exquisite melancholy: the pre-raphaelite artists

the pre-raphaelite artists have long held an appeal for me, chiefly i think because of their ability to represent melancholy and beauty side-by-side and then also for their exquisitely detailed representations of nature.

the meeting that brought together the nucleus of the “raphaelite brotherhood” saw the gathering of luminaries john millais, dante gabriel rosetti, and william holman hunt. from that and subsequent meetings emerged the following set of four goals:

1. to have genuine ideas to express;
2. to study nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. to sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous
art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and
learned by rote;
4. and, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures
and statues.

later the same year they were joined by rosetti’s brother william michael rossetti, thomas woolner, james collinson, and frederic stephens. regardless of our perspectives on their work, these artists were considered avant-garde in their time and so much of their thinking and work was kept secret from the orthodox elements of art society at that time.

the pre-raphaelites were particularly interested in colour and light and so invented a technique of painting in thin glazes of pigment over a wet white ground. they hoped that in this way their colours would retain a jewel-like transparency and clarity.
here is millais’ work “"dew-drenched furze" about which he is cited as having said “scotland is like a wet pebble, with the colours brought out by the rain."

rosetti's "proserpine" . . . rosetti's "holy grail" . . . rosetti's "lady lilith" . . . william holman hunt, "the lady of shallot" . . .


of course as with all art movements, the resonance of their work appears in later artists and art movements . . . some really nice examples of this effect show up in the work of john waterhouse whose extraordinary work “the lady of shallot" can be seen here . . .
also by waterhouse . . . “a magic circle” . . .
and finally a gorgeous painting by edward hughes “the princess out of school” . . .
and the beautifully rendered and titled “night with her train of stars” . . .
a comprehensive jump-page with links to the very best collections of pre-raphaelite artwork can be found here.