Pre-Raphaelite+Painting

//Pre-Raphaelite Painting and the Representation of Women//

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in September 1848 by a group of young, talented painters, is the most significant British artistic grouping of the nineteenth century [i]. The Pre-Raphaelites felt stifled by the rigidity of the Royal Academy’s idea of what art should be [ii]. The Brotherhood sought to defy all conventions of art that the Royal Academy schools taught their students, and they shocked their peers with a new kind of radical art [iii]. Its fundamental mission was to purify the art of its time by returning to the example of medieval and early Renaissance painting [iv].

The Pre-Raphaelites took inspiration from art that predated 16th century Italian painter Raphael, before the followers and imitators of Raphael conventionalized the standards of art. Raphael represented a period known as the High Renaissance; a movement recognized for its artistic experimentation and varied representations of beauty [v]. This was the Brotherhood’s starting point in their quest to restore the meaning of art. The Pre-Raphaelite experimented in the form, color, and composition of their paintings [vi]. They produced works based on real models and landscapes, therefore embracing the art of [|Realism] [vii]. The principles of the Raphaelites’ paintings were to find truth in nature and imagine the scenes of the past with a lifelike quality [viii]. For inspiration, they looked at biblical stories, classical mythology, medieval tales, and nature. Depicting even the smallest of details with great accuracy and using bright, intense colors were common characteristics of their paintings. It sometimes took an entire day of work to complete an inch of canvas, since each detail was a microscopic examination of the natural world.

Pre-Raphaelite painters had a great fascination in exploring the role of women in society. A focal point of the movement was the portrayal of ideal beauty. The Pre-Raphaelites ideal woman, characterized by a thick neck, long jaw, and masculine features, was popularized by founding member Dante Gabriel Rossetti [ix]. Similar to the other members of the brotherhood, Rossetti used women models, and desired to recreate their beauty in his paintings. Elizabeth Siddal, Annie Miller, Alexa Wilding, Fanny Conforth and Jane Morris all served as muses and models in various paintings [x]. All the women played an important role in the Pre-Raphaelites’ interpretations of the female ideal beauty.

The Pre-Raphaelite woman became known as the “stunner,” which corresponded to the various ideas of femininity in the Victorian age. The stunner was often illustrated as a innocent, fair maiden, a sexualized beauty (or prostitute), or a dark, sinister beauty [xi]. An example of the dark and sinister “stunner” woman can be seen in Millais’s famous painting //**[xii]**//. The woman in this piece is the character Ophelia from Shakespeare’s play //Hamlet,// who meets her untimely death and drowns in a river. A sexualized “stunner” is also depicted in Dante Gabriel Rossetti ’s painting [|//Lady Lilith//](1868) [xiii]. The woman’s lush hair and massive red lips are emblems of her sexuality. Millais’ painting [|//Mariana//](1851), based on the Tennyson poem of the same name, shows how the Brotherhood often used paintings to comment on the lives of Victorian women [xiv]. The painting portrays a woman confined in a Victorian church house, stretching her body with her hands placed on her lower back. Her facial expression is one of frustration and agony. She has placed her pin down on the embroidery she has been working on as she gazes out the window longing for something more satisfying. A common interpretation of the painting was that Millais meant to address and explore the social issue of women’s dependence on marriage [xv]. The painting became popular amongst Victorian women, who could empathize with the woman portrayed by Millais [xvi].

Pre-Raphaelites also commented on “kept” or “[|fallen women]”, also known as prostitutes [xvii]. The issue inspired many artists, in both art and literature [xviii]. Pre-Raphaelite William Holman Hunt’s painting, [|//The Awakening Conscious//] (1853), displays a prostitute rising from a man’s lap, trying to escape his hold, and gazing at the world outside [xix]. Many interpreted Hunt’s painting as a statement on how women wanted to escape the life of prostitution. Several Pre-Raphaelite paintings display the contemporary lives of Victorian women and comment on the social issues of the time.

-S.T./Engl335/WhittierCollege/Fall2012

[i] Wood, Christopher. //The Pre-Raphaelites//. New York: Viking Press, 1981. Print. [ii] Wood, Christopher. [iii] Prettejohn, Elizabeth. //The Art of Pre-Raphaelites//. London: Tate publishing, 2007. Print. [iv] Bullen, J B. //The Pre-Raphaelite Body: Fear and Desire in Painting, Poetry, and Criticism.// Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Print. [v] Wood, Christopher. [vi] Prettejohn, Elizabeth. [vii] Lam, Siobhan. “Defining Pre-Raphaelite Realism.” //Defining Pre-Raphaelite Realism//. Victorian Web, 23 Dec. 2006. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. [viii] Prettejohn, Elizabeth. [ix] Prettejohn, Elizabeth. [x] Prettejohn, Elizabeth. [xi] Bullen, J B. [xii] “Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais Bt PRA (1829-96).” //Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais Bt PRA (1829-96)//. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. [xiii] “Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882).” //Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)//. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. [xiv] “Millais’s Mariana.”//Millais’s Mariana//. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012. [xv] Barringer, T J. //Reading the Pre-Raphaelites.// New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Print. [xvi] Barringer, T J. [xvii] Lee, Elizabeth. “Fallen Women in Victorian Art.” //Fallen Women in Victorian Art//. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Dec. 2009. [xviii] Barringer, T J. [xix] “The Awakening Conscience.” //The Awakening Conscience//. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Nov. 2012.