Pre-Raphaelites Made the Everyday Life a Part of the Art World

Научно-практическая конференция старшеклассников

Адмиралтейского района

Санкт-Петербурга “Лабиринты науки”

Секция “Английский язык”

Kalinin Ivan
Form 11-2
Grammar School 278
Research adviser: Zhukova E.A.

Thesis:

The Pre-Raphaelites' contribution to art is in my opinion very underrated. In today's world it is very important to refer to the works of these artists as they fully reflect the beauty of the human soul. Some consider them an important part of art history, but many art historians consider this artistic movement to be quite exotic. My research aims to resolve these differences.

My hypothesis is: The Pre-Raphaelites influenced the development of Art Nouveau and design.

My aim is to showcase the innovations that the Pre-Raphaelites brought to art.

My tasks are:

1. To analyse books by art historians on the Pre-Raphaelites.
2. Investigate the working methods and principles of the artists of this movement.
3. Find important innovations in design.

I have used paintings by Rossetti, Millais and Hunt as well as books by scholars on the subject and works by art researcher John Ruskin. By analysing these works I have identified important principles for the development of art in the Pre-Raphaelites.

Through my research I have discovered the following:

1. The Pre-Raphaelite painters used a new painting technique to achieve brighter and fresher tones. They painted in oil on a raw white ground or a layer of whitewash. In addition to the vibrancy of the colours, the technique chosen allowed the artists to make their work more durable - the Pre-Raphaelites' work has survived in its original form to this day.
2. Pre-Raphaelite paintings are characterised by a wealth of detail, with symbolism.
3. The Pre-Raphaelites used family and friends as models rather than professionals.
4. The Pre-Raphaelites were among the first to introduce a cult of female beauty.
5. The artists regarded the Bible as a source of human drama rather than a cautionary book.
6. The Pre-Raphaelites were one of the first avant-garde movements.

In this way, these artists have incorporated everyday themes into their art, abandoning unnecessary pathos and pomposity. Consequently, art became closer to ordinary people and influenced the development of design.

Introduction:

Pre-Raphaelites - a movement in English poetry and painting in the second half of the 19th century, formed in the early 1850s to fight against the conventions of the Victorian era and the academic tradition. For some reason, not so many people know about Pre-Raphaelites, they became just an exotic part in history of art, but it's hard to deny their enormous contribution to the development of art.

Main part:

Founded in 1848 by the artists Hunt, Mille and Rossetti, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood can rightly be considered the first avant-garde movement in Europe. The mysterious letters "R.C.W." (Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) that appeared in the paintings of young and unknown artists, led to the confusion of the English public - students of the Royal Academy of Arts in London wanted to change not only the principles of modern art, but also its role in the social life of society.

In the age of the Industrial Revolution, lofty subjects and rigorous academic painting in the spirit of Raphael were not popular with the Victorian middle class, giving way to artistic kitsch and sentimental scenes. Recognizing the crisis of High Renaissance ideals, members of the Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites turned to fifteenth-century Italian art. The works of outstanding painters of the Quattrocento served as models - the bright, saturated palette, the emphasized decorativeness of their work were combined with a vital truthfulness and sense of nature.

The young artists realised that they belonged to a culture that had no tradition of religious painting, which had been destroyed during the Reformation in the sixteenth century. The Pre-Raphaelites faced the difficult task of resurrecting religious art without appealing to the idealistically conventional images of Catholic altarpieces.

After the formation in 1848, the first pictures were shown at the Academy in the following spring. The pioneer and supporter for the Brotherhood of Pre-Raphaelites was the prominent and important art theorist John Ruskin. At a time when the young artists were facing an avalanche of criticism, he supported them both morally by writing an article in defence of the new direction and financially by buying several Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

John Ruskin's opinion was taken into account by everybody, so very soon the paintings of talented young people become popular. What did the venerable art theorist found so special in these pictures? John Ruskin saw in the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites a living and creative embodiment of the ideas about which he wrote so much in his writings

*Insight into the essence of nature

*attention to detail

*rejection of imposed conventions and canons

*idealisation of the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance

The renowned critic wrote several articles for The Times in which he praised the artists. Ruskin published a pamphlet about these masters, which served as a turning point in their fate. Hunt's The Hired Shepherd and Millais' Ophelia were well received at the 1852 academic exhibition.

Unlike the Renaissance masters, the basis for the composition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings was not imagination, but observations and faces taken from everyday life, they were like the Gothic masters. Members of the Brotherhood rejected the soft, idealized forms typical of High Renaissance painters, preferring dynamic lines and vivid, saturated colour.

