of Pre-Raphaelitism
In 1856, Rossetti met with William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Burne-Jones was fascinated by Rossetti's The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice, and he and Morris subsequently asked to be his apprentice. Burne-Jones spent whole days at Rossetti's studio, with Morris joining on weekends.
D. G. Rossetti - The first anniversary of the death of Beatrice, 1853
Thus begins a new stage in the development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, the main idea of which is aestheticism, stylization of forms, eroticism, the cult of beauty and artistic genius.] All these features are inherent in the work of Rossetti, who at first was the leader of the movement. As artist Val Princep later wrote, Rossetti “was the planet around which we revolved. We even copied his manner of speaking.” However, Rossetti's health (including mental health) is deteriorating, and gradually Edward Burne-Jones, whose works are made in the style of the early Pre-Raphaelites, takes the lead. He became extraordinarily popular and had a great influence on such painters as William Waterhouse, Bayam Shaw, Cadogan Cooper, his influence is also noticeable in the works of Aubrey Beardsley and other illustrators of the 1890s. In 1889, at the World Exhibition in Paris, he received the Order of the Legion of Honor for the painting "King Cofetua and the Beggar Woman".
Edward Burne-Jones - King Cofetua and the Beggar Woman, 1884
Among the late Pre-Raphaelites, one can also distinguish such painters as Simeon Solomon (born Simeon Solomon) and Evelyn de Morgan (Evelyn de Morgan), as well as illustrators Henry Ford (Henry Justice Ford) and Evelyn Paul (Evelyn Paul).
Henry Ford - Stepmother Turning Her Brothers Into Swans, 1894
Evelyn Paul - Divine Comedy
"Arts and Crafts"
Pre-Raphaelitism at this time penetrates into all aspects of life: furniture, decorative arts, architecture, interior decoration, book design, illustrations.
William Morris is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the decorative arts of the 19th century. He founded the Arts and Crafts Movement, the main idea of which was the return to manual craftsmanship as an ideal of applied art, as well as the elevation to the rank of full-fledged arts of printing, casting, engraving. This movement, which was picked up by Walter Crane, Macintosh, Nelson Dawson, Edwin Lutyens, Wright and others, subsequently manifested itself in English and American architecture, interior design, landscape design.
Poetry
Most of the Pre-Raphaelites were engaged in poetry, but, according to many critics, it is precisely the late period of the development of Pre-Raphaelism that it has value. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his sister Christina Rossetti, George Meredith, William Morris and Algernon Swinburne left a significant mark on English literature, but the greatest contribution was made by Rossetti, captured by the poems of the Italian Renaissance and especially the works of Dante. The main lyrical achievement of Rossetti is the cycle of sonnets "The House of Life" (The House of Life). Christina Rossetti was also a famous poet. Rossetti's lover, Elizabeth Siddal, was also engaged in poetry, whose works remained unpublished during her lifetime. William Morris was not only a recognized master of stained glass, but also led an active literary activity, including writing many poems. His first collection, The Defense of Guinevere and Other Poems, was published in 1858, when the author was 24 years old.
Under the influence of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, the British decadence of the 1880s developed: Ernst Dawson, Lionel Johnson, Michael Field, Oscar Wilde. The romantic yearning for the Middle Ages found its way into Yeats' early work.
William Yeats - He Who Dreamed of Fairyland (1893)
He lingered in the market at Dromachere,
I considered myself in a foreign country native,
Dreamed of loving while the earth is behind him
Did not close the stone doors;
But someone is a pile of fish not far away,
Like silver, scattered on the counter,
And those, raising their cold heads,
They sang about an unearthly island,
Where are the people above the embroidered wave
Under the woven canopy of fixed crowns
Love tame the passage of time.
And he lost his happiness and peace.
He wandered the sands for a long time in Lissadell
And in my dreams I saw how he would live,
Having gained wealth and honor,
Until the bones decayed in the grave;
But from a random puddle a worm
Sang to him with a marsh gray throat,
That somewhere in the distance at the will of the sweet
Everyone dances from sonorous joy
Under the gold and silver of heaven;
When suddenly there is silence
The fruits radiate the sun and the moon.
He realized that he dreamed of useless things.
He thought at the well in Skanavin,
What is the fury of the heart to the mocking light
Will enter the rumor around for many years,
When the flesh will sink in the earthly abyss;
But then the weed sang to him about
What will become of his chosen people
Above the old wave, under the firmament,
Where gold is torn apart by silver
And darkness envelops the world victoriously;
Sang to him about what a night
Lovers can help forever.
And his anger dissipated without a trace.
