Reading the Pre-Raphaelites [Paperback]

Tim Barringer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 8, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0300077874 | ISBN-13: 978-0300077872 | Edition: First Edition

Liberated from the constraints of tradition, the Pre-Raphaelites of mid-Victorian England produced distinctive representations of nature and society in paintings remarkable for their compositional vitality and hallucinatory effects of colour. This illustrated book provides an appraisal of the pre-Raphaelite artists and their radical departure from artistic conventions. Tim Barringer explores the meanings so richly encoded in pre-Raphaelite paintings and analyses key pictures and their significance within the complex social and cultural matrix of 19th-century Britain. In chapters devoted to core themes, the author discusses such artists as John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Ford Madox Brown and their engagement with medieval revivalism, nature worship, issues of class and gender, and the reconciliation of the religious image and realism. Barringer draws on an imaginative selection of paintings, drawings, and contemporary photographs to suggest that the dynamic energy of pre-Raphaelitism arose from paradoxes at its heart. Past and present, historicism and modernity, symbolism and realism, as well as tensions between city and country, man and woman, worker and capitalist, colonizer and colonized - all appear within pre-Raphaelite art. Focusing on these issues, the author casts new light on the pre-Raphaelites and their innovative work.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tim Barringer is assistant professor of the history of art at Yale University. He formerly taught at the universities of London and Birmingham and has published widely on Victorian visual culture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (February 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300077874
• ISBN-13: 978-0300077872
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,089,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #14 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Pre-Raphaelite

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Competent Introduction to the Pre-Raphaelites, July 1, 2004

By 

Michael Gunther (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reading the Pre-Raphaelites (Paperback)

"Reading the Pre-Raphaelites" has been on the market for five years now (as of 2004), and continues to hold up well as an introduction to Pre-Raphaelite painting. People who are already familiar with Pre-Raphaelite Art (and its copious bibliography!) will not find too much here that is new, but for the not-yet-expert, this book works well in presenting many of the essential Pre-Raphaelite themes and paintings in an orderly and easy-to-understand manner.

The book is organized topically, with separate chapters on Pre-Raphaelite medievalism, nature painting, modern life, religious painting, and Post-Pre-Raphaelitism (the latter including Whistler, Burne-Jones, and the Aesthetic Movement.)

The author tosses in a bit of "critical theory" from time to time, and on occasion can be judgmental about individual works. These negatives, though, are easily overcome by the author's clarity of writing and competence of interpretation, which lucidly ground these paintings in their social and artistic milieu. The book's bibliography and index are marginal, but the quality of its color printing is exceptional, much better than in many more expensive art books.

In summary, this book would be a good buy for the student or other reader who wants a general, thematic introduction to the Pre-Raphaelites.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent rethinking of a generation of painters, July 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Reading the Pre-Raphaelites (Paperback)

This is a well-written, beautifully produced book, with much to tell the sort of person who, like me, might normally walk quickly by Pre-Raphaelite paintings in a gallery. Barringer explains the rationale, the techniques, and the lives of these artists in fascinating detail and makes one see what really is of interest in their works. He is extremely sympathetic to their projects, without being blindly uncritical. And he is candid about his debt to other art historians and literary critics. It seems to me that there is no better book on the subject for someone interested in 19th-century England or in the rise and fall of an intellectual movement.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A rather mechanical account of PRB culture., January 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Reading the Pre-Raphaelites (Paperback)

Aimed at a general readership, this must be the most recent book on the Pre-Raphaelites. Where most writers have been happy to repeat the standard conventions about the PRB and their paintings, Barringer wants to tell us that issues seep into their brilliantly-lit compositions. Alas for the reader, in avoiding the pictorial complexity and brilliance of PRB painting, Barringer devotes far too much space to fashionable academic jargon on such subjects as colonialism, gender, class and so on. Instead of ceaseless curiosity in the face of these remarkable paintings, Barringer provides us with a series of judgemental cliches about modernity and ideology. Why, the reader is left to ponder, is he embarrassed by PRB paintings? Why the fixation with 'theory'? What is 'wrong' with these paintings?!