Pre Rap Ha Elites

8/3/2019 Pre Rap Ha Elites

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Why ‘Pre Raphaelite’? • they were initially in

reaction against whatthey felt were the‘frivolous art of the

day’• They deeply admired

the integrity andsimplicities of the early15thC

• Their aim to bring backart to a ‘greater truth tonature’

Lord Leighton

Flaming June



• The brotherhood wasfounded in London in 1848

• The initials PRB werepainted on GabrielleRosetti’s painting ‘ The

girlhood of the Mary Virgin’

in 1849• Was quickly adopted by the

other ‘Pre Raphaelites’

The Girlhood of Mary Virgin –

Dante Gabriel Rossetti



The initial members• Gabrielle Rossetti,• Holman Hunt• John Everett Millais• Soon the group included seven

artists.





Title: Portrait of Sir JohnEverett Millais 1871



Millais in his Studio by Rupert Fuller. 1886.



Gentlemen rebels

• They felt they were inrebellion to:

• the theatricality of Raphael• Victorian hypocrisy• And the pomp of the

academic art tradition.



Thomas Coutoure 1847 masterpiece, Romans in the Decadence of the Empire



Soap Bubbles

During his lifetime, Couture taught such

later luminaries of the art world as

Edouard Manet, Henri Fantin-Latour, andPierre Puvis de Chavannes.

THOMAS COUTURE (1815-1879)was an influential French historypainter and teacher.• He failed the prestigious Prix de

Rome competition at the École six

times, but he felt the problem waswith the École, not himself.• Couture finally did win the prize in

1837.• In 1840, he began exhibiting

historical and genre pictures at the

Paris Salon, earning several medalsfor his works, in particular for his1847 masterpiece, Romans in theDecadence of the Empire,

• Shortly after his this success,Couture opened an independentatelier meant to challenge the Écoledes Beaux-Arts by turning out thebest new history painters.



The Thorny Path



The Little Confectioner



A secret society

• The pre Raphaelitebrotherhood

• In deference to thesincerity of the earlyRenaissance



High Morality• They adopted a high moral stance painting only ‘serious- usually religious or

romantic-subjects.• Their style was clear and sharply focussed• They adopted a sometimes unwieldy combination of symbolism and realism• That insisted on painting everything from direct observation.• The Lad Of Shalott John William Waterhouse



Their Spokesman The group was championed by the writer John

Ruskin



Sir John Everett Millais – John

Ruskin


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/pre-rap-ha-elites 16/33Millais Christ In The House Of His Parents1850

Slightly Disturbing• Whilst being laboriously truthful became• Became progressively old-worldish• This decision to live in the past whilst deploying the judgements of the present can make the

work disturbingly disjointed



The Blind Girl Sir John EverettMillais

Response to the Paintings

• Initially the group caused outrage aftertheir first exhibition in 1849.

• Their religious and realist themes alsoagainst the popular Historical painting ofthe day

• The Royal academy continued showingthe work and after 1852 they gained inpopularity.



A Deep concern for truth?• Maybe a somewhat overindulgence in

sentimentality• A world of emotional responses devoid of the

experiences of reality



Shakespeare’s Ophelia • a young noblewoman of Denmark, the

daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, andpotential wife of Prince Hamlet.

• Driven to madness and suicide by Hamlet’smurder of her father Polonius

• Alexander Cabanel

• John William Waterhouse



Ophelia: Sir John Everett Millais, 1851

P i t d f N t



Painted from Nature• Was modelled on a real body surrounded by a body of genuine wildflowers• Millais spent four months painting the background vegetation on the same spot in

Surrey England• He then returned to London to paint his model Elizabeth Siddal in the bath tub

An Odd dislocation• The result is oddly dislocated• It’s as if the setting, woman, flowers did not belong together each keeping its own

truth and ignoring that of the others.