None of the Pre-Raphaelites particularly sought to emphasise theological truths in the content of their paintings. Rather, they approached the Bible as a source of human drama and looked to it for literary and poetic meaning. In addition, these works were not intended for the decoration of churches.

The most zealous Christian in the group was Hunt, an eccentric religious intellectual. The other Pre-Raphaelite painters attempted to portray the lives of the most ordinary people, while also bringing out the sharp social and moral themes of contemporary society. Religious subjects are interspersed with images that are both topical and poignant. In the Pre-Raphaelites' interpretation, subjects dealing with social issues take the form of modern parables.

A key role in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites was played by paintings on historical themes. Traditionally, the British were not interested in exciting heroic scenes and idealised classical compositions filled with apathetic nude models. They preferred to study history through the plays of William Shakespeare and the novels of Walter Scott, to learn the biographies of great figures of the past through the theatrical images of prominent actors such as Garrick and Sarah Siddons. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected classical history with its inherent ideas of exemplary virtue, military might and monarchical achievement. Turning to literary and historical subjects, they faithfully depicted the costumes and interiors of a chosen era, but simultaneously reinforced the genre aspect by making human relationships the main motif of the composition. Before filling the picture with people, the artists carefully painted all the details of the interior or landscape in the background to emphasise the relaxed and realistic atmosphere around the central scene. In an effort to create a believable composition, they found examples of costumes and ornamentation in illuminated manuscripts and historical reference books. Each character's features are a meticulously rendered face of a model chosen from among the Brotherhood's members. This approach denied the accepted conventions of the high genre, but enhanced the effect of authenticity.

In the early 1860s a new phase began in the work of Rossetti and his associates. The young painters who had joined the circle of former Pre-Raphaelites sought to realise their talent in various fields of art. However, the works created by the new group of artists and writers were no less innovative. By the mid-1860s, Pre-Raphaelism had morphed into a movement of aestheticism. The works of this section are devoted to beauty itself.

The aspiration for it, this "single absolute goal" of art, according to Rossetti, characterises the second decade of Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Rossetti also aspired to beauty, but his aim was to create a new aesthetic ideal. During this period the artist produced a series of works that celebrate full-blooded, robust and intensely sensual feminine beauty.

The flamboyant manner of painting, broad strokes of paint, applied with stiff brushes, deliberately imitates Venetian painting of the 16th century and, in particular, the technique of Titian and Veronese.

Deep and lush greens, blues and deep reds replace the Gothic stained glass transparency of the early Pre-Raphaelite palette.

Despite their affinity with the paintings of the old masters, the paintings shocked his contemporaries, who vehemently accused Rossetti of immorality. At the same time, the artistic treatment of the images and the semantic content of these works had a considerable influence on the formation of the Art Nouveau style.

Thanks to William Morris and the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, which he co-founded with E. Byrne-Jones, D. G. Rossetti and F. M. Brown, applied art works had a marked impact on the development of European design in the second half of the nineteenth century, influencing the development of British aestheticism and giving rise to the 'Arts and Crafts Movement'.

Morris and his companions sought to raise the status of design to the same level as the other visual arts. Initially they emphasized the collective and workshop character of labour, taking idealized representations of medieval craftsmen as their model. The firm produced furnishings and decorations for home and church interiors: tiles, stained glass, furniture, printed fabrics, carpets, wallpaper and tapestries. Burne-Jones was considered the principal artist, while Morris was responsible for designing the ornaments. The characters in Burne-Jones' later works show no emotion, their figures frozen in motionless impassivity, so that the meaning of the subject is unclear and seems to be hidden in the dense layers of paint.

This artist's dreamlike images and abstract compositions represent an imaginative alternative to the extreme materialism of Victorian Britain. In this his art was undoubtedly a utopia, but a utopia in the abstract. As he himself said: 'I am a born rebel, but my political views are a thousand years out of date: they are the views of the first millennium and therefore of no importance.

Conclusion:

In this way, the Pre-Raphaelites were not only one of the first avant-garde movements in the world, but they also introduced elements of art into human life, thus influencing the development of design and modernity.

Reference list:

Elizabeth Prettejohn “The art of Pre-Raphaelites”. London: Millbank, 2000

Rachel Barns “The Pre-Raphaelites and their world”. London: Millbank, 1998

https://solla.site/prerafaelity