Before Raphael ... or after Michelangelo

There were a few of the Pre-Raphaelites who were concerned with moral stories, Biblical scenes, working people and the rights of the lower classes. But they are most remembered for their women, for the femme fatales, for the "stunners" that were their models. For that's what they called their models who they eyed out and picked up on the street. Amusing to be writing this on International Women's Day, but these were young blokes in the prime of their lives and they had urges: the question is how they dealt with them. But the young models were maybe not madly diverse in intent. One wanted to be an artist and became one and was on show in the exhibition; another rejected one suitor and ended up marrying into wealth (was it minor aristocracy?). This was the second half of the 1800s and it was a harsh time to be a worker and a very comfortable time for wealth and power (common story). We took a free tour and that was interesting, then we revisited and saw things in our time. It's a very decent exhibition with some seriously famous works. There are several from Australian collections, notably Adelaide but also Melbourne. Australia was very English and very wealthy then. Adelaide also had direct connections with this movement. I knew one. I went to Adelaide Univ with a granddaughter of JW Waterhouse, one of the major late P-R artists, so I've been aware of his name for some time. And the best of these works are colourful and attractive and realistic and sometimes comely so they are popular. But there are also a string of biblical scenes. Rosetti's Annunciation that had an unusual element of reality - Mary didn't seem immediately taken by the offer she couldn't refuse - but authenticity was one concern of the Pre-Raphaelites. There were work-a-day scenes (Martineau's Kit's writing lesson and Maddox Brown's Work) and hinted seductions one way or the other (Holman Hunt's wakening conscience and Millais' Rescue) and a famous one of a couple departing for the new world (Maddox Brown's Last of England) and even landscapes. And the movement for beautiful housing appeared from William Morris and others, especially in a fabulous tapestry (Burne-Jones' Adoration of the Magi) but also in household pottery and utensils. There were numerous works of mythology and some gloriously statuesque, Michelangelesque paintings from Burne-Jones. But it must be the femme fatales and the renditions of the models themselves that are most inviting and known, especially the famed pair of Waterhouse Lady of Shalott and Millais Ophelia, which apparently almost cost the model her life from lying in a bath all day for weeks. Some of my favourites were Byrne-Jones Wheel of fortune that just felt 3d (very pre-deco) and collected models in Rosetti's Beloved. And Waterhouse for Dolce fa niente and the very active Magic circle (both from the Femme fatale room). And again Waterhouse for his Circe invidiosa which grew familiar to me as a work owned by Adelaide's Art Gallery. There's lots here that's attractive and interesting and it was far more impressive than I'd expected. A wonderful exhibition.

Love & Desire : Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces from the Tate is on display at the National Gallery of Australia until 28 April 2019.

List of works

Young artists having hormones

It’s no new discovery, but young blokes doing radical art have active hormones. It was obvious in the drawings that Megan and I perused at the new exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite drawing at the Art Gallery of NSW over the weekend.

They also have a good degree of overt seriousness in intent and invention (again, no surprise) and just occasionally a bit of humour. I laughed out aloud at a preparatory sketch for a stained glass window picturing the Assumption (Jesus taken to Heaven, for we of our post-Christian era). It was shaped like a rocket with two feet dangling at the top and a few apostles chatting below. And another religious scene had Noah diligently designing, model ark in his lap and compass in hand and young male acolyte peering over his shoulder, but with three very pretty girls peering in at the scene. Thus is the world view of youth and so it should be. And they were youthful! There were a series of portraits that showed them aged 17+ with wispy beards although their associates, author/artist John Ruskin and Arts and Craftsman William Morris, seemed to be older given their decent growths. There were a few Australian connections, too. One of the group had gone off to Australia and they had made these portraits for him. Edward Pugin (the architect and interior designer of the English Houses of Parliament) was an associate. He’d spent 5 years in Tasmania and architected at least one church there. And I have a personal connection. I studied with the great-granddaughter (?) of John William Waterhouse at Adelaide University. JWW was an artist of attractive historical/mythological scenes whom I’d known from his Circe in the Art Gallery in Adelaide. He also has two huge paintings on permanent display the Art Gallery of NSW. Why Pre-Raphaelite? They were a radical art movement, rejecting standard approaches and training of the London art establishment of Joshua Reynolds and the English Royal Academy of Art, seeking to return to a mediaeval beauty dating before Raphael (thus pre-Raphaelites) and the Mannerists who followed him. Their art depicted lots of flowing robes, mediaeval imagery and mythological scenes, but their damsels were fiery red haired English beauties that they were very much in touch with. I should mention some names.

The original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood comprised seven people: Hunt, Millais, 2xRossetti, Collinson, Stephens and Woolner, the sculptor who went to Australia. There were many followers or associates including Burne-Jones, Cowper, JW Waterhouse, Ruskin, William Morris and the artist and frequent model Elizabeth Siddal. It’s a long way from our hyper-rationalist era although our Goths are romantic if lacking in colour and our hippies had a parallel but less intellectual romanticism in the ‘60s. The Pre-Raphaelites present a madly attractive but un-Realist view of the world: young and innocent, obsessed by death but untouched by it, vivid, sensual, colourful and well-draped.

Thanks to Wikimedia Commons and the providers of these public domain images