The meaning in the Flowers



The meaning in the Flowers• Poppies = death Daisies = innocence Roses = youth Violets = fruitfulness and early

death Pansies = love in vain.Ophelia John William Waterhouse 1889



The Model• Was modelled on a real body surrounded by a

body of genuine wildflowers• Millais spent four months painting the

background vegetation on the same spot inSurrey England• He then returned to London to paint his model

Elizabeth Siddal in the bath tub



‘On English coasts



‘On English coastsIt is a political allegoryIts theme is strayed and unprotected sheep

An unpleasant taste

The weirdly acidic colours strike unpleasantly on the eyesThe story is believable but forcedThe bright yellow is garishly bright as is the aggressive greens of the sea.

Luminous Colours



Luminous ColoursThey painted pure colours onto a canvass pre-prepared with whiteSometimes this would be applied freshly each day to give the colours fresh

resonance.



The Inspiration• Their paintings was a

combination of artistic andliterary sources

• They drew heavily inShakespeare, Dante, and poetslike Robert Browning and AlfredLord Tennyson

• Rossetti was himself greatly

attracted to Tennyson’sreworking of the Arthurianlegends

• He specialised in pictures ofmaidens with extraordinary looksfor his romantic themes

• Used a beautiful but neuroticmodel Elizabeth Siddal

• After her untimely deathRosetti’s model was WilliamMorris’s wife Janey (a Siddallook alike) seen in the painting

‘The day dream’.



• Rossetti was himself greatly attracted to Tennyson’sreworking of the Arthurian legends

• He specialised in pictures of maidens withextraordinary looks for his romantic themes

• Used a beautiful but neurotic model Elizabeth Siddal • After her untimely death Rosetti’s model was William

Morris’s wife Janey (a Siddal look alike) seen in thepainting ‘The day dream’.

'Lady Lilith', (detail)1868 by Dante C.G. Rossetti

Eli b h Sidd l

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Elizabeth SiddelShe was discovered by Walter Deverell in amilliner's shop in 1850. At the time he wassearching for a model for Voila in his paintingTwelfth Night. Later he told William Holman

Hunt, ‘By Jove! she’s like a queen,magnificently tall, with a lovely figure, a statelyneck, and a face of the most delicatemodelling; the flow of surface from thetemples over the cheek is exactly like thecarving of a Pheidean goddess.

Wait a minute! I haven’t done; she has greyeyes, and her hair is like dazzling copper, andshimmers with lustre as she waves it down.And now, where do you think I lighted on thisparagon of beauty? Why, in a milliner’s back

workroom where I went out with my mothershopping. Having nothing to amuse me, whilethe woman was tempting my mother withsomething, I peered over the blind of a glassdoor at the back of the shop, and there wasthis unexpected jewel.’

A drawing by Rosetti of Elizabeth painting

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Siddal was the living breathing epitome of the Pre-Raphaelite woman

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Walter H. Deverell . Twelfth Night , 1850

Elizabeth Lizzie Siddal was the living, breathing epitome of the Pre Raphaelite woman.With her sensuous full lips, heavy-lidded eyes, and above all her incredible waist-lengthauburn hair, she could only be described as a "stunner".

• Elizabeth led a tormented life.



Elizabeth led a tormented life.• She worked as a milliner in her teenage years, her engagement to Rossetti was broken

off several times, and she was always afraid of being replaced with a younger muse.• She also suffered from an addiction to laudanum.• After bearing a stillborn daughter, she overdosed on laudanum.• Her possible suicide was covered up, as it would have prevented her from receiving a

proper burial.

• Study by Rossetti• Photo of Elizabeth• Self Portrait



Dante Gabriel Rossetti(1828-82)• Born into a wealthy and

intellectual Italian family

• Throughout the 1840’s hispoetry and painting prosperedand he completed manysymbolic Historic paintings

• He met Elizabeth Siddal in1850, married her in 1860 she

died only two years laterleaving him a broken man

• He placed his poetrymanuscripts in her coffinwhich he then retrieved in 1869by exhuming her body

• He fell into a depression and in1872 attempted suicide but didnot die

• He lingered on in a druginduced haze until his death in1882



• After gaining an acceptance the work of the Pre Raphaelites has since become one of the most

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Pre Rap Ha Elites