Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

In 1848, a group of young painters launched a movement that would change British art forever. John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt founded The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as a challenge to the contemporary academic style. Their pursuit of truth to nature opened up a new aesthetic world of flame-haired "stunners," mystical gardens, religious symbolism, and erotic intensity. Their canvases radiated with light, color, and beauty. The Pre-Raphaelites helped to define late Victorian culture, inspiring the Arts and Crafts movement, and establishing a genre that continues to enchant viewers more than a century and a half later. From their scandalous romances to their profound meditations on love and death, the Pre-Raphaelites lived as passionately as they painted. Yet their enduring popularity was not always assured. By the mid-20th century, they had fallen into obscurity. This book tells the story of their rise, fall, and remarkable revival.