Your Daily Art

Tag: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

  • Little Girl Lost

    Ophelia, c. 1851-53 by Arthur Hughes, Manchester City Art Galleries.

    Hughes was influenced by Pre-Raphaelite Group after reading their publication The Germ. His painting of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet represents a much younger woman then most other artists, even as Hughes himself would later portray her.

  • Delirium or Grief

    Ophelia by John Everett Millais, 1851-2, The Tate Gallery, London

    Millais’ painting of Ophelia done very early in his career is one of the finest works created by the short-lived Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and their movement. The legend of the candles, sickness and the model herself would become the PRB’s most often re-told tale. However, it pales in comparison to the work itself when it stopped me in my tracks at the National Gallery in London (on loan from the Tate at the time) and set me on a whole new path for my Master’s thesis.

  • Precious Cargo

    The Poisoned Cup (aka “Carrying a Peacock”) by John Dawson-Watson, 1869

    Another artist discovered via Pinterest.

    John Dawson-Watson was a British Impressionist whose early work seems very similar to John Everett Millais of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood fame. The rich colors and attention to detail found in this work becomes looser and more pastel after he studies Impressionism at Monet’s home in Giverny.

  • The Price We Pay

    Isabella and the Pot of Basil by William Holman Hunt, 1868
    Many years ago a friend and I attempted to visit The Delaware Art Museum. We drove up from Baltimore during the day and when we arrived at the museum, we found the building was closed because a protestor had chained himself to the front entrance to protest the DuPont Annual Meeting taking place inside the museum. Now, at that time in the early 1990’s the DAM had the best collection of Pre-Raphaelite art in the US and having just completed a thesis on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, I was anxious to see their collection – I never got to.
    I read an article in the New York Times in August that the Delaware Art Museum was arbitrarily and against the advice of the American Association of Museum Directors, divesting themselves of many of the most important pieces in their collection based on monetary, rather than curatorial, decisions. My feelings about the museum came to the surface again, disappointment and disbelief.
    The image above is the painting they sold which they anticipated getting upwards of 13 million for, but it only realized 4.2 million (before auction commissions) I wonder if they think it was worth it now. The word is that two more pieces of the collection will go up for sale soon to pay a debt incurred for a construction project, soon there will be less to adorn those new walls.