The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites

by Elizabeth Prettejohn

Though always controversial in art circles, the Pre-Raphaelites have also always been extremely popular with museum goers. This accessible new study provides the most comprehensive view of the movement to date. It shows us why, a century and a half later, Pre-Raphaelite art retains its power to fascinate, haunt, and often shock its viewers.


Calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt produced a statement of ideas that revolutionized art practice in Victorian England. Critical of the Royal Academy's formulaic works, these painters believed that painting had been misdirected since Raphael. They and the artists who joined with them, including William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, and Frederick George Stephens, created bright works representing nature and literary themes in fresh detail and color. Considered heretical by many and frequently admonished for a lack of grace in composition the group disbanded after only a few years. Yet its artists and ideals remained influential; its works, greatly admired.


In this richly illustrated book, Elizabeth Prettejohn raises new and provocative questions about the group's social and artistic identity. Was it the first avant-garde movement in modern art? What role did women play in the Pre-Raphaelite fraternity? How did relationships between the artists and models affect the paintings? The author also analyzes technique, pinning down the distinctive characteristics of these painters and evaluating the degree to which a group style existed. And she considers how Pre-Raphaelite art responded to and commented on its time and place a world characterized by religious and political controversy, new scientific concern for precise observation, the emergence of psychology, and changing attitudes toward sexuality and women.


The first major publication on the Pre-Raphaelite movement in more than fifteen years, this exquisite volume incorporates the swell of recent research into a comprehensive, up-to-date survey. It comprises well over two hundred color reproductions, including works that are immediately recognizable as Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces, as well as lesser-known paintings that expand our appreciation of this significant artistic departure.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History, History, Pre Raphaelite, Victorian, Research

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preface to the New Edition
Preface and Acknowledgements
Prologue

--The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites

Note on Captions to Illustrations
Abbreviations for Frequently Cited Sources
Notes
Glossary of Names
Chronology
Annotated Bibliography
Index
Photographic Credits

[Mir · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it has been recognized all along that Pre-Raphaelism was influenced by medieval visual art (as the artists said themselves), Prettejohn goes beyond visual similarities to analyze ways in which members of the society modeled themselves -- their relationships and practices -- on their conception of medieval communal life. One reason Arthurian subject matter was so popular with these artists was because it reflected their obsession with male group undertakings.

[Maria Lago · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me resultaría difícil poner una nota baja a un libro con fotografías de cuadros Pre-Rafaelistas, aunque el análisis crítico de las obras fuese malo o anodino. Sin embargo, no es el caso, por lo que el valor de este tomo aumenta. La única pega que encuentro es el tamaño, que en este tipo de volúmenes de arte suele ser más grande y que se queda aquí un poquito corto. Los colores, aún así, son brillantes y perfectos y, junto al texto, que nos guía, es posible apreciar cientos de detalles maravillosos. Muy recomendable.

[El · Rating 4 out of 5]

essay book no.2 really appreciated the examinations of gender in pre-raphaelite works in this one (esp. compared to other sources which didn't touch too heavily on the topic!)

[Enrique Olivares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elizabeth Prettejohn's "The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites" is what I consider a seminal text on Pre-Raphaelite art. A brilliant art historian with a profound aesthetic sensibility, Prettejohn contextualizes Britain's first artistic vanguard in terms of economic, social, historical and political facts. Besides chronicling the rise and fall of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, she also draws attention to previously marginalized topics concerning the circle of artists and poets, particularly the question of gender while introducing female artists and poets into the dominant narrative.

This is by no means a light read, this is quite a dense and critical historical and cultural overview of a group of artists in response to the rapidly changing times of mid-Victorian England. If by chance your interest in medieval romance, early Christian art, or the Romantic poetry has lead you to the Pre-Raphaelite circle, consider this your comprehensive academic foray into the field.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prettejohn's is a thorough, multidimensional survey of Pre-Raphaelite art. Some sections related less to my personal interests (the chapter on technique, for instance), but the book informed both my knowledge of the Pre-Raphaelite movement and my approach to art. Prettejohn writes effectively and argues without bias; I appreciated her qualified attention to Victorian and contemporary contexts for artistic interpretation. Nevertheless, as a reader with no prior knowledge of Pre-Raphaelitism, I would have preferred more exposition, so to speak - especially historical. My understanding would have benefitted from information about, well, the Raphaelites, and relevant history and precedent. I also felt that Prettejohn restricted her focus to a sampling of paintings, on the rare occasion, which rendered her ideas less credible and engaging.

