The Pre-Raphaelites in brief. Pre-Raphaelite paintings with titles. Subjects of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. Creative and artistic techniques of the Pre-Raphaelites

Despite the fact that the very name “Pre-Raphaelites” refers us to the 15th century, when the predecessors of Raphael and Michelangelo worked, and the Early Renaissance was only preparing the ground for these great masters, in fact it unites a number of artists of the second half of the 19th century. Nevertheless, there is still a connection with those who were “before Raphael”.

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The Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by the Florentines Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Botticelli and other creators of the Quattrocento - the most sensual and inspired time of the 15th century. In those days, with their masterpieces they showed that art was ready to transcend the strict medieval Gothic templates. Angelico decorated religious subjects with a range of pure colors and golden radiance, and Giovanni Bellini blurred the lines between sacred and secular, even more noticeably used the techniques of ancient art and enlivened them with brightness and imagery.

The Pre-Raphaelites, like their idols, opposed academicism, conventions, canons and models. Supporters of such a protest - Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and others - united in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. The simplicity, clarity and sincerity of the paintings, which preceded the work of the masters of the pinnacle of the Renaissance, were for the Pre-Raphaelites a way to lead English painting away from disastrous traditions. They paint from life, work en plein air, and are not guided by rules.

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“The living cover of love hardly hid her steps - just like a lily blooms and a galliot swan swims by.” Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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Another merit of the Pre-Raphaelites is a new look at female beauty. He was embodied in the British woman Elizabeth Siddal - sensual, red-haired, pale, thin. From it Millet wrote his famous “Ophelia” - a drowned woman who retained a beautiful, unearthly appearance after death. Siddal posed for the artist in a bathtub, the water in which Millais heated with lamps so that the sitter would not freeze, because they worked on the painting in winter. One day these lamps went out, the water became cold, and Elizabeth caught a cold in her lungs. Health was undermined and deteriorating, which was also mixed with depression. Ultimately, the Pre-Raphaelite muse died from an opium overdose.

Despite the success of the works of the Pre-Raphaelites, the recognition of society, and appearance at exhibitions, already in 1853 the “Brotherhood” would disintegrate. But the masterpieces have outlived their creators and continue to delight the public. In Moscow Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin exhibition opens "Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde", which comes to the capital as part of a world tour from Tate Britain. The exhibition is open to visitors until October 12.

Pre-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 a time of decline had come in modern English painting. To prevent its complete death 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 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” denoted a spiritual kinship with the Florentine artists of the Early Renaissance; they desired this and strove for it.

Pre-Raphaelite goals

The main goal of the Pre-Raphaelites was to break with academic tradition and blind imitations of the classics. This is reminiscent of the goal of our Itinerants, 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 John Everett Millais’s painting “Christ in parental home"(1850) was also called a "revolt in art" for its excessive realism.
Let's look at this picture.

John Everett Millais, Christ in the Parental House (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 Virgin Mary is kneeling, looking at her Son with compassion and pain. The boy, complaining, shows Her the wound on his hand. He was probably injured by a nail that Saint Anna was pulling out of the table with tongs. At the table, Joseph and his assistants are busy working. Young John the Baptist brings a cup of water to Christ. There are fresh shavings lying on the workshop floor, and sheep can be seen in the pen outside the door.
This painting is not only simple and realistic, but also full of symbols. The wound on the palm of little Jesus, a drop of blood on his foot and nails symbolize the Crucifixion, a cup of water - the Baptism of Christ, a dove on the stairs - the Holy Spirit, a triangle on the wall - the Trinity, sheep - the innocent sacrifice.
Why was this painting called a “rebellion in art”? Firstly, biblical story depicted here as a scene from real life. Secondly, the Holy Family is depicted ordinary people, without a sublime halo, during ordinary earthly labor. Third, Jesus was portrayed as an ordinary village boy.
Critics responded sharply negatively 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 the work of the Pre-Raphaelites in general. From this time on, collaboration began between the critic and the Pre-Raphaelites.
The development of British art was determined by the activities of the Royal Academy of Arts (as in Russia by the Imperial Academy of Arts). The traditions of academicism were preserved with great care. Pre-Raphaelite artists stated that they did not want to depict people and nature as abstractly beautiful, and events as far from reality, that they were tired of depicting mythological, historical and religious subjects in their paintings. The Pre-Raphaelites believed that everything should be painted from life. They chose friends or relatives as models. For example, in the painting “The Youth of the Virgin Mary” Rossetti depicted his mother and sister Christina.

D. Rossetti “The 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. The artists' models became equal partners.
The Pre-Raphaelites wanted to return to the high detail and deep colors of the painters of the Quattrocento era (designation of the era of Italian art of the 15th century, correlated with the Early Renaissance period). They left “cabinet” painting and began to paint in nature, making changes to the traditional painting technique - they painted over white, which served as a primer, with translucent paints, removing the oil with blotting paper. This technique made it possible to achieve bright colors and turned out 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 works of the Pre-Raphaelites. D. Rossetti’s painting “The Annunciation” was also attacked.

