When I posted about the Tate Britain @holoz0r told me how much he likes the Pre Raphaelites. While in England I took four classes at Cambridge and one was called Painting the City: 19th- century London and we studied a little about the Pre Raphaelites.
London in 1848 was industrial with factories, pollution, telegraph (1840s), Colonial Trade and concerns about the water supply. This is the environment in which the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood started at 83 Gower Street in London and lasted for 5 years, until 1853.
The 3 main artists are Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt. They were in their early 20s and wanted to push back at how art was taught and made. They decided to take inspiration from artist before Raphael or before the Renaissance, a time when painting was more individual and detailed. Think Van Eyck. They painted stories from the Bible, Shakespeare and medieval poetry with real people and places.
John Everett Millais
One of the most famous paintings at the Tate Britain and of the Pre Raphaelites is Ophelia. It is a picture of a scene of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. We learned that the model laid in a bathtub in the dress so Millias could get the exact feeling. Millais also went on location and painted the plants and they are so precise that they can easily be identified.
John Everett Millais Ophelia, 1851-52 Tate Britain, London, England
John Everett Millais Christ in the House of His Parents, 1849-1850 Tate Britain, London, England
William Holman Hunt
I chose this picture by Hunt because I was going to be going to the coast of England later in the trip. The plague for the picture indicates:
This work is one of the first Pre-Raphaelite pictures to be created outside in open air, rather than in a studio. Hunt took nearly 5 months to paint it.
William Holman Hunt Our English Coasts, 1852 Tate Britain, London, England
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
John William Waterhouse
The Lady of Shallot is a beautiful work by John William Waterhouse. He was baptized the year after the pre Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed. So while not in the initial group he did embrace their style and subject.
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John William Waterhouse The Lady of Shalott, 1888 Tate Britain, London, England
The details in this painting are incredible. Especially the tapestry and candles. It is a picture of a 19th century poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Sources: Telegraph John William Waterhouse (Christina Rosetti Good Friday](https://www.stjames-cathedral.org/PoemoftheWeek/rossetti-goodfriday.aspx)