Pre-Raphaelites Re-viewed

Book excerpt: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848 by the young Millais, Holman Hunt and Rossetti, has long been recognised as a high point in Victorian artistic production. But whilst we know much of the private lives of Pre-Raphaelite artists and writers and their best-known paintings are very familiar, their work (and particularly their visual imagery) has attracted limited attention from art historians and critical theorists. This collection redresses the situation with a series of detailed critical and historical studies of individual issues and productions, artistic and literary, relative to Pre-Raphaelitism. Using rigorous new critical analysis, the book throws new light on the ways in which the Pre-Raphaelites addressed philosophical, religious, political and social questions. It will be essential reading for all students of Victorian art, literature and ideas.--Back cover.