D. Rossetti “The 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 a virgin betrothed to a husband named Joseph, from the house of David; The name of the Virgin is: Mary. The angel, coming to Her, said: Rejoice, full of grace! The Lord is with You; Blessed are You among women. She, seeing him, was embarrassed by his words and wondered what kind of greeting this would be. And the Angel said to Her: Do not be afraid, Mary, for You have found favor with God; and behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Jesus” (Gospel of Luke; 1:26-31).
Rossetti deviated from the Christian canon and thereby incurred severe criticism. The Virgin Mary on his canvas looks frightened, as if she was retreating from an angel with a white lily in her hands (a symbol of Mary’s virginity). The picture is dominated by White color, and the color of the Virgin Mary 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 Stephens and James Collinson. All of them were in opposition to official artistic movements.
In 1853, the Brotherhood actually disintegrated, but in 1856 it began new stage in the development of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. 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, leadership passed to Edward Burne-Jones, whose works were 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 Cophetua and the Beggar Woman (1884). Canvas, oil. 293.4 x 135.9 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The plot of the film is based on legend. King Cofetua had no interest 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 the queen.
This legend is mentioned in other works, including Shakespeare's plays.
Essentially, the plot of this picture is one of the “eternal themes” - admiration for 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 arts, architecture, interior decoration, book design, illustrations.
Of particular note is the creation of a new female image in art by the Pre-Raphaelites.

A new type of female beauty

For the Pre-Raphaelites, this is a detached, calm, mysterious image, which would later be developed by Art Nouveau artists. Women in Pre-Raphaelite paintings resemble the medieval image of ideal beauty and femininity, which is admired and worshiped. But mystical, destructive beauty is also shown. For example, John William Waterhouse's painting "The Lady of Shalott" (1888).

John William Waterhouse "The Lady of Shalott" (1888). Canvas, oil. 200 x 153 cm. Tate Gallery (London)
The film is dedicated to the poem of the same name by Alfred Tennyson “The Sorceress of Shalott” (translation by K. Balmont).
The poem tells the story of a girl named Elaine, who is cursed to remain in a tower on the island of Shalott and weave a long linen forever. Shallot is located on the river that flows to Camelot. No one knows about Elaine's existence, because the curse forbids her to leave the tower or even look out of the window. She has a huge mirror hanging in her room, which reflects the world around her, and the girl is busy weaving a tapestry, depicting on it the wonders of the world around her that she managed to see. Gradually, the world takes over 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 second, the curse is fulfilled, the tapestry unravels, and the mirror cracks. Elaine runs from the tower, finds a boat and writes her name on it. She floats down the river and sings a sad song, but dies before reaching Camelot. Residents find her, Lancelot is amazed by her beauty.
Waterhouse depicts the Lady of Shallot as she sits in the boat and holds the chain that secures the boat to the shore. Nearby lies the tapestry she wove. It is now forgotten, partially submerged. The candles and crucifix make the boat look like a funeral boat. The girl sings a farewell song.
The Pre-Raphaelites were attracted to spiritual purity and tragic love, unrequited love, an unattainable girl, a woman dying for love, marked by shame or damnation, and 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 mother’s adultery. The woman lies on the floor, her face buried in the carpet, in a pose of despair, and the bracelets on her hands resemble handcuffs. The eldest girl listens warily to what is happening in the room - she already understands that a misfortune has happened in the family. The man is desperate.

The first painting from the series “Past and Present” by August Egg (1837). London
The Pre-Raphaelites tried to paint the landscape with maximum accuracy.

D. Millet " Autumn leaves"(1856)
About this painting D. Ruskin said: “For the first time, twilight is depicted so perfectly.”
Painters made sketches of tones from life, reproducing them as brightly and clearly as possible, so the Pre-Raphaelite landscape did not become widespread, 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 passionate about poetry 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.
The poet Algernon Swinburne experimented with versification and was a playwright and literary critic.

The significance of the Pre-Raphaelites

This art movement is well known and popular in Great Britain. But it was distinguished by refined aristocracy, retrospectism (appeal 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, and they are even considered the predecessors of the Symbolists. The poetry of the Pre-Raphaelites especially influenced the work of the French symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé. Burne-Jones's painting is believed to have greatly influenced the young Tolkien.
In Russia, the first exhibition of works by the Pre-Raphaelites took place on May 14-18, 2008 at the Tretyakov Gallery.

Who were the Pre-Raphaelites? These guys were English artists. In 1848, several artists studying at the schools of the Royal Academy of Arts founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, whose main vow was to depict the material world with the utmost authenticity. Before them, the British art school, which gave the world many great painters, was in a certain stagnation - ceremonial portraitism, everyday sentimentalism, shallow landscapeism - that's all that England could boast of by the mid-19th century. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais decided to give the world new art and opposed the seemingly unshakable canons of painting.

“Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood” (English PreRaphaelite Brotherhood, from Latin rgae - “in front”, “ahead”, Italian Rafael - “Raphael” and English brotherhood - “brotherhood”).

William Holman Hunt Self-Portrait

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

John Everett Millais Self-Portrait

They chose the definition of “Pre-Raphaelites” to emphasize their opposition to the style Italian artist High Renaissance Raphael Santi and express interest in the work of Italian masters of the Proto-Renaissance and the 15th century. In this era, they were attracted by “naive simplicity,” as well as true spirituality and deep religious feeling. Romantics at their core, the Pre-Raphaelites also discovered the world of images from medieval English literature, which became a constant source of inspiration for them. The word "brotherhood" conveyed the idea of ​​a closed, secret community, similar to medieval monastic orders.

