Collecting The Pre Raphaelites

First published in 1997, and written by leading scholars of the day , these fifteen essays examine aspects of the reception and collecting of Pre-Raphaelite Art, the social and cultural context in which the work was favoured and acquired. Two major collections provide the focus for the investigation: that of the Birmingham city Museums and Art Gallery in the United Kingdom, and that of the American Samuel Bancroft Jr, now part of the Delaware Art Museum. The study of these two collections both formed in the late 1890’, places Pre-Raphaelite Art at nexus of contemporary cultural issues that touched the lives of both the city council, intent on establishing a public gallery of national importance, and a wealthy American businessman, indulging a private passion for the work of these artists. The contributors approach the issue in a variety of ways, These include the study of the ambitions and self-perception of collectors of the period, an analysis of the impact of John Ruskin’s campaign to establish Pre-Raphaelite painting as the ‘Art of England’ , and its impact on notions of civic and national identity ; the examination of individual painting in relation to such issues as the portrayal of women, the nude and of religious subjects ; and the study of the Victorian preoccupation with Renaissance Italy and the attempt by Ruskin, Charles Fairfax Murray , advisor to the two collections, and the Grosvenor Gallery, to proclaim the Pre-Raphaelite artists as the true inheritors of the ‘genius’ of Renaissance Italian artists.These essays were first presented at a symposium held at the Delaware Art Museum during the exhibition there of the paintings of Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery.

In Victorian England, with the country swept up in the Industrial Revolution, the Pre-Raphaelites, close to William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement, yearned for a return to bygone values. Wishing to revive the pure and noble forms of the Italian Renaissance, the major painters of the circle (such as John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt) favoured realism and biblical themes over the academicism of the time. This work, with its captivating text and rich illustrations, describes with enthusiasm this singular movement which notably inspired Art Nouveau and Symbolism.

An opulent record of one man's passion for Victorian art, published to accompany an exhibition at the London Royal Academy of Arts, September 20th - December 12th, 2003.

United in their opposition to the artistic establishment, the Pre-Raphaelites were determined to paint their pictures with complete fidelity to nature, using pure and vibrant colours on a white background. This book charts the rise and continued influence of this movement.

The Pre-Raphaelite Movement began in 1848, and experienced its heyday in the 1860s and 1870s. Influenced by the then little-known Keats and Blake, as well as Wordsworth, Shelley and Coleridge, Pre-Raphaelite poetry 'etherialized sensation' (in the words of Antony Harrison), and popularized the notion ofl'art pour l'art - art for art's sake. Where Victorian realist novels explored the grit and grime of the Industrial Revolution, Pre-Raphaelite poems concentrated on more abstract themes of romantic love, artistic inspiration and sexuality. Later they attracted Aesthetes and Decadents like Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley and Ernest Dowson, not to mention Gerard Manley Hopkins and W.B. Yeats.

Seven young idealists formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England as a reaction against what the saw as the stylistic pretenses and unworthy subject matter of the art of their day. They created an entirely new style of painting that looked back to the romance of medieval chivalry and also documented contemporary Victorian social themes.

Brings together 100 of the best works by Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Hughes and other artists from the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, preceded by an introduction to the movement, lives, art and times. Beautifully reproduced full-page artworks in an appealing hardback giftbook.

This illustrated book focuses on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their radical departure from artistic conventions. Barringer explores the meanings encoded in Pre-Raphaelite paintings and analyses key pictures and their significance within the complex social and cultural matrix of 19th century Britain.