Ruskin
Publishes Modern Painters
Pre-Raphaelites,art
criticism, emergence of Arts and Craft movement, reaction against the
Industrial revolution
Pre-Raphaelites :
Idealistic counter-realities 1840s – 1890s
John
Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading
English art critic of the Victorian era, The Pre-Raphaelites were
influenced by Ruskin's theories.
Modern
Painters (1843) is a book on art by John Ruskin which
argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition of the
picturesque are superior in the art of landscape to the old masters.
The book was primarily written as a defence of the later work of
J.M.W. Turner. Ruskin used the book to argue that art should devote
itself to the accurate documentation of nature. In Ruskin's view
Turner had developed from early detailed documentation of nature to a
later more profound insight into natural forces and atmospheric
effects.
Ruskin added later volumes in
subsequent years. Volume two (1846) placed emphasis on symbolism in
art, expressed through nature. The second volume was influential on
the early development of Pre-Raphaelitism. Ruskin also added third
and fourth volumes in later years.
The
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the Pre-Raphaelites)
was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848
by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel
Rossetti. The three founders were soon joined by William Michael
Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas
Woolner to form a seven-member "brotherhood".
The group's intention was to
reform art by rejecting what they considered to be the mechanistic
approach first adopted by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael
and Michelangelo. They believed that the Classical poses and elegant
compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence
on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite".
The
Brotherhood's early doctrines were expressed in four
declarations:
It was William Michael Rossetti who
recorded the aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood at their founding
meeting in September 1848:
1.To have genuine ideas to express;
2.To study nature attentively, so as to
know how to express them;
3.To sympathize with what is direct and
serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is
conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
4.And most indispensable of all, to
produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.
Fascinated by
medieval culture, believing it to possess a spiritual and creative
integrity that had been lost in later eras. This emphasis on medieval
culture was to clash with certain principles of realism, which stress
the independent observation of nature. In its early stages, the
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed that their two interests were
consistent with one another, but in later years the movement divided
and began to move in two directions. The realist-side was led by Hunt
and Millais, while the medievalist-side was led by Rossetti and his
followers, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. This split was
never absolute, since both factions believed that art was essentially
spiritual in character, opposing their idealism to the materialist
realism associated with Courbet and Impressionism.
Through Morris's company the ideals of
the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood influenced many interior designers and
architects, arousing interest in medieval designs, as well as other
crafts. This led directly to the Arts and Crafts movement headed by
William Morris.
Ophelia, 1851–1852 ,
oil on canvas , 76.2cm x 118cm
Sir John Everett Millais,
1st Baronet, PRA (8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English
painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood. After his marriage to Effie , Ruskin's wife, Millais
began to paint in a broader style, which was condemned by Ruskin as
"a catastrophe".
The painting depicts
Ophelia, a character from Shakespeare's play Hamlet, singing while
floating in a river just before she drowns. The scene is described in
Act IV, Scene VII of the play in a speech by Queen Gertrude.
Ophelia's pose—her open
arms and upwards gaze—also resembles traditional portrayals of
saints or martyrs, but has also been interpreted as erotic
The work was not widely
regarded when first exhibited at the Royal Academy, but has since
come to be admired for its beauty and its accurate depiction of a
natural landscape.
The Light of the World,
1853 , Oil on canvas over panel 49 3/8 x 23 1/2 in , William Holman
Hunt
William Holman Hunt OM (2
April 1827 – 7 September 1910) was an English painter, and one of
the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.He formed the
Pre-Raphaelite movement in 1848, after meeting the poet and artist
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Along with John Everett Millais they sought
to revitalise art by emphasising the detailed observation of the
natural world in a spirit of quasi-religious devotion to truth. This
religious approach was influenced by the spiritual qualities of
medieval art, in opposition to the alleged rationalism of the
Renaissance embodied by Raphael.
The Light of the World
(1853–54) is an allegorical painting by William Holman Hunt
representing the figure of Jesus preparing to knock on an overgrown
and long-unopened door, illustrating Revelation 3:20: "Behold, I
stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me"
Bocca Baciata , 1859 , oil
on panel , 32.2 cm (12.68 in.), Width: 27.1 cm (10.67 in.)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (12
May 1828 – 9 April 1882) was an English poet, illustrator, painter
and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848
with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to
be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and
writers influenced by the movement, most notably William Morris and
Edward Burne-Jones. His work also influenced the European Symbolists
and was a major precursor of the Aesthetic movement.
Rossetti's art was
characterised by its sensuality and its medieval revivalism
Bocca Baciata (1859) is a
painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti which represents a turning point
in his career. It was the first of his pictures of single female
figures, and established the style that was later to become a
signature of his work. The model was Fanny Cornforth, the principal
inspiration for Rossetti's sensuous figures.
The title, meaning "mouth
that has been kissed", refers to the sexual experience of the
subject and is taken from the Italian proverb written on the back of
the painting:
The Holy Family , 1878 , 110.5 cm × 85.1
cm , Oil on canvas
James Collinson (9 May 1825 – 24 January
1881) was a Victorian painter who was a member of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood from 1848 to 1850.Collinson was a devout Christian who
was attracted to the devotional and high church aspects of
Pre-Raphaelitism. A convert to Catholicism, Collinson reverted to
high Anglicanism in order to marry Christina Rossetti, but his
conscience forced his return to Catholicism and the break-up of the
engagement. When Millais' painting Christ in the House of his Parents
was accused of blasphemy, Collinson resigned from the Brotherhood in
the belief that it was bringing the Christian religion into
disrepute.
The scene is of Jesus as an infant, with
his earthly father Joseph and mother Mary. The specific scene does
not appear in the Biblical Gospels, but it has many precedents in
Renaissance art. The dove typically represents the Holy Spirit, who
took this form at the baptism of Jesus.The extremely detailed
depiction of the growing flora is closely comparable to Collinson's
early Pre-Raphaelite work, and differs from his other paintings from
this period
Bibliography
Internet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hunt_Light_of_the_World.jpg
Books
Anna .Krausse, The story of painting:
from the renaissance to the , 1995
DVD and TV
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