From Marion Boddy-Evans,
Your Guide to Painting.
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In the middle of the 19th century, the Royal Academy of Arts in London was the ultimate in art tuition. Esteemed Academicians taught students the fundamentals of anatomy, painting, perspective, geometry, and sculpture. But the establishment's view of art was very proscriptive, following either the 'Grand Manner', a Neo-classical style in the tradition of Raphael (1483-1520) or the Romantic style pioneered by Constable (1776-1837) and Turner (1775-1851).

Unsurprisingly, there were students at the Academy who were disillusioned with this, and who rebelled against the Academicians. They rejected the accepted style of painting which idealised nature and beauty to the detriment of truth. They formed a secret society called the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood through which they hoped to re-vitalise painting in Britain.

Who were the Original Members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood?
The initial group was formed by seven artists, of whom only three gained notoriety: William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82), John Everett Millais (1829-96). The other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were Thomas Woolner, William Michael Rossetti (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's brother), James Collinson, and Frederic George Stephens.

Hunt was the main theorist of the group, and was responsible for their guiding principles: the depiction of simple rather than grand subjects, with a serious and moralistic theme, an honest rendition of nature based on direct observation, and an adherence to Christian spirituality. Hunt wrote in his memoirs that their aim was to achieve a "serious and elevated intention of a subject, along with earnest scrutiny of visible facts, and an earnest endeavour to present them veraciously and exactly."

Rossetti was the charismatic force behind the group, bolstering sagging morale and whipping up popular support with other young artists. Millais was the most artistically talented of the three; having entered the Royal Academy School at the age of 11 he was under a certain amount of pressure to make a name for himself. It is possible that he saw membership of such a rebellious group as a way of gaining the artistic limelight.

Who inspired the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood?
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood revered the purity and honesty found in early Renaissance paintings, specifically the group of 15th-century artists who predated Raphael, known as the Primitives.

The idea to form a brotherhood most probably came from the Naserenes, a group of German artists who had banded together a few decades earlier to revive religious art, harking back to the styles of Durer (1471-1528) and Michelangelo (1475-1564). They had called themselves the Lukasbr¸der (Brotherhood of St Luke). The Naserenes had, however, taken the process to an extreme, reviving archaic styles of painting to create their art.

The third source of inspiration for the group was the art critic and writer John Ruskin (1819-1900) who acted as both mentor and patron to the group. He believed artists should be "true to nature" and, in his book The Stones of Venice, he claimed art was the manifestation of the moral state of society.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood also drew on Shakespeare, Dante, and contemporary poets such as Robert Browning and Alfred Lord Tennyson (a particular favourite of Rossetti).

What did the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Paint?
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood insisted that paintings must be done from direct observation of nature, for example when Millais painted Ophelia (1852) he spent four months outside painting the background. They used very strong colours, which at the time seemed garish. They achieved a luminosity in their paintings by using a plain white ground, rather than a coloured one.

Symbolism was an important component of the paintings, for example the flowers around Ophelia represent qualities such as innocence, youth, and death.

The subjects that they chose were biblical or inspired by the artists and writers they admired. Each painting had a moralistic tale to tell, even an essentially pastoral scene of sheep standing along a clifftop (Our English Coasts, by William Hunt, 1852) represented contemporary fears of anarchy and invasion.

Continue reading: Why Was the Art of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Controversial?