All members of the “Brotherhood” turned to Gothic art, where instead of the usual chiaroscuro, a play of color planes reigned. Using bright colors, they depicted nature in a realistic manner, but without slavish adherence to rules classical composition. They painted their sitters - ordinary people - with scrupulous precision, placing them in a natural setting. In order not to sin one iota against nature, the Pre-Raphaelites achieved absolute accuracy in every detail, for which they decided to paint nature only in the open air, that is, in the open air. This alone was a revolutionary step forward, since before them artists worked only in the studio.

The artists believed that strangers should not be depicted, so they always chose friends or relatives as models.

John Everett Millais "Ophelia" (1851 - 1852)

The film is based on a plot from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Millet created a landscape by the river, spending 11 hours a day at the easel. This commitment to work is explained by the views of Millet, who advocated the establishment of the principles of Pre-Raphaelitism in art. One of the key ideas was that nature should be depicted as authentically as possible, so even the flowers in the painting were painted with botanical accuracy. The artist painted the image of Ophelia in his studio after creating the landscape, which was unusual for those times. Landscapes were considered a less important part of the picture, so they were left for later. The model was nineteen-year-old Elizabeth Siddal, whom Millet forced to lie in a filled bath for several hours. Despite the fact that the bath was heated with lamps, it was winter, so Siddal caught a serious cold. Her father threatened the artist with a lawsuit if he did not pay for medical services, and Milla was later sent a bill from the doctors.

The work of the Pre-Raphaelites was closely connected with literature: with the works of the Italian Renaissance poet Dante Alighieri, the English poets William Shakespeare and John Milton, long-forgotten medieval legends and ballads with the noble worship of a beautiful lady, the selfless courage of knights and the wisdom of wizards.

John Everett Millais "The Bridesmaid" (1851)

John Everett Millais "Marianne" (1851)

John Everett Millais, Memoir of Velazquez (1842)

These themes received the most subtle and original embodiment in Dante Gabriel Rossetti (named after Dante Alighieri).

Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Beloved" (1865-1866)

All the Pre-Raphaelites began to paint on white ground, obtaining pure transparent colors. This method was in many ways similar to the technique fresco painting. First, white paint was applied to the canvas and dried thoroughly. The artist used ink to trace the outlines of the drawing on it. A thin layer of whitewash was applied over the sketch, almost without oil, and only then a layer of paint was applied with scrupulous adherence to the contours of the drawing. All this required an extraordinary lightness of stroke so that the paints did not mix with the wet soil. Moreover, it was impossible to apply new strokes on top of the prescribed paints without losing the pristine purity of tones (usually in oil painting a picture is painted fragment by fragment, and it is possible to correct any mistake). Holman Hunt wrote this method, and Milles often resorted to it, however this technique required such care in work that even the most diligent artist could not create more than two paintings a year.

The chosen technique allowed them to achieve bright, fresh tones and turned out to be so durable that their works have been preserved in their original form to this day.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Venus"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Lady Lilith" (1867)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Pia of Tolomea" (1868)

John William Waterhouse is an English artist whose work belongs to the later stage of Pre-Raphaelitism. Known for his female images, which he borrowed from mythology and literature.

Waterhouse "Northwind" (1903)

Waterhouse "Hylas and the Nymphs" (1869)

Waterhouse "The Lady of Shalott" (1888)

Waterhouse "Sleeping Beauty" (1849 - 1917)

Waterhouse "Ophelia" (1910)

Works of like-minded people of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood:

Lawrence Alma-Tadema was one of the richest artists of the 19th century. He had a great influence on the style of historical cinema (lavish Hollywood productions by directors).

Lawrence Alma-Tadema "The Roses of Heliogabalus" (1888)

Lawrence Alma-Tadema "Spring" (1894)

Lawrence Alma-Tadema "Caracallas and Getae" (1909)

In 1853, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood disintegrated. Apart from a youthful revolutionary romantic spirit and a passion for the Middle Ages, little united these people, and of the early Pre-Raphaelites only Holman Hunt remained faithful to the doctrine of the Brotherhood. When Millet 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 disbanded,” Rossetti concludes. Gradually the remaining members also 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.

For those who are interested in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites:

There is BBC feature television series (“Desperate Romantics” 2009) in the typical genre of “costume historical films” for this channel. There are no leading stars here. The young rebels are played by young actors who look charming in frock coats and with romantic hair. The filmmakers tried to film not a solid biography of famous artists, but a story of the life and love of young geniuses, imbued with the same spirit of invention and creative invention that distinguished their own art. The six episodes of the single season contained a large piece of their lives - from Rossetti’s meeting with the “ideal model” Elizabeth Siddal to William Morris’s marriage to model Jane Burden. As well as male friendship, the fight against a reactionary society and new discoveries in painting.

The name “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, and John William Waterhouse.

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

D. G. Rossetti - The Youth of the Virgin Mary, 1848-1849

The history of the Brotherhood begins in 1848, when Academy students Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had previously seen and admired Hunt’s work, met at an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. 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, young genius, who entered the Academy at the age of 11. They not only became friends, but found 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 in the best possible way to revive it will be a return to the sincerity and simplicity of early Italian art (that is, art before Raphael, whom the Pre-Raphaelites considered the founder of academicism).

