Product Description

Though always controversial in art circles, the Pre-Raphaelites have also always been extremely popular with museum goers. This accessible new study provides the most comprehensive view of the movement to date. It shows us why, a century and a half later, Pre-Raphaelite art retains its power to fascinate, haunt, and often shock its viewers.

Calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt produced a statement of ideas that revolutionized art practice in Victorian England. Critical of the Royal Academy's formulaic works, these painters believed that painting had been misdirected since Raphael. They and the artists who joined with them, including William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, and Frederick George Stephens, created bright works representing nature and literary themes in fresh detail and color. Considered heretical by many and frequently admonished for a lack of grace in composition the group disbanded after only a few years. Yet its artists and ideals remained influential; its works, greatly admired.

In this richly illustrated book, Elizabeth Prettejohn raises new and provocative questions about the group's social and artistic identity. Was it the first avant-garde movement in modern art? What role did women play in the Pre-Raphaelite fraternity? How did relationships between the artists and models affect the paintings? The author also analyzes technique, pinning down the distinctive characteristics of these painters and evaluating the degree to which a group style existed. And she considers how Pre-Raphaelite art responded to and commented on its time and place a world characterized by religious and political controversy, new scientific concern for precise observation, the emergence of psychology, and changing attitudes toward sexuality and women.

The first major publication on the Pre-Raphaelite movement in more than fifteen years, this exquisite volume incorporates the swell of recent research into a comprehensive, up-to-date survey. It comprises well over two hundred color reproductions, including works that are immediately recognizable as Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces, as well as lesser-known paintings that expand our appreciation of this significant artistic departure.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #110860 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Booklist
As Prettejohn notes, so much has been written on those mid-nineteenth-century English art radicals, the Pre-Raphaelites, that some bookstores have separate sections to accommodate all the tomes about them. How could anything exciting remain to be said about them? Well, for many art lovers, what Prettejohn says will be pretty intriguing. She takes the extreme reactions to Pre-Raphaelite painting, then and now, seriously; looks again and more thoroughly at the meticulous realism, even lighting, clashing colors, and multiple foci in their paintings; and suggests a new story about the development of modern art, from Pre-Raphaelitism to symbolism to surrealism to pop art to postmodernism. If that doesn't pique art book readers' interest, perhaps Prettejohn's attention to the female Pre-Raphaelites, or her consideration of gender and sexuality in Pre-Raphaelite art, or the luscious reproductions of virtually all the famous and many lesser-known but entrancing Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces will. Art libraries, consider this book essential. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Suggests a new story about the development of modern art... [with] luscious reproductions. -- Booklist

The author argues that Pre-Raphaelite art requires long, close scrutiny. Her book equally merits lingering and absorbing attention. -- ForeWord

The first combined study of these artists to appear in 15 years. . . . Highly recommended. -- Library Journal

The first combined study of these artists to appear in 15 years. . . . Highly recommended. -- Library Journal

Review
The first combined study of these artists to appear in 15 years. There have been [other] books . . . but not the combined, thoroughgoing overview of their lives, thoughts, and, most of all, techniques that Prettejohn accomplishes here . . . Highly recommended.
(Library Journal )

Comprehensively illustrated, clearly written and introduces the reader to many invigorating new ideas.
(Times Literary Supplement )

[Prettejohn] suggests a new story about the development of modern art, from Pre-Raphaelitism to symbolism to surrealism to pop art to postmodernism. If that doesn't piqu art book reader's interest, perhaps. . . the luscious reproductions of virtually all the famous and many lesser known but entrancing Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces will.
(Booklist )

Who were the Pre-Raphaelites, and what was their art like? Prettejohn . . . addresses these questions with sensitivity, careful attention, and scholarly expertise in this gorgeous book . . . The author argues that Pre-Raphaelite art requires long, close scrutiny. Her book equally merits lingering and absorbing attention.
(Karen McCarthy ForeWord )

A valuable study that will appeal to art historians and those familiar with this seminal movement in English art. The 200 illustrations (many in detail) are all in excellent color.
(Choice )

Prettejohn has not only brought together so many of this time period's masterpieces, but has also provided the history and means with which to realize the full impact of these paintings. . . . If reading about art doesn't sound too exhilarating, this book will spark interest just from a momentary view of the enchanting paintings inside.
(Felice Ballester Bloomsbury Review )

Prettejohn's study is well-written, her research and knowledge of the period are commendable, and many of her arguments have merit and originality. . . This book goes a long way in offering some fresh visions of a favorite subject.
(Susan P. Casteras Pre-Raphaelite Studies )

Customer Reviews

Worthy addition to any art lover's library
This is a beautifully presented book, with ample glossy pictures on good quality paper, and intelligent comment on the artists and the art. In addition it gives the reader some good background of the times and lives of these wonderful artists.

For a long time Pre-Raphaelite art was dismissed as "ktchy" and sentimental, but even a quick perusal of this book will show you images you recognise and have probably long admired.

It is a lovely book, both a worthy addition to any coffee table collection and also for any well stocked reference library.

A Beautiful Book
The Pre-Raphaelites are one of the oddest and most English groups of artists from the Victorian/Impressionist age. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites by Elizabeth Prettejohn helped me to understand the motives of the artists concerned (why pre-Raphael as opposed to pre-anyone else?) and their connection to the overall styles of art during the mid-1800s (both in England and abroad). The book is well-written and beautifully illustrated, containing one of the most complete sets of Pre-Raphaelite paintings I've seen in an art book.

Ms Prettejohn does a noble job of defending Pre-Raphaelite art and as a devotee I have no real argument with her position. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I believe that non-appreciation of Pre-Raphaelite art is due only to the heirarchy of Western Art (i.e. it is "politically correct" to prefer Monet to Hunt). It is possible that the Pre-Raphaelites were . . . well . . . just not as good as their Impressionist neighbors. I'm not an Impressionist fan myself. On the other hand, I LIKE Raphael.

Whether or not the Pre-Raphaelites are good or great or master painters, they deserve thorough study. This Ms Prettejohn has accomplished.

Recommendation: It's beautiful. Buy it, especially if you a Pre-Raphaelite devotee.

Pre-Raphaelites - a Modern Movement?
Elizabeth Prettejohn introduces her thesis in the Prologue and continues to weave it throughout her sumptuously illustrated "The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites." It is her contention that Pre-Raphaelite art should not be dismissed from the history of modern art but should constitute one of the legitimate modern art movements, equal to those developed in France. She designates several criteria to support her thesis, one of them being originality. The minutely detailed paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites convey a definite "truth to nature," as if the artist had observed in nature these particular details. For example, the unique clump of reeds in Millais' "Ophelia" of 1851-52 appears to have been viewed exactly as it is shown in the painting. This very specific detail was new in English painting and broke with previous tradition. This sense of originality or breaking with tradition is what the Pre-Raphaelites shared with the French Impressionists.

In addition, the author gives a rich history of the artists and their art and includes the art created by the female Pre-Raphaelite artists in the first part of the book, "Stories of Pre-Raphaelitism." The second part, "Studies in Pre-Raphaelitism" discusses recent research in such subjects as technique, Pre-Raphaelite realism, gender and sexuality, and contexts for Pre-Raphaelitism. The book is articulately written and free from the erudite jargon of art history. It is a book that will inform and delight both the general reader and the informed art historian.