[Peter Mueller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot claim to have worked through every publication on the subject but, of course, one gets a feel for these things. In this case my gut instinct (and a lot of bedtime reading) has convinced me currently this must be the definitive work on the Pre-Raphaelites. The author is a world authority on this incredible gaggle of artists and friends who produced such mind-blowing works and influenced generations of painters, sculptors, writers ... . Unfortunately, written by a scholar means it is at times – you might have guessed it – scholarly and, therefore, not always easy to follow. But just enjoying it and going through it again (and again) should do the trick. In short: thoroughly recommended; an absolute feast.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this because I found this in the library and was interested in the Pre-Raphaelites because I couldn’t really tell whether I loved or disliked their work. Now I understand my mixed emotions about them and feel like an expert

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm so proud to be her student. An in-depth, questioning work on the PRB.

[William Collen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid and magisterial introduction to this artistic movement. Doesn't get into the impetus and cultural background of the key players in the movement as much as some other books on the subject; but this is an excellent review of the movement's sources of meaning, technique, intellectual approach, etc. The chapter on "pre-Raphaelite women" was, I thought, the weakest; this book is partly a response to the critique of the pre-Raphaelites by certain feminist art scholars in the nineties so I can understand why the chapter is here in this book, but the question of female representation in the ongoing discourse on the pre-Raphaelites is, honestly, not interesting to me. The book describes pre-Raphaelitism's extended influence on the artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it does not get into a discussion of the subsequent careers of the movement's principal actors; Millais, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt all, to different degrees, betrayed the movement's founding principles, and a discussion of why and in what way they did so would be fascinating. But perhaps it was out of the scope of this book. All in all, this is an extremely valuable survey of this movement's accomplishments.

[Samuel Valentino · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, with one caveat. The author seemed much more into Ford Maddox Brown, who, by his own admission, was not a member of the Pre-Raphaelites. In some parts, it seemed like it should have been a book about Ford, whose art she clearly prefers, with supplementary information about his contemporaries the Pre-Raphaelites. Nonetheless, well written, with good reproductions of the artwork.

[Benjamin Fasching-Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see them, not in a totally different way, but in more detail and with more layers and context. Chapters on women in the group, gender and feminism in the paintings, and a chapter more broadly on politics, were all exceptional. It's truly a treasure!

[Wilhelmina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Howard Frisk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge admirer of Pre-Raphaelite art. I think the Pre-Raphaelites as a group produced some of the best art ever created. This book includes high quality reproductions of all the major pieces, plus sketches and enlarged details of some pieces. the book also examines the various techniques used, their subjects and the artists themselves.

I appreciate their work much better after reading this book.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book. Beautiful images, and interesting, sophisticated discussions of the issues surrounding Pre-Raphaelite art. I would have preferred a little bit more straight-forward chronological history of the Pre-Raphaelites (it was there, but it seemed to stop before everything was addressed--maybe it was just the short nature of the true Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood that caused this?). I especially enjoyed the chapter "Pre-Raphaelite Realism: Landscape and the Human Figure," which discussed the techniques and motivations that they used to make their pictures so detailed and therefore 'realistic,' plus the paradoxes that this causes in both landscape and figures. I highly recommed this to all those who are interested in 19th century art and especially the Pre-Raphaelites.

[Devin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a textbook, Prettejohn's "The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites" was pretty good. The paintings and images throughout the book were beautiful. Because they were referenced several times throughout the work, however, you had to keep flipping back and forth to find the image that Prettejohn was discussing. The written portion of the book was updated with all of the modern theories and discussions on the PRB and Pre-Raphealites. As a supplement for a class on the PRB I have been taking, Prettejohn's text was useful, but I would never classify this book as light reading. If you want to know more about the history behind the Pre-Raphaelite art movement this text would be incredbily useful.

[Susan Liston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its physical appearance this is much more of a textbook than a coffee table sort of book. The casual reader may wish to beware. If one does choose to tackle it, I give permission to skim a bit if your eyes begin to cross, as mine occasionally did. But skim slowly and carefully, lest you miss something good, because there is a lot of interesting stuff here.

[Kirk Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book about one of the most beautiful art movements in British history, my only complaint is that it's heavy on text and light on illustrations

[Amanda]

Beautiful colour plates, and several paintings that I had never seen before, may have never seen otherwise.

[Emylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to own this book.