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Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts & Crafts Movement
This generously illustrated and exciting new study of the Victorian era features rarely seen works, provocative essays, and a striking, period-inspired design.
Although the word Victorian connotes a kind of dry propriety, the artists working in the Victorian era were anything but. Starting with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and lasting through the dawn of the 20th century, the era's painters, writers, and designers challenged every prevailing belief about art and its purpose. The full spectrum of the Victorian avant-garde is in magnificent display in this book that features nearly 150 works drawn from the city of Birmingham's unparalleled collection. Characterized by attention to detail, vibrant colors, and engagement with literary themes and daily life, the paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects featured reveal the myriad ways Victorian artists and artisans made sense of a rapidly changing world. Perceptive essays and the latest scholarship illuminate the issues these artists contended with, including the relationship to art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry. Designed to reflect the tactile nature of the work and featuring typography inspired by the Victorian era, this beautiful volume is as fresh and bold as the visionaries it celebrates.
Copublished by the American Federation of Arts and DelMonico Books
Although the word Victorian connotes a kind of dry propriety, the artists working in the Victorian era were anything but. Starting with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and lasting through the dawn of the 20th century, the era's painters, writers, and designers challenged every prevailing belief about art and its purpose. The full spectrum of the Victorian avant-garde is in magnificent display in this book that features nearly 150 works drawn from the city of Birmingham's unparalleled collection. Characterized by attention to detail, vibrant colors, and engagement with literary themes and daily life, the paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects featured reveal the myriad ways Victorian artists and artisans made sense of a rapidly changing world. Perceptive essays and the latest scholarship illuminate the issues these artists contended with, including the relationship to art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry. Designed to reflect the tactile nature of the work and featuring typography inspired by the Victorian era, this beautiful volume is as fresh and bold as the visionaries it celebrates.
Copublished by the American Federation of Arts and DelMonico Books
Hardcover
Published October 30, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 21, 2019
I belong to the "John Ruskin Art Club" in Los Angeles so I try to read as much as I can about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as well as the Art and Crafts movement. John Ruskin, the Victorian art critic and artist was a major influence and defender of both of these groups of painters and their paintings and lives fascinate me. The book contains both Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts art work. Represented are works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Elizabeth Siddal, James Collison, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.
The book discusses how the Pre-Raphaelite group started in 1848 as a rebellion against the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The group of mostly young male artists were trying to make their mark on the world and they wanted fame, fortune and beautiful women. But most of all they wanted revolution. Inspired by the revolutions taking place around the world, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt decided to create a manifesto, make over the British arts and overturn the teachings of their prestigious art school. They considered their art teachers mostly old-fashioned, lazy, predictable and boring. When John Ruskin complained in his writings about the current British art of “the eternal brown cows in ditches.” and “sliced lemons in saucers” they felt heard.
So the group rejected the rigid form, color and composition rules as taught by their school and started recruiting other like minded thinkers: writer William Rossetti, painter James Collinson, art critic Frederick George Stevens and poet-sculptor Thomas Woolner. They believed in making paintings that were true to nature and to imagine how scenes from the past might actually have looked like. They were considered Victorian radicals, both shocking and outraging the British public with not only painting but their poetry and literature. “When Christ in the House of his Parents,” painted by twenty-one year old John Everett Millais came out, author Charles Dickens hated it so much that he took out a complaint in the front pages of newspapers in 1851. The public considered this religious painting as blasphemous.
When William Holman Hunt displayed his new painting of early Roman Missionaries, the art critics called it “frantic trash”. The red-haired artist, poet and artist model Lizzie Siddall first appears in this painting. She was drawn extensively by the brotherhood , married Dante Gabriel Rossetti and had an art career of her own.
The brotherhood admired the romantic style of the Medieval and early Renaissance paintings but they painted in a bold new realism even with religious/sacred subjects. They was vilified by the press and especially the art establishment for their non conventional ways of art, poetry, illustration, ideas and life-style.
