That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples.
There on the pendent boughs here coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies, and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, a while they bore her up:
Which time, she chanted snatches of old times;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indu’d
Into that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.” Shakespeare, Hamlet, act IV, scene 7.
[17] The Last of England is in the Guild Museum in Birmingham.
[18] In the Tate Gallery one can see four of Rossetti’s works: Ecce Ancilla Domini, Beata Beatrix, Rosa Triplex, and the Portrait of Mrs William Morris.
[19] “We did not state then or afterwards that there was no healthy art after Raphael, but it seemed to us that art after him had been weakened by the disease of corruption and that it was only in older works that we could find perfect health.” “It was in somewhat of a spirit of paradox that we decided that Raphael, the prince of painters, was the inspiration for current art, for we saw very well that the practices of contemporary painters were quite distant from that of their supposed master.” Holman Hunt, The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
[20] See John Everett Millais, Some Thoughts about Art of to-day, Magazine of Art, 1888.
[21] Regarding Madox Brown, all of the historians agree that it was precisely this question that kept him from officially adhering to the brotherhood. One reads in the memoirs of F.G. Stephens, P.R.B.: “C. Brown refused to join the society mainly because of an excessive principle that these painters adopted for a while. This principle was that when a member had found a model whose appearance matched his ideas, he had to paint it exactly, down to the last hair, so to speak.” Portfolio, May 1894. As for Rossetti, we find these words from Madox Brown in Preferences in Art, cited by Harry Quilter: “He (Rossetti) had nothing against studying draperies on mannequins, as is generally thought. On the contrary, far from detesting mannequins, he had two or three built at great cost.” And later, Harry Quilter says of Rossetti: “He had a habit of doing his watercolours in around fifteen days and without a model (so much for the theories of the P.R.B.!)”.
[22] Esther Wood, Dante-Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement.
[23] “This opinion was given to students, not to artists, not in order to make paintings, but to open their eyes to nature and guide their hands with a broader and freer method.” Collingwood, Art Teaching of John Ruskin.
[24] The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
[25] John Ruskin, Modern Painters, vol. II, ch. III, § 21. The Duty and after privileges of all students, 1843.
[26] From the beginning, the common sense of Millais made him realise that their system was exaggerated. William Bell Scott recounts that at the beginning of the Brotherhood, he went to see the young artist in his workshop where he saw an engraving by the Italian Agostino Lauro, dated 1845, and entitled Meditation, depicting a young girl seated under some trees. “Every leaf of every plant, better than that, each half of each leaf, branching off from the central stem, even in the shadow, was carefully represented, and the design of the young girl’s dress, as well. I was looking at this engraving, when Millais, leaving his easel, said: ‘Ah! You’re looking at that. It’s quite Pre-Raphaelite, isn’t it? We haven’t made it there yet! As for me I won’t even try. It’s absurd. Nature is nature and art is art! Isn’t it? We would kill ourselves doing that!’”, W. Bell Scott, Autobiographical Notes, vol. I.
[27] This painting depicts Dante’s Beatrice, seated on the balcony of her father’s palace in Florence. The young girl is depicted against the horizon with eyes closed and is having, at this moment, a vision of new life. Through the window, we see the Arno, a bridge, and the towers and palaces of the city in which Dante and Beatrice spent their life until the fateful month of June 1290, when she died - the entire city was like a widower, and stripped of its dignity. Near her, a sundial marks the fateful hour, and the sunlight forms a sort of natural halo around her. A glowing red dove, like that of the Annunciation, brings her a white poppy, the mystic flower in which Rossetti wanted to unite the symbols of death and chastity. The face of Beatrice is reminiscent of Rossetti’s wife, who had already died. In the background, we see the poet Dante attentively looking at the figure of love, which is carrying a flaming heart and moving off to the left side of the painting, seemingly beckoning him to follow. “I did not want to represent death,” writes Rossetti, “but Beatrice’s anguish, suddenly vanished in ecstasy. Through her closed eyes, she is conscious of this new world mentioned in the last words of the Vita Nuova: quella beata Beatrice che gloriosamente mira nella faceia di colui qui est per omnia scula benedictus.”
[28] Mrs Russell Barrington, Catalogue of Paintings by G.F. Watts, R. A., on the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1884, The Works of Mr George Frederick Watts, R, A. (Pall Mall Gazette, extra), Harry Quilter, The Art of Watts.
[29] When these lines were written, the new memoirs of Eugene Delacroix appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes. He says “the dry school” when speaking of the Pre-Raphaelites, and in fact these words define it sufficiently for a painter.
[30] Philip Gilbert Hamerton, one of the combatants of the early years, describes Pre-Raphaelitism as “a violent and beneficial reaction against indolent synthesis in favour of laborious analysis, and against mental inactivity in favour of emotions and new ideas.” Thoughts about Art, London, 1889.
[31] “The third error (made by the official critics) was to think that the P.R.B. had no system of light and shadow. They may simply respond that their system of light and shadow is exactly the same as that of the sun, which according to me is superior to that of the Renaissance, however brilliant it was.” J. Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism.
[32] It was painted after nature on the cliffs near Hastings in 1853. Ruskin affirms that “the pure natural green and gold of the grasses in this seaside study, are seen to be accurate after one minute of attention. If you remain in front of this painting for a long time, bit by bit, it will elevate you to that peace that one hopes to find in the glory and calm of summer.” Art of England.
[33] This is one more reason to consider Madox Brown’s training at Baron Wappers’ school in Antwerp to be one of the sources of Pre-Raphaelitism. Here is how Jules Breton, who worked in the Belgian painter’s studio, described his methods: “He taught those that painted to decompose planes into strokes placed one next to the other, as in mosaics, and to colour the shadows with ardent hues, the midtones with greenish greys, and the highlights with yellow and pink, to express vibrancy and life. We see that our Impressionists did not invent anything.” La Vie d’un Artiste, Paris, 1890.
[34] Here are examples of how Pre-Raphaelitism is seen as a whole by two writers who are otherwise not entirely favourable towards it: “The influence of this school on the last quarter-century has been indisputably beneficial. It led to the direct study of nature, by according little value to conventional rules based on antiquity. Though it was mistaken in unjustly dismissing principles of composition based on centuries of experience, it nonetheless led to a very positive reform.” George H. Shephbro, A Short History of the British School of Painting. “All things considered, English art was more improved than spoiled by what was called the Pre-Raphaelite heresy, for the zeal and the earnestness of its followers served to counterbalance the problems caused by a great number of false paintings, which were produced by painters concerned only with making money, who were only working to sell.” Richard Redgrave, R. A., A Century of Painters of the English School. And to appreciate the influence that Pre-Raphaelitism had, even in branches of art quite distinct from painting, one must read the words of the great decorator Walter Crane: “To find the origins of our Revival, we must go back to the days of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Though none of its members was a decorative designer in the strict sense, except D.G. Rossetti, through their resolute and enthusiastic return to the direct symbolism, frank naturalism, and poetic or romantic feeling found in the art of the Middle Ages, combined with the power of modern analysis and an intense love of detail, they directed attention toward branches of design outside painting.” Walter Crane, The English Revival of Decorative Art, Fortnightly Review.