Augustus Egga - Past and Present, 1837

In Rossetti’s painting “The Youth of the Virgin Mary,” the three conventional letters P. R. B. (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) appear for the first time; the same initials marked “Isabella” by Millet and “Rienzi” by Hunt. Members of the Brotherhood also created their own magazine, called Rostock, although it only existed from January to April 1850. Its editor was William Michael Rossetti (brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti).

Pre-Raphaelites and Academicism

D. G. Rossetti - The Holy Grail, 1860

D. E. Millet - Ophelia, 1852

D. G. Rossetti - Lady Lilith, 1868

Members of the Brotherhood were from the outset irritated by the influence on modern art of artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Wilkie and Benjamin Haydon. They even nicknamed Sir Joshua (president of the Academy of Arts) “Sir Slosh” (from the English slosh - “slap in the mud”) for his sloppy painting technique and style, as they believed, 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 Quattrocento era painters. They abandoned “cabinet” painting and began to paint in nature, and also made changes to the traditional painting technique. The Pre-Raphaelites outlined a composition on a primed canvas, applied a layer of whitewash and removed the oil from it with blotting paper, and then wrote on top of the whitewash with translucent paints. The chosen technique allowed them to achieve bright, fresh tones and turned out to be so durable that their works have been preserved in their original form to this day.

Dealing with criticism

At first, the work of the Pre-Raphaelites was received quite warmly, but soon severe criticism and ridicule fell. Millet's overly naturalistic painting "Christ in the Parental House", exhibited in 1850, caused such a wave of indignation that Queen Victoria asked to be taken to Buckingham Palace for independent inspection.

D. E. Millet - Christ in his parents' house, 1850

“Ignoring all the great things that were created by the old masters, this school, to which Rossetti belongs, trudges with uncertain steps towards its early predecessors. This is archeology, devoid of any usefulness and turned into doctrinaire. People belonging to this school claim that they follow the truth and simplicity of nature. In fact, they slavishly imitate artistic ineptitude.”

The principles of the Brotherhood were criticized by many respected artists: the president of the Academy of Arts, Charles Eastlake, and the group of artists "The Clique", led by Richard Dadd. As a result, James Collinson even renounced the Brotherhood, and his engagement to Christina Rossetti was broken off. His place was subsequently taken by the painter Walter Deverell.

The situation was saved to a certain extent by John Ruskin, an influential art historian and art critic England. Despite the fact that in 1850 he was only thirty-two years old, he was already the author of widely 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 anyone from the Brotherhood. He proclaimed that their work could "form the basis of a school of art greater than anything the world has known for the previous 300 years." In addition, Ruskin bought many of Gabriel Rossetti's paintings, which supported him financially, and took Millet under his wing, in whom he immediately saw outstanding talent.

John Ruskin and his influence

D. E. Millais - John Ruskin in portrait, 1853-1854.

“Today’s artists,” wrote Ruskin in Modern Artists, “depict [nature] either too superficially or too embellished; they do not try to penetrate into [its] 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 with with a pure heart, not focusing on anything, not choosing anything and not neglecting anything.” Similarly, Madox Brown, who influenced the Pre-Raphaelites, wrote of his painting The Last of England (1855): “I have tried to forget all existing artistic movements and to reflect this scene as it should have been.” to look like". Madox Brown specifically painted this picture on the coast in order to achieve the effect of “lighting from all sides” that happens at sea on cloudy days. The Pre-Raphaelite painting technique involved the elaboration of every detail.

M. Brown - Farewell to England, 1855

Ruskin has a clear definition of the artistic goals of Pre-Raphaelitism:

It is easy to control the brush and paint herbs and plants with enough fidelity to the eye; Anyone can achieve this after several years of work. But to depict among the herbs and plants the secrets of creation and combinations with which nature speaks to our understanding, to convey the gentle curve 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 this to the unthinking and unseeing - such is artist's appointment.

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: "I felt, like no other reader, that the book was written especially for me." In defining his approach to his work, Hunt also noted that it was important for him to start from the subject, “not just because there is a charm to the completeness of the subject, but in order to understand the principles of design that exist in Nature.”

Decay

Arthur Hughes - April Love, 1855-1856.

D.E. Millet - Huguenot, 1852

Attempts to revive the Brotherhood as the Hogarth Club, which existed from 1858 to 1861, failed.

Further development of Pre-Raphaelitism

D. G. Rossetti - First anniversary of the death of Beatrice, 1853

Edward Burne-Jones - King Cophetua and the Beggar Woman, 1884

Henry Ford - Stepmother Turning Brothers into Swans, 1894

Evelyn Paul - The Divine Comedy

"Arts and Crafts"

William Morris is considered one of the most influential figures in the history of decorative art. art of the 19th century century. He founded the Arts and Crafts Movement, the main idea of ​​which was a return to manual craftsmanship as an ideal applied arts, as well as the elevation to the rank of full-fledged arts of printing, typesetting, and engraving. This movement, which was taken up by Walter Crane, Mackintosh, Nelson Dawson, Edwin Lutyens, Wright and others, subsequently manifested itself in English and American architecture, interior design, and landscape design.

