Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema,
The Last Roses or A Votive Offering (detail), 1873.

Oil on canvas, 47.3 x 39.4 cm. Private collection.

 

 

The Pre-Raphaelites

 

 

Our attention is first attracted to a small group of artists. They are a school within a school, or rather they were, because they succumbed to the same fate as most small confederations. United for a time by a unanimous idea, by the glowing belief of youthful ardour common to all, they formed a courageous but fanatical little band. Their leader was an eminent man, full of fire and energy, amounting even to violence, a man who strove with his whole soul, his fortune, and his peculiarly eloquent pen, to work, a revolution in the existing style of art. The flame of this enthusiasm at length died out, yet, when first ignited, how bright and vivid it was! The strange little community was dispersed; and why? It followed, undoubtedly, the ordinary course of similar societies, which generally fall to the ground on account of the varied and illusory nature of human ideas, which, as in this case, cruelly misled some of the members.

The apostle of the new school soon appeared. This was the illustrious John Ruskin. Emboldened and upheld by his constant exhortations, the new school marched forward in their new path, proud and steadfast in their convictions. What was their aim? It would require a volume to answer this question and to discuss the matter. But we will try in a few words to explain their high and noble purpose, and at the same time point out the error into which they fell. The movement was such an important one, that, even after thirty years, it exerted a decided influence on the English school and on decorative art in England, so we must certainly dwell on it and strive to understand it as clearly as possible.

The new school ascribed to art, in direct terms, a distinctly moral purpose. Some of them thought to gain this object by representing, in as minute a style as possible, subjects in historical art, possessing a most precise and accurate character. Others proposed to attain their end in landscape painting, by faithfully carrying out the smallest details and most insignificant particulars of the special spot in nature chosen by the artist. In both cases, in history and landscape, the system was one of microscopic analysis driven to the utmost extreme. By so strict a scrutiny, they hoped to become closely united and incorporated with Truth, the beginning and end of all morality. A noble illusion, indeed, and one demanding our highest respect! It was thought out by the deeply philosophical mind of Ruskin, an art enthusiast, who warmly advocated the cause and formulated its teaching.

It will be noticed that I do not participate in the universal but entirely erroneous belief that the origin of the movement was to be ascribed to Ruskin. I do not think that, at the time the school was founded, any of its first members had read his admirable works, and certainly he was personally quite unknown to them. It was only after the display of their pictures at two or three annual exhibitions that the great writer generously came forward as their champion against the furious criticisms of the English press. This moment was a red-letter day for the society.

From his earliest youth, Ruskin, by his deep and comprehensive feeling for sculpture and painting, was drawn, in spite of himself, towards a thorough study of works of art; but on the other hand the tendency of his philosophical mind led him to reduce every object of his study to a system, and arrange it methodically from his own point of view. Had he been less enthusiastic, a tranquil work on the philosophy of art might have satisfied these conflicting tastes; as it were, he imbued it with all his fervour.

A mind of this stamp, endowed with so much strength, activity, and faith, was bound to make converts. With cogent reasoning he laid bare and waged war against the folly that employed skill and manual dexterity in substituting formality for truth; and in this there was a great deal that was true. The only fault in the system, so far, was the severe inflexibility with which it was carried out. Ruskin, with a logic like that of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Henry Rousseau, advanced boldly from one inference to another, to the farthest bounds of the principle laid down. His extremely daring opinions led him to look upon Raphael as the first traitor to religious art, which had been understood and represented in all its sublimity by his predecessors. As he was the first traitor, so, according to this view, was he also the first apostle of the illusory style, an apostle only too well imitated by his disciples of every school, and faithfully followed in the path in which Ruskin could see nothing but posturing and beautiful deceit. Hence it was that the name Pre-Raphaelites was adopted by this little band of reformers, who possessed firm faith in their views, although their enthusiasm was somewhat youthful.

A section of our romantic school has also entertained fainter aspirations of the same kind. In painting, sculpture, and architecture we have also had our Pre-Raphaelites. In the last of these three arts we could mention eminent men who have made use most splendidly of similar systems. As far as painting and sculpture are concerned, the movement was not of serious moment, nor was it based on any very clear or elevated principles. The ornamental painting of the Mediaeval Ages was all that it concerned itself with, and it never entered into the spirit of early art at all. It was a fleeting excitement which came to nothing, and was promptly given up. In Germany, too, a similar movement was started by Franz Overbeck, and has not yet ceased.

The English, on the contrary, sought with almost fanatical eagerness to apply their opinions, and bring them to perfection. They had been already attacked by Parisian ridicule, which had announced, through Joseph Prudhomme, that “art is a priesthood”. But they did not laugh. To them, their mission was an earnest matter, and they established something approaching a military order, an order of knight-templars on a small scale, fighting for the regeneration of art in the midst of unbelievers. The religious and even mystical element of the Pre-Raphaelite school entered, not only into the works, but into the very life of its followers. They separated themselves from the world, worked in solitude, the feeblest of them for some time tried a cloistered life, and at the time “when their austere enthusiasm was at its height, that is, in the earliest days of their union, they added to their names below their pictures, as a sort of confession of faith, a distinguishing mark, the three letters P.R.B. – Pre-Raphaelite Brother. Now, however, the three letters have disappeared, the church is dissolved, and the flock scattered. A few of them, although solitary cases, held firmly to their convictions, and have struck out from time to time the most diverse styles, mingling with the pure doctrine their own personal feeling. Let us study them at their work.

The singular picture, exhibited in 1855, entitled The Light of the World, represents our Saviour, lighted by nothing more than the faint gleams from a lantern, advancing through the darkness of the night; bending under the weight of a glorious crown of gold interwoven with thorns. He proceeds, like a divine Diogenes, knocking at various doors, in order to discover the dwelling of the righteous.