The
Pre-Raphaelites

Notes of
May, 23rd 2012

The name
recalls painters, mainly the ones who lived and worked before Raphael, but it
also refers to a brother-hood founded by J.Millais, W.Hunt and Gabriel
Rossetti.

The group
was founded in the first half of the 19^th Century, precisely in
1848.

They belong
to the anti-Victorian reaction; indeed they refuse the Victorian art, promoting
an art which goes back to the Medieval Age.

Their art
was characterized by a minute attention to the naturalistic details and by
women portraits. These portraits are very ambiguous because the women painted
looks like the Holy Virgin, but their eyes, their posture suggested something
else, related to the sexual sphere.

The critic
moved towards the Victorian art appears clear in J.Ruskin's books The Seven
Lamps of Architecture and Venice Stones.

The
movement was not only artistic, but also literary. In particular, the
Pre-Raphaelites produced poetry strictly connected to the sense triumph ( as
the Aesthetes do according to Walter Paterr's philosophy, for which the only
thing able to make a life a plenty and significant one is the Aestathic
moment).