He slept under the smoky cliff at Lugnagoll;
It would seem, now, in the vale of sleep,
When the earth took its full,
He could forget about the homeless share.
But will the worms stop howling
Weaving rings around his bones,
That God lays his fingers on heaven,
To envelop with a gentle radiance
Dancers over a thoughtless wave?
Why dream, while the Lord's ardor
Happy love is not scorched?
He did not find peace even in the grave.
The famous poet Algernon Swinburne, who became famous for his bold experiments in versification, was also a playwright and literary critic. Swinburne dedicated his first drama The Queen Mother and Rosamond, written in 1860, to Rossetti, with whom he had friendly relations. However, although Swinburne has declared his adherence to the principles of Pre-Raphaelism, he certainly goes beyond this direction.
Publishing
In 1890, William Morris organized the Kelmscott Press, in which, together with Burne-Jones, he published several books. This period is called the culmination of the life of William Morris. Based on the traditions of medieval scribes, Morris, like the English graphic artist William Blake, tried to find a unified style for the design of the book's page, its title page and binding. Morris's best publication was The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer; the fields are decorated with climbing plants, the text is enlivened by miniature screensavers and ornamented capital letters. As Duncan Robinson wrote,
To the modern reader, accustomed to the simple and functional types of the 20th century, Kelmscott Press editions seem like luxurious creations of the Victorian era. Rich ornamentation, patterns in the form of leaves, illustrations on wood - all this becomes the most important examples of the decorative art of the 19th century; everything is done by the hands of a man who has contributed more to this field than anyone else.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Ballads and epic poems (Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Ballads and narrative poems). - L .: Kelmscott Press, 1893. Published by William Morris
Morris designed all 66 books published by the publisher, and Burne-Jones did most of the illustrations. The publishing house lasted until 1898 and had a strong influence on many illustrators of the late 19th century, in particular, on Aubrey Beardsley.
aesthetic movement
In the late 50s, when the paths of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites diverge, there is a need for new aesthetic ideas and new theorists who form these ideas. The art historian and literary critic Walter Horatio Pater became such a theorist. Walter Pater believed that the main thing in art is the immediacy of individual perception, therefore art should cultivate every moment of experiencing life: “Art gives us nothing but awareness of the highest value of each passing moment and the preservation of all of them.” To a large extent, through Pater, the ideas of “art for art’s sake”, drawn from Theophile Gauthier, Charles Baudelaire, are transformed into the concept of aestheticism (English Aesthetic movement), which is spreading among English artists and poets: Whistler, Swinburne, Rosseti, Wilde. Oscar Wilde also had a strong influence on the development of the aesthetic movement (including Rossetti's later work), being personally acquainted with both Holman Hunt and Burne-Jones. He, like many of his peers, read the books of Pater and Ruskin, and Wilde's aestheticism largely grew out of Pre-Raphaelitism, which carried a charge of sharp criticism of modern society from the standpoint of beauty. Oscar Wilde wrote that “aesthetics is higher than criticism”, which considers art to be the highest reality, and life a kind of fiction: “I write because writing for me is the highest artistic pleasure. If my work is liked by a select few, I am happy about it. If not, I'm not upset." The Pre-Raphaelites were also fond of Keats's poetry and fully accepted his aesthetic formula which said that "beauty is the only truth."
Plots
W. H. Hunt - Awakened modesty, 1853
At first, the Pre-Raphaelites preferred evangelical scenes, and they avoided a church character in painting and interpreted the Gospel symbolically, emphasizing not the historical fidelity of the depicted evangelical episodes, but their internal philosophical meaning. So, for example, in Hunt's The Light of Peace, in the form of the Savior with a bright lamp in his hands, the mysterious divine light of faith is depicted, striving to penetrate into closed human hearts, just as Christ knocks at the door of a human dwelling.
W. H. Hunt - Light of the World, 1854
The Pre-Raphaelites draw attention to the theme of social inequality in the Victorian era, emigration (the work of Madox Brown, Arthur Hughes), the downgraded position of women (Rossetti), Holman Hunt even touched on the topic of prostitution in his painting The Awakening Conscience (eng. The Awakening Conscience, 1853 .). In the picture, we see a fallen woman who suddenly realized that she was sinning, and, forgetting about her lover, is freed from his arms, as if having heard some kind of call through an open window. The man does not understand her spiritual impulses and continues to play the piano. Here the Pre-Raphaelites were not pioneers, they were anticipated by Richard Redgrave with his famous painting The Governess (1844).
R. Redgrave - Governess, 1844
And later, in the 40s, Redgrave created many similar works dedicated to the exploitation of women.