Poetry

Under the influence of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, British decadence developed in the 1880s: Ernst Dawson, Lionel Johnson, Michael Field, Oscar Wilde. A romantic longing for the Middle Ages was reflected in Yeats's early work.

William Yeats - He Who Dreamed magical land (1893)

He lingered at the market in Dromacher,
I considered myself family in a foreign country,
Dreamed of loving while the earth was behind him
She didn’t 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 alien island,
Where are the people above the embroidered wave
Under the woven canopy of motionless crowns
Love tames the rush of time.
And he lost his happiness and peace.

He walked for a long time through the sands in Lissadell
And in my dreams I saw how it would heal,
Having gained wealth and honor,
Until the bones decay in the grave;
But from a random puddle a worm
Sang to him with a swampy gray throat,
That somewhere far away in the sweet freedom
Everyone dances from the ringing joy
Under the gold and silver of heaven;
When suddenly there is silence,
The sun and moon shine in the fruits.

He realized that he was dreaming about something useless.

He thought at the well in Scanavina,
What is the rage of the heart at the mocking light
Will become a rumor around the area for many years,
When the flesh drowns in the earthly abyss;
But then the weed sang to him that
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 night
Can help lovers forever.
And his anger dissipated without a trace.

He slept under a smoky bluff at Lugnagall;
It would seem that now, in the vale of sleep,
When the earth took its toll,
He could forget about his homeless lot.
But will the worms stop howling?
Weaving rings around his bones,
That God lays his fingers on the sky,
To surround you with a gentle radiance
Dancers above a thoughtless wave?
What's the point of dreams while the Lord is in the heat?
Didn't you burn happy love?
He did not find peace even in the grave.

Publishing activities

To the modern reader, accustomed to the simple and functional typefaces 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 became the most important examples of decorative art of the 19th century; all made 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. Edition by William Morris

Morris designed all 66 books published by the publisher, and Burne-Jones did most of the illustrations. The publishing house existed until 1898 and had a strong influence on many illustrators of the late 19th century, in particular Aubrey Beardsley.

Aesthetic movement

Subjects

W. H. Hunt - Prudence Awakened, 1853

W. H. Hunt - Light of the World, 1854

R. Redgrave - Governess, 1844

D. G. Rossetti - Proserpina, 1874

The Pre-Raphaelites created in the visual arts new type female beauty - detached, calm, mysterious, which would later be developed by Art Nouveau artists. The woman in the Pre-Raphaelite paintings is a medieval image of ideal beauty and femininity; she is admired and worshiped. This is especially noticeable in Rossetti, who admired beauty and mystery, as well as in Arthur Hughes, Millais, and Burne-Jones. Mystical, destructive beauty, la femme fatale, later found expression in William Waterhouse. In this regard, the painting “The Lady of Shalott” (1888), which still remains one of the most popular exhibits at the Tate Gallery, can be called iconic. 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 remain in a tower, isolated from the outside world, and at the very moment she decides to escape, she signs her own death warrant.

W. Waterhouse - Lady of Shalott, 1888

W. Waterhouse - Ophelia, 1894

W. Waterhouse - “I am haunted by shadows,” said the Lady of Shalott, 1911

D.E. Millet - Mariana, 1851

Scenery

W. H. Hunt - English Shores, 1852

D.E. Millet - Autumn Leaves, 1856

Lifestyle

William Morris - Queen Ginevra, 1858

“Yesterday, my dear sister,” writes James, “was a kind of apotheosis for me, for I spent the greater part of it at 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, faience tiles, medieval tapestries and church embroidery - in general, everything Pre-Raphaelite, antique, 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 surpass the price of the greatest luxury items), and because his factory cannot be of too much importance. But everything he has created is amazing and excellent... he also has the help of his wife and little 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 can often be seen in the artist's paintings:

“Oh, my dear, what a woman this is! She is beautiful in everything. Imagine a tall, thin woman, in a long dress made of fabric the color of muted purple, made of natural material down to the last lace, with a shock of curly black hair falling in large waves along her temples, a small and pale face, large dark holes, deep and quite Swinburne-like, with thick black curved eyebrows... A high open neck covered 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 had seen it, you would have taken it for a painful vision, but of extraordinary similarity and fidelity to the features. After dinner... Morris read us one of his unpublished poems... and his wife, suffering from toothache, rested on the sofa, with a scarf over her face. It seemed to me that there was something fantastic and remote from our real life in this scene: Morris, reading in a smooth antique meter a legend of miracles and horrors (this was the story of Bellerophon), around us is the picturesque second-hand furniture of the apartment (each item is an example of something), and, in the corner, this gloomy woman, silent and medieval with my medieval toothache.”

The Pre-Raphaelites were surrounded by women of all kinds social status, lovers, models. One journalist writes about them this way: “... women without crinolines, with flowing hair... unusual, like a fever dream in which magnificent and fantastic images slowly move.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti lived in a refined and bohemian atmosphere, and his eccentric image itself became part of the Pre-Raphaelite legend: Rossetti lived with the most different people, including poet Algernon Swinburne, writer George Meredith. Models succeeded one another, some of them became Rossetti's mistresses; the vulgar and stingy Fanny Cornforth was especially famous. Rossetti's house was full of antiques, antique furniture, Chinese porcelain and other trinkets, which he bought from junk shops. The garden was home to owls, wombats, kangaroos, parrots, peacocks, and at one time there even lived a bull whose eyes reminded Rossetti of the eyes of his beloved Jane Morris.

