Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Welcome to Pre-Raphaelite territory! Founded in 1848 by a secret society of rebellious young artists—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt—the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was basically the art world's version of a punk rock movement. They were fed up with what they saw as the stale, academic painting style that had dominated since Raphael (hence the name—they wanted to go back to before Raphael's influence). These artists were only in their early twenties when they decided to shake things up, signing their work with the mysterious initials "PRB" like some kind of artistic secret society.

What made them revolutionary? They rejected the brown, shadowy paintings favored by the Royal Academy and instead went back to studying nature directly, painting outdoors with almost photographic detail. They were obsessed with medieval and literary subjects—King Arthur, Shakespeare, Dante—but rendered them with an intensity and realism that was startling. Think of it as historical fan fiction meets hyperrealism. The women in Pre-Raphaelite paintings are particularly distinctive: often red-haired, pale-skinned, with flowing medieval dresses and an expression that's simultaneously dreamy and intense. Models like Elizabeth Siddal and Jane Morris became iconic muses, their faces appearing again and again.

By the 1860s, the original Brotherhood had dissolved, but their influence exploded into a broader movement that lasted well into the 1900s. The style evolved from the sharp, almost harsh realism of early works to the more decorative, romantic aesthetic of artists like Edward Burne-Jones. When you spot a Pre-Raphaelite painting today, you're looking at art that once scandalized Victorian England but now defines our romantic image of that era.