Photo: Glacier of Rosenlaui 1856 by John Brett (1831-1902). Oil on canvas. © Tate. Purchased 1946.
Lucy Daniel went along to Tate Britain prepared to have her pre-conceptions challenged.
The last time the Pre-Raphaelites had their own show at Tate Britain was over 20 years ago.
So why is it that the first reaction to hearing about an exhibition there called Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature, on show until May 3, is: "What, again?"
It could be something to do with Tate’s strong permanent collection of Pre-Raphaelite favourites, or the recent exhibitions of Rossetti at The Walker in Liverpool and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pre-Raphaelite and Other Masters at the Royal Academy.
Rossetti himself does not appear in Tate’s new exhibition - nor do the other big Pre-Raphaelite names Edward Burne Jones and John William Waterhouse.
Photo: The Moorland (Dewar-stone, Dartmoor) 1854 by John William Inchbold (1830-1888). Oil on canvas. © Tate. Bequeathed by Sir J Russell Reynolds Bt 1896.
As curator Alison Smith explained, anyone expecting "languid damsels" would be disappointed. Pre-Raphaelite painters’ radical innovations, particularly in their use of landscape, would be "a complete revelation" to many people.
One glance proves this is indeed a new way of looking at a subject, which has gone stale for many art-lovers. There are no knights, no medieval references and no gold leaf.
Instead, there is the foliage of a country garden, a menacing glacier, the craggy English coastline and lots of sheep.
John Everett Millais’ Ophelia (1851-52) is probably the best-known work. Alongside close studies of Thistles (1860) by Rosa Brett and Pansies and Fern-shoots (1862) by her brother John, the drowned Ophelia becomes a landscape rather than a portrait.
Photo: (above) Ponte Vecchio, Florence, c. 1866-1868 by William Holman Hunt (1827-1910). Watercolour on paper. © V&A Images/ V&A Museum.
Ophelia caused controversy in its day because the background seemed more important - and took longer to paint - than the human figure of Ophelia herself.
Among many less familiar names, everyday English scenery replaces the medieval Florence usually conjured up by the term Pre-Raphaelite.
George Price Boyce’s At Binsey, near Oxford (1862) shows an English country pub with apple tree, dovecote, and children relaxing in the sunshine.
Another less typically Pre-Raphaelite environment, the holy land, is most vivid in William Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat (1854-55), a startling image of the Biblical goat cast into the barren land.
Photo: The Blind Girl, 1854-56 by John Everett Millais (1829-1896). Watercolour on paper. © Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery. Presented by William Kenrick 1892.
Importantly for this exhibition, the artist camped for 10 days at the southern end of the Dead Sea to reproduce that barren land. It represents a more realistic method than is normally associated with the Pre-Raphaelites.
When asked why he had painted such an "ugly" subject as An English Autumn Afternoon (1852-55), Ford Madox Brown replied simply that it was the view from his window.
Curator Allen Staley calls Brown’s revolutionary techniques of painting figures outdoors and working directly from nature, "a world seen with a fresh eye."
Brown’s glowing if sentimental portrait of his wife and daughter, The Pretty Baa Lambs (1851-59), places them in direct sunshine, while Carrying Corn (1854-55) required 21 visits to capture the light of a sun-drenched field.
Photo: Anstey's Cove - Devon, 1853-54 by John William Inchbold (1830-1888). Oil on canvas. © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
These innovations influenced Albert Goodwin’s Near Winchester (1864), but 45 years later Goodwin disparaged the Pre-Raphaelite palate:
"The beauty of reticence did not appeal to them: grey became violet; yellow, orange; and they almost discarded brown as an evil thing!"
Certainly, in Holman Hunt’s Fairlight Downs - Sunlight on the Sea (1852-58), turquoise, orange and lilac blend in an iridescent sea, while a red and green foreground absorbs the intensity of the sinking sun.
Geological and botanical detail inspired by evolutionary thought is a common theme. With around 150 varied and undeniably beautiful works (including industrial landscapes) by male and female, British and American artists, the exhibition tries to convince us of the diffuseness of the Pre-Raphaelite world-view.
It is surprising to see Pre-Raphaelite painters engrossed in the realities of the natural world, rather than stylised versions of it.
However, one is left wondering why some of the paintings are described as Pre-Raphaelite, even asking what the term 'Pre-Raphaelite' really means.
Perhaps that is intentional. In any case, while we are experiencing such a glut of their more familiar images, this is a refreshing, thought-provoking approach to a diverse group of painters.
