Mid-Victorian London, 1848: twenty-year old Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, 21, and John Everett Millais, 19, bond over their artistic passions and their shared disdain for the Royal Academy, believing that British art has become predictable and formulaic. Eager to forge a new direction, they are also intrigued to find inspiration from a time period long overlooked by the denizens of the art world.
Fascinated by the late medieval and early renaissance, their individual admiration for art created prior to the artist Raphael intensifies into a collective obsession. It is the dawn of the industrial revolution, and these idealists aspired to express themselves with colorful works reminiscent of the 14th and 15th century, but with a bold, modern slant that blended realism and romance.
One evening at Millais’ parents’ home on 7 Gower Street in Bloomsbury, the trio peruses a book filled with engravings of the fourteenth century murals of the Campo Sant di Pisa. Although the three had been excitedly discussing their idealistic notions of art for several months, these engravings provide a moment of sublime synthesis, channeling their enthusiasm into the formation of a formal brotherhood.
Years afterward, William Holman Hunt would fondly reflect – “It was probably the finding of this book at this special time which caused the establishment of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Millais, Rossetti, and myself were all seeking some sure ground, some starting point for our new art. As we searched through this book of engravings, we found in them or thought we found, that freedom from corruption, pride and disease for which we sought. Here there was no trace of decline, no conventionality, no arrogance… Think what a revelation it was to find such work at such a moment, and to recognize it with the triple enthusiasm of our three spirits.”
On the eighth of September 1848, they added four more kindred souls to their group, sculptor Thomas Woolner, artist James Collinson, painter/writer Frederick George Stephens, and writer William Michael Rossetti (brother of Dante Gabriel Rossetti), and the passionate trio became a secret fraternity of seven, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Soon, the mysterious initials PRB could be seen in works exhibited at the Royal Academy, one of the earliest slyly and subliminally hidden in the lower-right corner of Millais’ Lorenzo and Isabella.
The women in their circle became involved in the movement, mostly as models, beginning with Christina Rossetti, sister to Dante Gabriel and William. Together the Pre-Raphaelites published The Germ, a periodical that showcased their poetry and illustrations. The sole female contributor, Christina’s poetry was included under the pseudonym Ellen Alleyne.
On that September in 1848, seven young artists set out to change the art world, and they certainly succeeded. Their work begat an expanded circle of influence which developed roots that grew in multiple directions: the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, and the Symbolist movement. Even The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have the Pre-Raphaelites embedded in their DNA.
The idealistic youths who formed the PRB accomplished more than they could have possibly predicted during that fateful meeting in 1848, and their lives took several unexpected twists and turns – many quite tragic and dramatic. As always, my goal here at Guggums is to explore their history and their work with honesty and respect, along with the curiosity and desire to connect their world to ours.
More on the Pre-Raphaelites
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Romantic Rebel of the Pre-Raphaelites
- John Everett Millais: The Prodigy Who Painted Emotion
- Pre-Raphaelite FAQs
- Pre-Raphaelite List of Immortals
- Pre-Raphaelite Luminosity
- The Diaries of William Allingham
- What is the ‘Pre-Raphaelite Woman?’
- William Holman Hunt: The Visionary of Pre-Raphaelite Symbolism
- Women of the Pre-Raphaelite Circle