Ut Pictura Poesis
Gerri Mahn
The art of creation
sometimes sacrificed truth for beauty, but in the eyes of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB); this was nothing more than an excuse in keeping with the popular paintings of their day. Founded in 1848 by John Everet Millais, William Holman Hunt, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the PRB rebelled against the standards set by Raphael and tried to turn the public to earlier, purer principles. The paintings of the early Renaissance better defined their ideals of religion and romance; those same ideals that were fleshed out verbally by literary icons such as Dante, Shakespeare, and Tennyson.
The secret society did not remain so for long as the PRB began to produce works created with painstaking detail, cutting their teeth on symbolic naturalism such as Hunt’s On English Coasts. The political implications in a painting of unprotected sheep did not go over entirely well with the critics. Despite initial scorn for their heavily realist themes, the movement’s popularity increased in the early 1850’s as the mood of the works became intensely poetic with dark, medireview and religious settings and sensual undertones.
A famous recurring model was Elizabeth Siddal; Rossetti’s wife. Her striking features and large, somber eyes can be found not only in Rossetti’s work, but also that of Millais. Most particularly, his Ophelia. This painting, drawn from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an excellent example of the PRB’s love of detail. Millais spent several months painting his background, and establishing the growth around the pond before having Elizabeth pose fully clothed in a bathtub full of water. The entire piece brought mixed acclaim; some critics taken with its realism, some finding the picture oddly disjointed. Elizabeth, herself a painter and a poet contracted pneumonia from the effort.
The artists drew much of their inspiration from literary and religious scenes and in turn did not limit their artistic outlets to just canvas. The Pre-Raphaelites fancied themselves poets, and looked on both artistic mediums to convey the same messages. Their magazine, The Germ: Thoughts Towards Nature in Poetry, Literature, and Art was published briefly during the beginning of the movement. Its purpose was to uphold the values of the original Brotherhood and circulate their verse and prose. Though proving a financial failure, the publication was long after held in high regard and works, such as the following excerpt by Rossetti could be found within.
The Blessed Damozel
The blessed Damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven:
Her blue grave eyes were deeper much
Than a deep water, even.
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
On the neck meetly worn;
And her hair, lying down her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Criticism garnered by the Pre-Raphaelites was usually harsh. Many found fault with their admiration of classic resources and their attempts to revert popular techniques. Some considered the romanticism cloying and insinuated that the artists should either be painters or poets, but lacked the skill for both.
Though the Brotherhood often found themselves at odds with the art world, their impact on it was undeniable. Portraits of shapely young women draped in meticulously rendered gowns (Burne-Jones’s The Golden Stair) moved writers of the late 1890’s. Every canvas was wrought with an emotional message as potent as the prose it inspired from the likes of Oscar Wilde or William Butler Yeats. These paintings, like any powerful verse, never failed to make quite an impact upon the senses.
Web Resources
Though there are many resources on the web about the Pre-Raphaelite poets and painters, the Artchive remains my favorite, as it will provide you with a number of high-resolution images:
Literary Resources
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