The meaning of Pre-Raphaelitism

Despite the apparent focus on the past, the Pre-Raphaelites contributed to the establishment of the Art Nouveau style in the fine arts; moreover, they are considered the predecessors of the Symbolists, sometimes even identifying both. For example, that the exhibition "Symbolism in Europe", which moved from November 1975 to July 1976 from Rotterdam through Brussels and Baden-Baden to Paris, took 1848 as the starting date - the year of the founding of the Brotherhood. Pre-Raphaelite poetry left its mark on the French symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé, and painting on artists such as Aubrey Beardsley, Waterhouse, and lesser known ones such as Edward Hughes or Calderon. Some even note the influence Pre-Raphaelite painting on English hippies, and Burne-Jones on the young Tolkien. Interestingly, in his youth, Tolkien, who together with his friends organized a semi-secret society called the Tea Club, compared them to the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.

Some Pre-Raphaelitist works

D.E. Millais - Cherry Ripe, 1879

D.E. Millet - Lorenzo and Isabella, 1849

D.E. Millais - The North-West Passage, 1874

D.E. Millet - Black Brunswick Hussar, 1860

D. G. Rossetti - Beata Beatrix, 1864-1870

D. G. Rossetti - Annunciation, 1850

W. Waterhouse - Gilias and Nymphs, 1896

W.H. Hunt - Finding the Savior in the Temple, 1860

W.H. Hunt - Hired Shepherd, 1851

What should someone do for whom their rebellion means so much? Go to Moscow. What if he (or rather she) is out of shape? To see the reflection of their work in your soul...

Coronation portrait of Queen Victoria (1837 - 1901) - the last representative of the Hanoverian dynasty on the throne of Great Britain. Born in 1819. Her first name, Alexandrina, was given to her in honor of the Russian Emperor Alexander I, who was her godfather.

The social image of the era is characterized by a strict moral code (gentlemanship), which reinforced conservative values ​​and class differences.

The society was dominated by the values ​​professed by the middle class and supported by both the Anglican Church and the opinion of the bourgeois elite of society.
Sobriety, punctuality, hard work, frugality and thrift were valued even before Victoria's reign, but it was during her era that these qualities became the dominant norm. The queen herself set an example: her life, completely subordinate to duty and family, was strikingly different from the life of her two predecessors. Most of the aristocracy followed her example, abandoning the flashy lifestyle previous generation. The skilled part of the working class did the same. The middle class believed that prosperity was the reward of virtue and that, therefore, losers were not worthy of a better fate. The puritanism of family life taken to the extreme gave rise to feelings of guilt and hypocrisy.

Holding the post of president of the Royal Academy of Arts until his death, Reynolds performed historical and mythological compositions and devoted a lot of energy to teaching and social activities. As an art theorist, Reynolds called for studying the artistic heritage of the past, in particular the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. Adhering to views close to classicism, Reynolds at the same time emphasized the special importance of imagination and feeling, thereby anticipating the aesthetics of romanticism.

In 1749, Reynolds traveled to Italy, where he studied the works of the great masters, mainly Titian, Correggio, Raphael and Michelangelo. Upon his return to London in 1752, he soon became famous as an unusually skillful portrait painter and occupied a high position among English artists.

Many of Reynolds's works have lost their original shine and cracked due to the fact that, while executing them, he tried to use other substances, such as bitumen, instead of oil.

The Pre-Raphaelite Society was founded in 1848 by three young artists: William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and John Everett Millais. The challenge lay in the very name of the group: “Pre-Raphaelites” means “before Raphael.” "Yours academic art, gentlemen, professors, with the sugary Raphael as a guide, is outdated and insincere. We take our example from those painters who lived before him,” the Pre-Raphaelites seemed to declare with their name.

Revolt of youth against academic painting is not uncommon. In Russia, the society of the Itinerants arose in exactly the same way. However, Russian artists, as a sign of protest against official art, usually painted melancholic genre paintings, imbued with accusatory pathos. The British elevated simplicity, beauty, and the Renaissance into a cult.

There is so much sincerity, passion for life, humanity and a subtle understanding of beauty in the figures painted by Lippi that they make an irresistible impression, although sometimes they directly contradict the requirements of church painting. His Madonnas are charming innocent girls or tenderly loving young mothers; his babies - Christs and angels - lovely real children, bursting with health and fun. The dignity of his painting is elevated by the strong, brilliant, vital color and cheerful landscape or elegant architectural motifs that make up the setting of the scene.

The animation of the landscape, the fragile beauty of the figures, the musicality of light, tremulous lines, the transparency of cold, refined, as if woven from reflexes, colors create an atmosphere of dreaminess, light lyrical sadness.

The composition, which has acquired classical harmony, is enriched by the whimsical play of linear rhythms. In a number of Botticelli's works of the 1480s, there is a hint of anxiety, vague uneasiness.

The action takes place under a portico open to the garden. The columns of the portico visually divide the central panel into three parts. On the right is the Virgin Mary. Before her is the bowed Archangel Gabriel. In the depths you can see the entrance to Maria's room. The sculptured medallion above the central column depicts God the Father. On the left is a view of Eden with a depiction of a biblical episode: Archangel Michael expels Adam and Eve from paradise after their fall.

