The Preraphaelite Movement: William Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat And Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Beata Beatrix
...artists to combat the teachings of the Royal Academy and that of Joshua Sir Sloshua' Reynolds. The ringleaders of this group were William Holman-Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais. Unlike most historic art-movements the Pre-Raphaelites actually christened themselves the term after marking the initials PRB (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) on their early works. This title refers to an attempt to emulate the art produced before the High Renaissance period and ultimately the work prior to that of the master Raphael.
Ford Madox Brown was not strictly a member of the brotherhood but is said to have had a huge influence over them as in 1845 he visited Rome where a group of German Catholic artists known as the Nazarenes had settled. Christopher Newall says, Through Brown the principles of Nazarene painting were transmitted to the association of younger progressive painters.' The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood's preliminary principles can be summarized as follows:
An approach back to medieval archaism (with bright colours and flattened perspective); working towards truth to nature' ethics preached by art critic John Ruskin (against classical idealism) ; and the illustration of moral, religious and literary narrative. Christopher Wood sums up the movement as, a blend of romantic idealism, scientific rationalism and morality.' (See, Fig 1 and 2).
This rebellious group went on to forge one of the most influential art movements of the Victorian period, despite not always being unified with the principles they initially set out.
William Holman Hunt (1827-1910)
William Holman-Hunt had an obsessive-compulsive approach to painting. His work was thoroughly planned and thought out with The Awakening Conscience (Fig. 3) being a good example of how the most mundane of objects was important to its narrative and moral message. Wood adds, life...
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