D. G. Rossetti - Proserpina, 1874
The Pre-Raphaelites also dealt with historical topics, achieving the greatest accuracy in depicting factual details; turned to the works of classical poetry and literature, to the work of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, John Keats. They idealized the Middle Ages, loved medieval romance and mysticism.
Women's images
The Pre-Raphaelites created a new type of female beauty in the visual arts - detached, calm, mysterious, which Art Nouveau artists would later develop. The woman on the canvases of the Pre-Raphaelites is a medieval image of ideal beauty and femininity, she is admired and worshipped. This is especially noticeable in Rossetti, who admired beauty and mystery, as well as in Arthur Hughes, Millais, Burne-Jones. Mystical, fatal beauty, la femme fatale later found expression in William Waterhouse. In this regard, the painting "The Lady of Shalotte" (1888), which is still one of the most popular exhibits of the Tate Gallery, can be called a landmark. It is based on a poem by Alfred Tennyson. Many painters (Holman Hunt, Rossetti) illustrated Tennyson's works, in particular, The Lady of Shalott. The story tells of a girl who must stay in a tower, isolated from the outside world, and at the very moment when she decides to escape, she signs her own death warrant.
W. Waterhouse - The Lady of Shalott, 1888
The image of tragic love was attractive to the Pre-Raphaelites and their followers: in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than fifty paintings were created on the theme of “Lady of Shalott”, and the title of the poem turned into an idiom. The Pre-Raphaelites were attracted, in particular, by such themes as spiritual purity and tragic love, unrequited love, an unattainable girl, a woman dying for love, marked by shame or a curse, and a dead woman of extraordinary beauty.
W. Waterhouse - Ophelia, 1894
The Victorian concept of femininity was revised. For example, in "Ophelia" by Arthur Hughes or a series of paintings "Past and Present" (English Past and Present, 1837-1860) by Augustus Egg, a woman is shown as a person capable of experiencing sexual desire and passion, often leading to an untimely death. Augustus Egg created a series of works that show how the family hearth is destroyed after the mother's adultery is revealed. In the first picture, the woman is lying on the floor, her face buried in the carpet, in a pose of complete despair, and the bracelets on her hands resemble handcuffs. Dante Gabriel Rossetti uses the figure of Proserpina from ancient Greek and Roman mythology: a young woman stolen by Pluto into the underworld and desperately dreaming of returning to earth. She eats only a few pomegranate seeds, but a small piece of food is enough for a person to remain forever in the underworld. Proserpina Rossetti is not just a beautiful woman with a thoughtful look. She is very feminine and sensual, and the pomegranate in her hands is a symbol of passion and temptation to which she succumbed.
W. Waterhouse - "Shadows haunt me," said the Lady of Shalott, 1911
One of the main themes in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites is a seduced woman, destroyed by unrequited love, betrayed by her beloved, a victim of tragic love. Most of the paintings explicitly or implicitly present a man responsible for the fall of a woman. As an example, Hunt's "Awakened Shame" or Millet's painting "Marian" can be cited.
D.E. Millais - Mariana, 1851
Similar themes can be traced in poetry: in The Defense of Guenevere by William Morris, in Christina Rossetti's poem "Quick Love" (Eng. Light Love, 1856), in Rossetti's poem "Jenny" (1870), where a fallen woman is shown, a prostitute who is completely unconcerned about her position and even enjoys sexual freedom.
Scenery
W. H. Hunt - English Shores, 1852
Holman Hunt, Millais, Madox Brown designed the landscape. The painters William Dyce, Thomas Seddon, John Brett also enjoyed some fame. The landscape painters of this school are especially famous for their depiction of clouds, which they inherited from their famous predecessor, William Turner. They tried to write out the landscape with maximum certainty. Hunt expressed his thoughts this way: "I want to paint a landscape ... depicting every detail that I can see." And about the painting by Millet "Autumn Leaves" Ruskin said: "For the first time, twilight is depicted so perfectly."
D.E. Millais - Autumn Leaves, 1856
Painters made scrupulous studies of tones from nature, reproducing them as brightly and distinctly as possible. This microscopic work required great patience and labor; in their letters or diaries, the Pre-Raphaelites complained about the need to stand for hours under the hot sun, rain, wind, in order to draw, at times, a very small segment of the picture. For these reasons, the Pre-Raphaelite landscape was not widely used, and then it was replaced by Impressionism.
Lifestyle
Pre-Raphaelitism is a cultural style that penetrated the lives of its creators and to some extent determined this life. The Pre-Raphaelites lived in the environment they created and made such an environment extremely fashionable. As Andrea Rose notes in her book, at the end of the 19th century, “fidelity to nature gives way to fidelity to image. The image becomes recognizable and therefore quite ready for the market.”