The combination of the Old Testament episode with the New Testament turns Mary into “ new Eve", devoid of the shortcomings of the ancestor.

The father of the future artist, a former curator of the Bourbon Museum in Naples, belonged to the Carbonari society that took part in the uprising of 1820, which was suppressed by Austrian troops after the betrayal of King Ferdinand. In London, Gabriele Rossetti (father) was a professor at King's College. IN free time he was compiling an “Analytical commentary on” Divine Comedy» Dante. Her mother, born Mary Polidori, was the daughter of the famous translator of Milton. They passed on their literary passions to their children.

The son was named in honor of Dante. Eldest daughter- Maria Francesca - wrote the book “Dante’s Shadow”. The youngest, Christina, became a famous English poetess. The youngest son, William Michael, is a literary critic and biographer of his brother.

The masters of the Italian Renaissance portrayed 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, confused and frightened by the news brought to her by the Archangel Gabriel. This unusual approach, which infuriated many art lovers, was in keeping with the Pre-Raphaelites' intention to paint 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 aroused strong disapproval; Rossetti was suspected of sympathizing with the papacy.

Mary is working on purple yarn for the temple curtain. This is a symbol of the upcoming “spinning” of the infant body of Jesus Christ from the “purple” of maternal blood in the womb of Mary. As you have seen, work on the yarn continues when the Annunciation occurs.

In the religious and symbolic motifs of the young Pre-Raphaelite artists, the famous literary and art critic and poet, historian and art theorist, artist and social reformer John Ruskin saw an important discovery. He proposed a set of unshakable rules with a call to study nature, use the achievements of science and imitate the masters of the trecento.

Thanks to his support, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood quickly gained recognition. The Pre-Raphaelites raised the bar for the quality of painting, stepped over the academic traditions of the Victorian era, returning to nature, the true and simple criterion beautiful.

John Everett Millais was the youngest of the brilliant trinity and had the best knowledge of various painting technique. Carried away by the poetic fantasies of Rossetti and the theoretical arguments of Hunt, he was the first to put into practice the “Pre-Raphaelite” method of writing, reminiscent of fresco painting.

Milles paints with bright colors on damp white ground, does not use professional sitters and tries to be extremely reliable in depicting the material world.

This is a story about the love that broke out between Isabella and Lorenzo, a servant in the house where Isabella lived with her rich and arrogant brothers. When they found out about their relationship, they decided to secretly kill the young man in order to save his sister from shame. Isabella knew nothing about Lorenzo’s fate and was very sad.

One night, Lorenzo's spirit appeared to the girl and pointed out where the brothers buried his body. Isabella went there, dug up her lover's head and hid it in a pot of basil. When the brothers found out what exactly was kept in the pot, they, fearing punishment, stole it from their sister and ran away. And Isabella died of grief and melancholy.

The plot was very popular in painting. The Pre-Raphaelites had a special love for him.

Vassal of love - young Lorenzo,
Beautiful, simple-minded Isabella!
Is it possible that under one roof
Love did not take possession of their hearts;
Is it possible that at the midday meal
Their gazes did not meet every now and then;
So that in the middle of the night, in silence,
We didn’t dream about each other in our dreams!***
So the brothers, having guessed everything,
That Lorenzo is full of passion for their sister
And that she is not cold to him,
They told each other about the misfortune,
Choking with anger - because
That Isabella finds happiness with him,
And for her they need a different husband:
With olive groves, with a treasury.

They say that Milles came up with the plot for this painting in the summer of 1848 during a church sermon. The canvas depicts little Jesus in the workshop of his father Joseph (the painting has a second title - “Christ in the carpenter’s workshop”). Jesus has just wounded his hand with a nail, which can be understood as a premonition of the future crucifixion. Miless made his first sketches in November 1849, began painting the canvas in December, and completed the painting in April 1850. A month later, the artist presented it at the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy - and dissatisfied critics attacked him.

Millais's unusual presentation of the religious scene was considered by many to be too crude and almost blasphemous. Meanwhile, this painting is still considered one of Milles’s most significant works.

In the article, Dickens wrote that Jesus looked like "a repulsive, restless, red-haired boy - a crybaby in a nightgown, who seems to have just crawled out of the next ditch." Of Mary, Dickens said that she was written as “horribly ugly.”

The Times newspaper also spoke in similar terms about Millais’s painting, calling it “disgusting.” According to the critic, “the depressing, nauseating details of the carpentry workshop obscure the truly important elements of the picture.”

The artist followed the Pre-Raphaelite principles of strict realism and immediate emotional appeal when he depicted the Holy Family as a family of poor English workers at work in the workshop of the carpenter Joseph. The emaciated Virgin Mary was especially indignant because she was usually depicted as an attractive young blonde.

For Milles, who spent long days in the carpenter's workshop trying to capture all the details of the craftsmen's work, the criticism made a deafening impression. He was confused...

The desire for realism is visible, there is no “beauty”, Mariana stands in an uncomfortable, ugly pose, which conveys her languid, long wait. The entire decoration of the room with stained glass windows and walls upholstered in velvet is in the taste of the Victorian era. Excellently crafted details, as well as the plot of the painting, reflect the main features of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The girl leads a lonely life, still yearning for her lover...

