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Joseph M W Turner was the most important early Victorian artist, whose works were the mainstay of the Royal Academy exhibitions in London. By 1848 he was seventy-three and considered past his best. Who was there to take his place?
Three enthusiastic and ambitious young men, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had all studied at the Royal Academy, decided they would show their old masters what they were capable of. Inspired by early Renaissance art, Shakespeare and poets such as Keats and Tennyson, they formed a 'Brotherhood' which they named 'Pre-Raphaelite'. Their new style would follow the doctrine of John Ruskin, the most eminent art critic of the day, which was 'Go to nature in all singleness of heart, selecting nothing, rejecting nothing'. Young and headstrong, they went so far as to re-christen Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Academy 'Sir Sloshua'!
Although the brotherhood did not last very long, its impact and influence altered the nature of English art for the next fifty years. The founder members, Millais, Hunt and Rossetti became accomplished artists whose works differed in style and content. Their paintings received public acclaim and commanded high prices, which the new merchant princes from cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool were only too eager to pay.
In the last fifty years there has been a revival of interest in Pre-Raphaelite paintings and we are fortunate that many examples can be viewed and enjoyed at local galleries on Merseyside.
ALL WELCOME - Admission Free - Donations invited
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