The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Beyond

Often considered the “Victorian Revolutionaries,” the Pre-Raphaelites drastically changed the course of British art in the mid-19th century. Also known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, these young artists opposed contemporary academic trends, which they found to be superficial imitations of Raphael. Instead, they proposed an art grounded in direct observation, intense colors, and a sense of seriousness and sincerity.

Rupert Maas, second-generation art dealer and director of the London-based Maas Gallery, which specialises in Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite, Romantic, and modern British pictures, points out the youthful defiance that defined the movement. “People saw this group of artists very much as how the generation of my parents saw the punk rock movement; they were young, shocking, and disturbing,” Maas shares. “[John Everett] Millais was the one who caused most trouble, because you couldn’t just reject him; he was still too good a painter.”

Formed in 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began as a secret society of young artists who mainly attended the Royal Academy Schools, which was led by painters John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and William Holman Hunt. As their name suggests, they rejected the Royal Academy’s veneration of the high Renaissance Master Raphael. Instead, they found inspiration in the art of the late medieval period and early Renaissance, embracing observation, truth to nature, devotion to details, and vivid color palettes. Their subject matter — often of a noble, religious, or moralizing nature — drew on poetry, literature, and religious texts, frequently exploring themes of life, love, and death.

As the art of the Pre-Raphaelites is cherished today for its jewel-like tones and the elusive beauty of their captivating subjects, it can be hard to imagine how controversial they appeared to the establishment and wider audience when it was first exhibited. Maas shares that “the Catholic content and the ‘garish’ bright colors shocked the British public the most at the time.” He points out Millais’s Christ in the House of His Parents (‘The Carpenter’s Shop’) (1849 – 50), which was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1851, as particularly shocking to contemporary viewers.

The painting depicts a scene from the boyhood of Christ and contains many Christian symbols. Following the movement’s credo of truth to nature, it is painted in meticulous detail, but also set in a real contemporary carpenter’s shop, with the faces of the figures based on people from Millais’s personal circle. Millais was attacked by the press for his brazenness to depict the Holy Family as ordinary people in a humble workshop — dirt, misery, and diseases depicted with equally as much attention.

The original group stayed together for only five years, and only a small number of works bear the initials “PRB.” “The output is tiny, the influence is huge”, says Maas. Today, “the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is often associated with later waves of artists, such as Edward Burne-Jones and John William Waterhouse, through various Romantic Edwardian painters,” with its impact also reaching into design and the decorative arts.

A popular image of Pre-Raphaelite art often returns to one specific motif: the female figure. “They had an obsession with female beauty and style, slightly Celtic in feel, often with red hair and a medieval aspect,” says Maas, describing what many viewers now recognise as the distinct Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic. He also points out the movement’s deliberate challenge to Victorian taste. “The Pre-Raphaelites first favored red hair because it upset the critics and made an impact — red hair was considered ugly, and Judas was said to have been a redhead,” referencing Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal, the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, whose coppery hair is captured in Millais’s painting Ophelia (1852), for which she modelled. “They also painted their models thin because they felt they looked like real girls, not the voluptuous figures older generations of painters had idealised.” Jane Morris is another name connected to the Pre-Raphaelites, who would come to embody the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty. Morris modelled for many of the artists of the group, particularly Rossetti as well as William Morris, whom she later married.

The women associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were, however, not mere muses — they became makers in their own right. “[The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s] pictures have immortalised them, but the women were also creators. Lizzie Siddal’s story has been turned around, from being muse, model, and lover to being re-cast as Rossetti’s co-creator. Many of her drawings and watercolors are now thought to have been made with Rossetti, and some of Rossetti’s drawings were probably made alongside Lizzie,” notes Maas. Morris would become a skilled embroiderer and designer, and she was essential for the creation and success of her husband’s decorative arts firm, Morris & Co.

Maas also notes Joanna Mary Boyce (married name Wells) as another painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Highly regarded among her peers, she produced several works with historical themes and portraits. He points to her portrait of Fanny Eaton (1861) in particular, a domestic worker of Jamaican descent who sat for many Pre-Raphaelite artists.

The Pre-Raphaelites may have begun as a rebellious brotherhood, but their legacy extends far beyond a single circle of young men and a recognisable “look.” To understand the movement fully is to also see the women at its center — both as the faces that defined its imagery as well as the artists, collaborators, and makers whose work helped shape what Pre-Raphaelitism became.