Oh, take those lips too
Why did they swear to me so sweetly?
And the eyes that are in the dark
They lit me up with a false sun;
But return the seal of love, the seal of love,
The kisses are all mine, all mine!

When Millais's painting first appeared in an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, it was accompanied by a line from Alfred Tennyson's poem "Mariana": "He will not come," she said.

Millais began painting this picture at the age of 22, like many young people of his age, he literally raved about Shakespeare's immortal play. And on canvas I tried to convey as accurately as possible all the nuances described by the playwright.

The most difficult thing for Milles in creating this painting was to depict a female figure half submerged in water. Painting it from life was quite dangerous, but the artist’s technical skill allowed him to perform a clever trick: painting water in the open air (working in nature gradually became part of the practice of painters since the 1840s, when oil paints in metal tubes first appeared), and a figure - in his workshop.

Millais reproduced the scene described by the Queen, Hamlet's mother. She talks about what happened as if it were an accident:

Where the willow grows above the water, bathing
In the water there is silver foliage, it
Came there wearing fancy garlands
From buttercup, nettle and chamomile,
And those flowers that he calls rudely
People, girls call with fingers
Dead people. She owns her wreaths
I thought of hanging it on willow branches,
But the branch broke. Into the weeping stream
The poor thing fell with flowers. Dress,
Spreading wide across the water,
She was held like a mermaid.

It is also known that Milles specially bought an antique dress from an antique shop for Elizabeth Siddal so that she would pose in it. The dress cost Milla four pounds. In March 1852, he wrote: “Today I purchased a truly luxurious antique women's dress, decorated with floral embroidery - and I am going to use it in Ophelia.”

According to the language of flowers, buttercups are a symbol of ingratitude or infantilism, a weeping willow bending over a girl is a symbol of rejected love, nettles mean pain, daisy flowers near the right hand symbolize innocence. The weeping grass in the upper right corner of the picture is “the fingers of the dead.” Roses are traditionally a symbol of love and beauty, in addition, one of the characters calls Ophelia “the rose of May”; the meadowsweet in the left corner may express the meaninglessness of Ophelia's death; forget-me-nots growing on the shore are a symbol of fidelity; the scarlet and poppy-like Adonis floating near the right hand symbolizes grief.

The critic John Ruskin noted that “this is the finest English landscape; permeated with sorrow."

My associations are inevitable for me... In “Solaris,” my forever beloved Andrei Tarkovsky, with the help of frozen algae in flowing water, conveyed the feeling of “time blurred in the realities” - not belonging to either the Past, or the Future, and, moreover, to the Present, only to Eternity, which is visible only in the imagination.

“Ophelia” shocked the audience and brought the author well-deserved fame. After Ophelia, the Royal Academy of Arts, whose canons he refuted with previous works, accepted Milles as a member. The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood disintegrates, and the artist returns to the academic style of painting, in which nothing remains of his previous Pre-Raphaelite quests.

Hunt was the only one who remained faithful to the doctrine of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to the end and preserved their pictorial ideals until his death. Hunt is also the author of the autobiographies Pre-Raphaelitism and Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which aim to provide an accurate record of the Brotherhood's origins and members.

This is perhaps Hunt’s most “medieval” work, where the composition, poses and division into plans are reminiscent of the works of artists of the early Italian Renaissance, and the era itself - British antiquity - is close to the area of ​​interest of the other Pre-Raphaelites.

Already the next one famous picture Hanta shows us not a distant era, but completely modern people, or rather, people in modern costumes. This picture refers the viewer to the Gospel, where Christ, the Good Shepherd, says: “But a hireling, not a shepherd, whose sheep are not his own, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and runs; and the wolf plunders the sheep and scatters them. But the mercenary runs away because he is a mercenary, and does not care about the sheep.” (John 10:12-13) Here the mercenary is precisely busy “not caring about the sheep,” completely ignoring them while they wander off in all directions and enter a field where they clearly do not belong. The shepherdess with whom the shepherd flirts is also not faithful to her duty, because she feeds the lamb green apples. From the point of view of technique and detailed elaboration, the picture is no less realistic than, for example, “Ophelia”: Hunt painted the landscape entirely in the open air, leaving empty spaces for the figures.

Hunt’s landscapes seem delightful to me: everything is alive in them - distant plans and close-ups, bushes and animals...

True to the Pre-Raphaelite spirit of realism and closeness to nature, in 1854 Hunt went to Palestine to paint landscapes and types from life for his biblical paintings. In the same year, he began his probably most stunning picture, “The Scapegoat.” Here we don’t see people at all: before us is only an ominous, dazzlingly bright, similar to a bad dream, salt desert (its role was played by the Dead Sea, i.e., the place where Sodom and Gomorrah stood - Hunt, naturally, wrote it from life, like the goat itself), and in the middle of it is an exhausted white goat. According to the Old Testament, the scapegoat is an animal that was chosen for the ritual of cleansing the community: the sins of all the people of the community were placed on it, and then it was driven out into the desert. For Hunt, this was a symbol of Christ, who bore the sins of all people and died for them, and in the expression of the face of the dumb goat, such depths of tragic suffering shine through that Hunt never managed to achieve in those of his paintings, where Christ himself and other gospel characters are actually present