William Morris - Queen Ginevra, 1858
The American writer Henry James, in a letter dated March 1969, told Sister Alice about his visit to the Morrises.
“Yesterday, my dear sister,” writes James, “was a kind of apotheosis for me, as I spent most of this day in the house of Mr. W. Morris, the poet. Morris lives in the same house where he opened his shop in Bloomsbury ... You see, poetry is a secondary occupation for Morris. First of all, he is a manufacturer of stained-glass windows, faience tiles, medieval tapestries and church embroidery - in general, everything pre-Raphaelite, ancient, unusual and, I must add, incomparable. Of course, all this is done on a modest scale and can be done at home. The things he makes are extraordinarily elegant, precious and expensive (they outsell the greatest luxury items), but because his factory cannot be of too much importance. But everything that he has created is amazing and excellent ... he is also helped by his wife and young daughters.
Henry James goes on to describe William Morris's wife, Jane Morris (nee Jane Burden), who later became Rossetti's lover and model and who can be found constantly in the paintings of this painter:
“Oh, my dear, what a woman! She is wonderful in everything. Imagine a tall, thin woman, in a long dress of muted purple fabric, of natural matter to the last lace, with a mop of curly black hair falling in large waves over her temples, a small and pale face, large dark holes, deep and quite Swinburne, with thick black curved eyebrows... A high open neck in pearls, and in the end - perfection itself. On the wall hung an almost life-size portrait of her by Rossetti, so strange and unreal that if you saw it, you would take it for a painful vision, but of extraordinary similarity and fidelity to features. After dinner... Morris read us one of his unpublished poems... and his wife, suffering from a toothache, was resting on the sofa, with a handkerchief to her face. It seemed to me that there was something fantastic and remote from our real life in this scene: Morris reading the legend of miracles and horrors in smooth antique size (it was the story of Bellerophon), around us are picturesque second-hand furniture of the apartment (each object is an example of something or), and, in the corner, this gloomy woman, silent and medieval with her medieval toothache.
Pre-Raphaelites were surrounded by women of different social status, lovers, models. One journalist writes about them like this: "... women without crinolines, with flowing hair ... unusual, like a feverish dream, in which magnificent and fantastic images slowly move."
Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived in a refined and bohemian atmosphere, and his eccentric image became part of the Pre-Raphaelite legend in itself: Rossetti lived with a variety of people, including the poet Algernon Swinburne, the writer George Meredith. Models succeeded one another, some of them became Rossetti's mistresses, the vulgar and stingy Fanny Cornforth is especially famous. Rossetti's house was full of antiques, antique furniture, Chinese porcelain and other knick-knacks, which he bought in junk shops. The garden was inhabited by owls, wombats, kangaroos, parrots, peacocks, at one time even a bull lived there, whose eyes reminded Rossetti of the eyes of his beloved Jane Morris.
Significance of Pre-Raphaelitism
Pre-Raphaelitism as an artistic movement is widely known and popular in the UK. It is also called the first British movement to achieve world fame, however, among researchers, the value is estimated in different ways: from a revolution in art to pure innovation in painting technique. There is an opinion that the movement began with an attempt to update painting, and later had a great influence on the development of literature and the entire English culture as a whole. According to the Literary Encyclopedia, in view of their refined aristocracy, retrospection and contemplation, their work had little effect on the broad masses.
Despite the apparent appeal to the past, the Pre-Raphaelites contributed to the establishment of the Art Nouveau style in the visual arts, moreover, they are considered the forerunners of the Symbolists, sometimes even identifying both. For example, that the exhibition "Symbolism in Europe", moving from November 1975 to July 1976 from Rotterdam via Brussels and Baden-Baden to Paris, took 1848 as the starting date - the year the Brotherhood was founded. Pre-Raphaelite poetry left its mark on the French symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé, and painting on such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, Waterhouse, and lesser-known ones like Edward Hughes or Calderon. Some even note the influence of Pre-Raphaelite painting on English hippies, and Burne-Jones on the young Tolkien. Interestingly, in his youth, Tolkien, who together with friends organized the semi-secret society "Tea Club", compared them with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Some Pre-Raphaelite Works
D.E. Millais - Cherry Ripe, 1879
D.E. Millais - Lorenzo and Isabella, 1849
D.E. Millais - The North-West Passage, 1874
D.E. Millais - Black Brunswick Hussars, 1860
D. G. Rossetti - Beata Beatrix, 1864-1870
D. G. Rossetti - Annunciation, 1850
W.Watrehouse - Gilias and the Nymphs, 1896
W.H. Hunt - Finding the Savior in the Temple, 1860
W.H. Hunt - Hired Shepherd, 1851
