The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
by Valerie Woodgate
14 February 2013,10.45am
Ophelia, Sir John Everett Millais, 1851-2, (The Tate Gallery)
In 1848 a group of young artists got together to form a secret society which they called The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They wanted to establish a new kind of art based on serious subject matter and the painstaking study of nature.
Holman Hunt said “...our talk is deepest treason against our betters.”. As proof of this, their early works in the new style provoked a storm of hostile criticism. A few years later, however, works by the Pre-Raphaelites were to be among the most popular exhibits at the Royal Academy.
Left: The Awakening Conscience, William Holman Hunt, 1853,
(The Tate Gallery);
Right: Beata Beatrix, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1864, (The Tate Gallery)
This lecture will make clear the reasons why the Pre-Raphaelites felt that art was in need of reform, how their art was different from the popular art of the day, the reasons for the criticisms of the group and for their gradual rise to fame and acceptance.
Valerie Woodgate
Valerie Wodgate is Lecturer and Guide at Tate Britain and Tate Modern. She also lectures in other major Galleries and, on religious art, in churches and cathedrals and gives lectures on cruises on behalf of the Tate Gallery. She is part of the teaching team at Dulwich Picture Gallery and is a script-writer for the Living Paintings Trust (art for the blind and partially-sighted). She lectures for NADFAS in Europe, Australia and South Africa.