The book is beautifully presented and there are excellent essays about different topics that these talented artists cared about such as nature, craftsmanship, architecture, class, gender and the industrial revolution. Highly recommend. Five stars.
The book discusses how the Pre-Raphaelite group started in 1848 as a rebellion against the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The group of mostly young male artists were trying to make their mark on the world and they wanted fame, fortune and beautiful women. But most of all they wanted revolution. Inspired by the revolutions taking place around the world, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt decided to create a manifesto, make over the British arts and overturn the teachings of their prestigious art school. They considered their art teachers mostly old-fashioned, lazy, predictable and boring. When John Ruskin complained in his writings about the current British art of “the eternal brown cows in ditches.” and “sliced lemons in saucers” they felt heard.
So the group rejected the rigid form, color and composition rules as taught by their school and started recruiting other like minded thinkers: writer William Rossetti, painter James Collinson, art critic Frederick George Stevens and poet-sculptor Thomas Woolner. They believed in making paintings that were true to nature and to imagine how scenes from the past might actually have looked like. They were considered Victorian radicals, both shocking and outraging the British public with not only painting but their poetry and literature. “When Christ in the House of his Parents,” painted by twenty-one year old John Everett Millais came out, author Charles Dickens hated it so much that he took out a complaint in the front pages of newspapers in 1851. The public considered this religious painting as blasphemous.
When William Holman Hunt displayed his new painting of early Roman Missionaries, the art critics called it “frantic trash”. The red-haired artist, poet and artist model Lizzie Siddall first appears in this painting. She was drawn extensively by the brotherhood , married Dante Gabriel Rossetti and had an art career of her own.
The brotherhood admired the romantic style of the Medieval and early Renaissance paintings but they painted in a bold new realism even with religious/sacred subjects. They was vilified by the press and especially the art establishment for their non conventional ways of art, poetry, illustration, ideas and life-style.
The book is beautifully presented and there are excellent essays about different topics that these talented artists cared about such as nature, craftsmanship, architecture, class, gender and the industrial revolution. Highly recommend. Five stars.
July 5, 2019
Perfect addition to my art history book collection - covers not only the Pre-Raphs but also Arts & Crafts, peeking all the way to the early stages of Art Nouveau. Hits all my favorites ❤️❤️❤️
November 17, 2018
Just visited the companion exhibit at OKCMA. Blew me away! I had to by the book/catalog.
Just finished reading (literally reading) the book. The history that prefaces the art work is amazing and informative. I have long admired the Pre-Raphaelites and long ago took a graduate course on Ruskin, but I still learned a lot. The plates are amazing and almost as vibrant as the original pieces.
Just finished reading (literally reading) the book. The history that prefaces the art work is amazing and informative. I have long admired the Pre-Raphaelites and long ago took a graduate course on Ruskin, but I still learned a lot. The plates are amazing and almost as vibrant as the original pieces.
April 13, 2019
The Vero Beach Museum of Art is currently hosting an exhibit of the "Victorian Radicals"; I purchased the book to have more background information about the exhibit. Very happy that I have had the opportunity to use this book as a resource and reference; the exhibit (which was awesome!) was so much more meaningful, because of the additional background information.
June 30, 2024
This is a gorgeous exhibition catalogue and a beautifully details history of the Pre-Raphaelites, history of Birmingham and history of how Birmingham art gallery has so much Pre-Raphaelite art. Massive
July 17, 2019
Exhibit was kind of confusing and catalog did little to dispel the confusion. Nicely laid out with good graphics.
Wondering still what is radical about Victorian Radicals?
3.25 / 5.0
Wondering still what is radical about Victorian Radicals?
3.25 / 5.0
September 29, 2019
Beautiful companion piece to the exhibit.
April 9, 2020
This exhibition catalog is beautifully produced, with excellent reproductions of the art and insightful essays.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews