9781422271810

MASTERS OF ART

PLATE 5 Self-Portrait (1867) William Holman Hunt Oil on canvas, 40 1 ⁄ 2 x 28 1 ⁄

2 inches (103.5 x 73 cm)

Movement’s chief apologist. Strictly, these seven were the only actual members of the Brotherhood. Had Pre Raphaelitism as an idea, intention, philosophical and technical artistic inspiration, or approach depended entirely on this original group, it almost certainly would not have attained the public recognition, respect, and regard that it currently holds. The “Brothers” were joined by friends and followers, and the result was a large and wide-ranging body of work created during the middle and later years of the nineteenth century in Britain that was different from the then-dominant Academic art. The significance of 1848 as the Year of Revolutions is important to the story of Pre-Raphaelitism. Among the many events of the year of change in European history was the meeting of the Chartists on Kennington Common on April 10. That organized group’s attempt to initiate parliamentary reform, supposedly backed by more than five million signatures, caused deep concern. Queen Victoria left London in response to fears of riots, the Houses of Parliament were protected by guns and soldiers sent there by the Duke of Wellington, and the police were mobilized. Although the meeting failed in its intention to march on Westminster it attracted an estimated 25,000 to 100,000 people, among them two young students from the Royal Academy Schools, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, who were inspired to thoughts of artistic revolution as a result. It was the unlikely initiatory origin of Pre-Raphaelitism. The third important member of the Brotherhood was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had seen a painting by Hunt, inspired by a poem of Keats. Rossetti In this remarkable self-portrait, Holman Hunt portrayed himself in Middle Eastern attire. He is dressed as a Grand Master from an earlier time.

admired the painting, was devoted to Keats’s poetry, became anxious to learn from Hunt, and sought him out at the Academy Schools. At that time, Millais was nineteen, Rossetti was twenty, and Hunt twenty-one, and the Brotherhood was the product of their youthful enthusiasm and revolutionary distaste for (as they saw it) the arid and superficial Academic style. They were joined by Rossetti’s brother William Michael, Thomas Woolner, James Collinson, and Frederic George Stephens, who together formed the original seven members of the Brotherhood. Before considering the movement itself, it is perhaps important to note some significant and relevant aspects of Victorian society and history. In the eighteenth century,

the great Industrial Revolution was taking place in Britain, and by the early nineteenth century, this was 13

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