Pre-Raphaelites

Pre-Raphaelites Oil paintings

Pre-Raphaelites is also known as Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, group of young British painters who banded together in 1848 in reaction against what they conceived to be the unimaginative and artificial historical painting of the Royal Academy and who purportedly sought to express a new moral seriousness and sincerity in their works. They were inspired by Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries, and their adoption of the name Pre-Raphaelite expressed their admiration for what they saw as the direct and uncomplicated depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High Renaissance and, particularly, before the time of Raphael. Although the Brotherhood’s active life lasted not quite five years, its influence on painting in Britain, and ultimately on the decorative arts and interior design, was profound.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848 by three Royal Academy students: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a gifted poet as well as a painter, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais, all under 25 years of age. The painter James Collinson, the painter and critic F.G. Stephens, the sculptor Thomas Woolner, and the critic William Michael Rossetti (Dante Gabriel’s brother) joined them by invitation. The painters William Dyce and Ford Madox Brown, who acted in part as mentors to the younger men, came to adapt their own work to the Pre-Raphaelite style.

Pre-Raphaelites immediately began to produce highly convincing and significant works. Their pictures of religious and medieval subjects strove to revive the deep religious feeling and naive, unadorned directness of 15th-century Florentine and Sienese painting. The style that Hunt and Millais evolved featured sharp and brilliant lighting, a clear atmosphere, and a near-photographic reproduction of minute details. They also frequently introduced a private poetic symbolism into their representations of biblical subjects and medieval literary themes. Rossetti’s work differed from that of the others in its more arcane aesthetic and in the artist’s general lack of interest in copying the precise appearance of objects in nature. Vitality and freshness of vision are the most admirable qualities of these early Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Some of the founding members exhibited their first works anonymously, signing their paintings with the monogram PRB. When their identity and youth were discovered in 1850, their work was harshly criticized by the novelist Charles Dickens, among others, not only for its disregard of academic ideals of beauty but also for its apparent irreverence in treating religious themes with an uncompromising realism. Nevertheless, the leading art critic of the day, John Ruskin, stoutly defended Pre-Raphaelite art, and the members of the group were never without patrons.

By 1854 the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had gone their individual ways, but their style had a wide influence and gained many followers during the 1850s and early ’60s. In the late 1850s Dante Gabriel Rossetti became associated with the younger painters Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris and moved closer to a sensual and almost mystical romanticism. Millais, the most technically gifted painter of the group, went on to become an academic success. Hunt alone pursued the same style throughout most of his career and remained true to Pre-Raphaelite principles. Pre-Raphaelitism in its later stage is epitomized by the paintings of Burne-Jones, characterized by a jewel-toned palette, elegantly attenuated figures, and highly imaginative subjects and settings.

5
     

We can paint

ANY IMAGE

in ANY SIZE

Request a quote
Boreas 1903
Best Seller

Boreas 1903

$119.34$73.9938% off
The Danaides 1906
Best Seller
Echo and Narcissus 1903
Best Seller
The Lady of Shallot
Best Seller
A Hamadryad 1893
Best Seller

A Hamadryad 1893

$171.36$106.2438% off
Study for The Mermaid
Best Seller
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Best Seller
A Naiad, study 1893
Best Seller
Good Neighbours 1885
Best Seller
Danae
Best Seller

Danae

$160.65$99.6038% off
A Scottish Baronial House 1907
Best Seller
Miranda 1916
Best Seller

Miranda 1916

$149.18$92.4938% off
Pandora 1896
Best Seller

Pandora 1896

$117.05$72.5738% off
Gone, But Not Forgotten 1873
Best Seller
Ophelia 1889
Best Seller

Ophelia 1889

$211.14$130.9138% off
Miranda 1875
Best Seller

Miranda 1875

$152.24$94.3938% off
Sketch of Circe
Best Seller

Sketch of Circe

$117.05$72.5738% off
Ophelia 1894
Best Seller

Ophelia 1894

$123.93$76.8438% off
Destiny 1900
Best Seller

Destiny 1900

$135.41$83.9538% off
Flora and the Zephyrs 1898
Best Seller
A Flower Stall 1880
Best Seller
Juliet 1898
Best Seller

Juliet 1898

$171.36$106.2438% off
A Tale from the Decameron 1916
Best Seller
A Song of Springtime 1913
Best Seller
Hylas and the Nymphs 1896
Best Seller
An Eastern Reminiscence 1874
Best Seller
A Flower Market, Old Rome 1886
Best Seller
Flora 1891
Best Seller

Flora 1891

$221.09$137.0738% off
Lamia 1905
Best Seller

Lamia 1905

$224.15$138.9738% off
St Cecilia 1895
Best Seller

St Cecilia 1895

$179.01$110.9938% off
The Lady Clare 1900 2
Best Seller
The Mermaid study 1892
Best Seller
Narcissus 1912
Best Seller

Narcissus 1912

$132.35$82.0538% off
Study For The Lady Of Shallot
Best Seller
At The Shrine
Best Seller

At The Shrine

$157.59$97.7138% off
The Annunciation 1914
Best Seller
Esther Kenworthy Waterhouse 1885
Best Seller
Spring The Flower Picker 1900
Best Seller
Circe Invidiosa 1892
Best Seller
Dolce Far Niente 1879
Best Seller
Apollo and Daphne 1908
Best Seller
Penelope and the Suitors 1912
Best Seller
Circe (The Sorceress) 1911
Best Seller
Isabella and the Pot of Basil 1907
Best Seller
Miranda - The Tempest 1916
Best Seller
Ariadne 1898
Best Seller

Ariadne 1898

$117.05$72.5738% off
Lamia 1909
Best Seller

Lamia 1909

$162.18$100.5538% off
Dante and Beatrice 1915
Best Seller
A Roman Offering 1890
Best Seller
In the Peristyle 1874
Best Seller
Mariana in the South 1897
Best Seller
Cleopatra 651888
Best Seller

Cleopatra 651888

$132.35$82.0538% off
Consulting the Oracle
Best Seller
We can paint any size, we can paint any image. Can't find what you are looking for? Contact Us