 |
| Ophelia by John Everett Millais |
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, before being joined by a number of others including Thomas Woolner and William Michael Rossetti. The Brotherhood rejected the mechanistic approach of their contemporaries, perhaps influenced by the changes brought by the industrial revolution, and instead returned to a more complex, detailed and colourful style of painting.
On Saturday I got to see these inspirations up close at the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain and it really was a fantastic show. Rooms and rooms of paintings, each with its own theme from religion to nature, paintings to furniture and literature. Of course Rossetti's sister, Christina Rossetti, was herself a talented and well-known poet.
I arrived at the impressive Millbank gallery armed with my trusty English Lit friend from uni, our best thoughtful frowns and our mental Pre-Raphaelite phrase book garnered from the artistic and historical authority that is *coughs* BBC2's drama, Desperate Romantics (inspired by Franny Moyle's book of the same name). My successful facade was disturbed only slightly when a man whose love for Holman Hunt's Egyptian chair became just too much and saw him sprawl, face down across the varnished floor...
One of the more frustrating things about being an English Literature graduate is the assumption that you know absolutely everything that is vaguely associated with books. Naturally, I must have read Dickens entire canon and know Hardy's poetry by heart. On Saturday, I instantly noticed Millais' famous painting of Ophelia but then stupidly piled on the pressure by expecting therefore know each and every Shakespearean scene captured by the PRB across the five rooms. Turns out I didn't recognise any - oops. Anyway, having done the necessary reading, here are some of my favourites:
On Saturday I got to see these inspirations up close at the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at Tate Britain and it really was a fantastic show. Rooms and rooms of paintings, each with its own theme from religion to nature, paintings to furniture and literature. Of course Rossetti's sister, Christina Rossetti, was herself a talented and well-known poet.
I arrived at the impressive Millbank gallery armed with my trusty English Lit friend from uni, our best thoughtful frowns and our mental Pre-Raphaelite phrase book garnered from the artistic and historical authority that is *coughs* BBC2's drama, Desperate Romantics (inspired by Franny Moyle's book of the same name). My successful facade was disturbed only slightly when a man whose love for Holman Hunt's Egyptian chair became just too much and saw him sprawl, face down across the varnished floor...
One of the more frustrating things about being an English Literature graduate is the assumption that you know absolutely everything that is vaguely associated with books. Naturally, I must have read Dickens entire canon and know Hardy's poetry by heart. On Saturday, I instantly noticed Millais' famous painting of Ophelia but then stupidly piled on the pressure by expecting therefore know each and every Shakespearean scene captured by the PRB across the five rooms. Turns out I didn't recognise any - oops. Anyway, having done the necessary reading, here are some of my favourites:
 |
| Hamletby Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
 |
| Two Gentleman of Verona: Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus by William Holman Hunt |
| Twelfth Night Act II Scene IV by Walter Howell Deverell |
No comments:
Post a Comment