Associate Professor Dr.

Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Between Myth and Avant-Garde

Refusing to conform to the standard principles of the Royal Academy, the painters John

Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt founded in 1848 the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood 1(P.R.B2). They wanted to return to the pre-Renaissance artistic values and conceptions,

rejecting Rafaels mannerism, in an attempt to stay true to nature and to a too mimetic representation,

offering a great attention to the detail and a unique comprehension and interpretation of the Victorian

society. Young and brave, they were the rejected rebels who wanted to breathe new life in the way

people perceived the world, expelling the prejudices, the academic idealism, towards a modern

approach of the society. The question that arises is whether they succeeded in creating the first Avant-

Garde movement in the art history or not.

Let us consider the Avant-Garde spirit first. The P.R.B reacted against the tendency of

conventionality, which was ubiquitous regarding the Victorian3 society. In times in which art was

increasingly conservative, and the society was being industrialized, the P.R.B strongly believed in their

arts potential of making a difference, and also of having an advocate role in pointing society issues with

their real ugliness (moral, political, religious, etc), not just trivialities to amuse the leisure hours of

1
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in John Millais's parents' house on Gower Street, London in 1848.
At the first meeting, the painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt were
present. Hunt and Millais were students at the Royal Academy of Arts and had met in another loose association,
the Cyclographic Club, a sketching society .
Wikipedia, The Pre-Raphaelites - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood#cite_note-6
2
These three initials were firstly used as a signature for the Brotherhoods members works in intend to keep the
existence of the group secret from the members of the Royal Academy
3
In the history of the United Kingdom, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June
1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. -Wikipedia- The Victorian Era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era
Associate Professor Dr. Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A
the middle classes , as said by some critics. A clear example of this intention is vivid in the painting

Isabella4 in 1818, painted by John Everett Millais, which depicts a Romeo and Juliet-like tragedy

originally wrote by Boccaccio4, in which brothers of the protagonist, Isabella, kill her lower status lover,

the clerk, and then run away from their deed, as Isabella dies of a broken heart. The painting succeeds

to make the case for the modernity by utilizing pictorial realism and a new concept of narratives that

ensures the comprehension of the whole moralizing story in just one frame. This is possible with the

help of various symbols, and great details which make the painting more complex than the other art-

works of that time, as it contains substance and satire addressed to the rigorous Victorian standards.

The paintings become novels that glowed 5, as stated by Jonathan Jones in his review, novels in bright

colors which depicted the problems of a society that tried to conceal them instead.

However, these points can be turned against them quite easily , because as is revealed by the

Jonathan Jones, the paintings have the time-bound detail of a condition-of-England novel by Benjamin

Disraeli, and so they sometimes fail to cast new light, they become too complacent in their reliance on

artistic formula as if there were a Mrs. Beeton recipe for greatness 5 . Perhaps, the fact that the past

served as their primordial source of inspiration, in my opinion, hindered them to create a stronger

4
The poem was originally written by Boccacio, Renaissance writer, with suprinsingly realistic dialogue and
characters for his period, but the artist chooses the 1818 Keats version- Isabella or The Pot of Basil, as it
contains more emotional content and tension which can be translated in his painting in more symbols,
expressions, a greater complexity, more depth

5
Jonathan Jones- Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain review, published on Wednesday 12
September 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/sep/10/preraphaelites-exhibition-victorian-
sexuality-drama
Associate Professor Dr. Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A
forward-looking movement. Furthermore, there was a big ambiguity floating around them, as they were

always in between, never taking a firm position on a side creating a body of work that is at once

pleasing and exasperating, astonishing and confounding 6. And indecision was never an Avant-Garde s

cup of tea. Taking into consideration, the appearance of women they painted, they started with

unattractive prostitutes and instead decided to paint women as an object of desire, such as Lady Lilith,

negating any sense of radicalness because women have for centuries been represented in this way. 7

Their realistic painting style lost their complexity, were deprived of all the meanings and symbols, and

therefore their work became exactly what they were initially afraid of: a work conducted by prejudices,

rules of sfumato and chiaroscuro(classical methods of painting) , a work that could no longer address

social issues. As a result, the group parted in 1853, and each member pursued different paths in their

career, retaking their place in the society they initially denied.

The second point that support the Avant Garde point of view is given by their interior group

organization and their modality to present their work. They provided a theoretical basis for their group

ideology, publishing a journal called , The Germs, aiming to circulate the creative work and radical

ideas of the Pre-Raphaelites as expressed in poetry, literature and art 8 . It became the equivalent of

their manifesto which has always been a cornerstone for the Avant -Garde-s movements. In addition to

this kind of media, they excelled manipulating the art market, milking of scandal, and position as the

preferred choice of artists for nouveau riche collectors, they were the forerunners of the Damien Hirst

6
James Gibbson- Shock of the Old: The Pre-Raphaelites Go Back to the Future, 5 May 2013
https://hyperallergic.com/70029/shock-of-the-old-the-pre-raphaelites-go-back-to-the-future/
7
Brendan Hoffman, The Pre-Raphaelites: Avant-Garde or Kitsch?in New York Times on 04/02/2013
https://whitecubedia ries.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/the-pre-raphaelites-avant-garde-or-kitsch/
8
British Library site- https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/pre-raphaelite-journal-the-germ
Associate Professor Dr. Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A
9
generation. They were the puppeteers of their own advertising, taking advantage of the negative

comments, feeding themselves with the controversy.

To put it in a nutshell, there are arguments both sides to be taken in consideration, but I think

that although they were not consistent in their materialization of their beliefs, they were able to create

a forward looking movement . They had an advantage that award them the Avant-Garde status. Despite

their paintings were the most scrutinized, Edward Burne-Jones emphasize in his work: one of the main

planks of pre-Raphaelite reform was a call for unity of all the arts, not just the "travelling pictures", as

he refers to the paintings. They took interests in all forms of art, craft and design, being open minded

and widening their horizons because they felt like there should be no division between the fine arts and

the applied arts. And by doing that, they paved the way of the future movements such as Arts and

Crafts, Bauhaus. 10

9
Marcus Field Saturday ,25 August 2012 23:00 on www.independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/pre-raphaelites-the-young-ones-
8081133.html#gallery
10
Fiona MacCarthy- Why the pre-Raphaelites were the YBAs of their day, The Guardian, Friday 31 August 2012
08.00
Associate Professor Dr. Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A

Bibliography:

Fiona MacCarthy- Why the pre-Raphaelites were the YBAs of their day, The Guardian, Friday 31

August 2012 08.00

Wikipedia

- Victorian era - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era

-The Pre-raphaelite Brotherhoof -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Raphaelite_Brotherhood

Marcus Field Saturday ,25 August 2012 23:00 - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-

entertainment/art/features/pre-raphaelites-the-young-ones-8081133.html#gallery

Brendan Hoffman, The Pre-Raphaelites: Avant-Garde or Kitsch?in New York Timeson 04/02/2013
https://whitecubediaries.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/the-pre-raphaelites-avant-garde-or-kitsch/

James Gibbson- Shock of the Old: The Pre-Raphaelites Go Back to the Future, 5 May 2013

https://hyperallergic.com/70029/shock-of-the-old-the-pre-raphaelites-go-back-to-the-future/

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/praf/hd_praf.htm
Associate Professor Dr. Magda Teodorescu
Student: Miu Alexandra
University of Architecture and Urbanism
Faculty of Architecture,23A
British Library site- https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/pre-raphaelite-journal-the-germ