Customer Reviews

The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites

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This is a beautifully presented book, with ample glossy pictures on good quality paper, and intelligent comment on the artists and the art. In addition it gives the reader some good background of the times and lives of these wonderful artists.

For a long time Pre-Raphaelite art was dismissed as "ktchy" and sentimental, but even a quick perusal of this book will show you images you recognise and have probably long admired.

It is a lovely book, both a worthy addition to any coffee table collection and also for any well stocked reference library.

The Pre-Raphaelites are one of the oddest and most English groups of artists from the Victorian/Impressionist age. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites by Elizabeth Prettejohn helped me to understand the motives of the artists concerned (why pre-Raphael as opposed to pre-anyone else?) and their connection to the overall styles of art during the mid-1800s (both in England and abroad). The book is well-written and beautifully illustrated, containing one of the most complete sets of Pre-Raphaelite paintings I've seen in an art book.

Ms Prettejohn does a noble job of defending Pre-Raphaelite art and as a devotee I have no real argument with her position. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I believe that non-appreciation of Pre-Raphaelite art is due only to the heirarchy of Western Art (i.e. it is "politically correct" to prefer Monet to Hunt). It is possible that the Pre-Raphaelites were . . . well . . . just not as good as their Impressionist neighbors. I'm not an Impressionist fan myself. On the other hand, I LIKE Raphael.

Whether or not the Pre-Raphaelites are good or great or master painters, they deserve thorough study. This Ms Prettejohn has accomplished.

Recommendation: It's beautiful. Buy it, especially if you a Pre-Raphaelite devotee.

Elizabeth Prettejohn introduces her thesis in the Prologue and continues to weave it throughout her sumptuously illustrated "The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites." It is her contention that Pre-Raphaelite art should not be dismissed from the history of modern art but should constitute one of the legitimate modern art movements, equal to those developed in France. She designates several criteria to support her thesis, one of them being originality. The minutely detailed paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites convey a definite "truth to nature," as if the artist had observed in nature these particular details. For example, the unique clump of reeds in Millais' "Ophelia" of 1851-52 appears to have been viewed exactly as it is shown in the painting. This very specific detail was new in English painting and broke with previous tradition. This sense of originality or breaking with tradition is what the Pre-Raphaelites shared with the French Impressionists.

In addition, the author gives a rich history of the artists and their art and includes the art created by the female Pre-Raphaelite artists in the first part of the book, "Stories of Pre-Raphaelitism." The second part, "Studies in Pre-Raphaelitism" discusses recent research in such subjects as technique, Pre-Raphaelite realism, gender and sexuality, and contexts for Pre-Raphaelitism. The book is articulately written and free from the erudite jargon of art history. It is a book that will inform and delight both the general reader and the informed art historian.

What's good about this anthology of Pre-Raphaelite artwork is that it avoids the pitfall of its contributing commentators being too wordy (and self-aggrandizing?) and sticks to succinct descriptions, while showcasing the art and letting the wordless expressions of the paintings speak for themselves. After all, one glance at a painting is worth a whole chapter of text describing it. I think that's often forgotten in books about art. The Pre-Raphealites were the last of the 19th century Romantics, a sort of visual version of the Romantic poets of earlier in the century, and the imagination that went into their works tells us much about their era and the Brotherhood's rebellion against the staid industrial age virtues of their time and place.

Poor quality and small pictures on good glossy paper, not for a painter. There is no usefull picture about Ophelia(first picture is very small second one is just a detail).

The text is interesting, and there are some odd as well as very recognizable images. Not too bad.