Shakespeare began Hamlet with the ghost of a slain king, but if there is a lasting phantom that haunts us from the play, it is certainly the character of Ophelia. She has inspired countless works of art, and each generation attempts to explore and reconstruct her in a myriad of ways. My current rabbit…
Read more
Today has been cold and grey, the kind of day that makes me want to do nothing other than curl up and read. I’ve been reading A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight, which I recently scooped up at a library book sale. As I set it aside, I thought about the fact that reading…
Read more
I have written about William Holman Hunt’s painting Isabella and the Pot of Basil many times before. I included it in a recent Wombat Friday and you can read the story behind it in the post Love, Death, and Potted Plants. It’s a painting that is hard to walk away from when you see it…
Read more
Today I have been pondering allegories of love in art. Namely, the choices artists make when representing the concept of Love in physical form. It is usually male and I assume that the root of this lies in Greek myths of Eros, god of love, or his Roman counterpart, Cupid. Seen above is Hope Comforting…
Read more
William Morris’ Love is Enough has been on my mind this morning. “He makes a poem these days–in dismal Queen Square in black old filthy London in dull end of October he makes a pretty poem that is to be wondrously happy; and it has four sets of lovers in it and THEY ALL ARE HAPPY…
Read more
I’ve seen comments online that say the Pre-Raphaelites mainly appeal to adolescents. Even this 2007 piece from The Guardian quotes a senior curator at Tate Britain saying they’d have complaints from teenage girls if they didn’t show Pre-Raphaelite art. At first I bristled at this, knowing that it is a style of art that appeals to…
Read more
Sir John Everett Millais’ painting The Woodman’s Daughter is based on a poem by Coventry Patmore. When first exhibited in 1851, this excerpt of the poem accompanied the work: She went merely to think she help’d; And, whilst he hack’d and saw’d, The rich Squire’s son, a young boy then, Whole mornings, as if awed,…
Read more
Literature is filled with fictional portraits. Visual art and the written word can intertwine in glorious ways. Dorian Gray’s mysteriously aging painting springs to mind and both the image of Lady Audley in Lady Audley’s Secret and descriptions of art in The Woman in White are excellent examples of Pre-Raphaelite principles used within a novel….
Read more
At the age of twenty-one, Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote the short story Hand and Soul, which was published in The Germ, a short-lived magazine created by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Not only does the story offer a glimpse into the young Rossetti’s beliefs and aspirations but it seems to be the only work of fiction…
Read more
I think Sir John Everett Millais’ painting Speak! Speak! is a perfect Pre-Raphaelite image to share on Halloween. The ghost of a bride appears to her love. He reaches out to her, urging her to speak. It’s a haunting image and the concept had been on the artist’s mind for forty years before he…
Read more
If you’re interested in studying the Victorian era seriously, then diaries and letters are important. At times I feel like a 21st-century snoop, devouring personal journals and private correspondence whenever I get the chance. Through contemporary accounts, the past may not always come alive but it shines through the mist more clearly. The diaries of…
Read more
An important hallmark of Pre-Raphaelite art is truth to nature. Of course, there are many reasons why the art of the Pre-Raphaelites is so visually striking. Their subject matter often illustrates a compelling narrative, the vibrant hues they used results in a visually arresting effect that commands attention, and who can resist the beauty of…
Read more
Truth to nature was one of the main tenets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and an excellent example of this can be seen in the Death’s Head moth in William Holman Hunt’s painting The Hireling Shepherd (above). I’ve blogged about it many times before; it’s part of my Shakespeare post that I share yearly on the…
Read more
“In the middle of the journey of our life, I found myself in a dark wood, for the straight path was lost” So begins Dante’s journey through Inferno (hell), Purgatorio (purgatory), and Paradiso (paradise). His travels through these three areas of the afterlife make up La Divina Commedia, the Divine Comedy. I came to the…
Read more
Last week I posted Evelyn De Morgan’s Hope in a Prison of Despair (seen above) on the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood Facebook page. A happy byproduct of sharing things on the Pre-Raph Sisterhood Facebook page is that when people comment, like, or share the post, it pops up in my own feed again. I noticed that the…
Read more
Above is a detail from Arthur Rackham’s illustration of Pan from The Wind in the Willows. I first became enchanted by Pan when, as a little girl, I read The Wind in the Willows. I was in love with that book from the moment Mole became fed up with his spring-cleaning, left his hole, and met…
Read more
Sir William Richmond, R.A. had this to say about Millais’ painting The Eve of St. Agnes and the innovative nature of Millais’ work: “Millais’ literary sympathies were with Scott, Thackeray, and Dickens, and lastly, Louis Stevenson. He loved anecdote and story as well as the literary embodiment of character; but I question if philosophical problem had much…
Read more
Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s portrayal of the Annunciation is a continuation of the theme begun in his painting The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. The moment that Mary learns she is to give birth to the Christ child has been depicted in art frequently since the Middle Ages. Rossetti’s Ecce Ancilla Domini is shockingly intimate in comparison. We see…
Read more
Inspired by artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s passion for wombats, every Friday is Wombat Friday at Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood. “The Wombat is a Joy, a Triumph, a Delight, a Madness!” ~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti Edgar Allan Poe died October 7th in 1849, quite soon after the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed. Poe was a huge inspiration for poet…
Read more
The sum total of our greatest fears is the death of the self or someone we love. Since the beginning of time, humans have had the need to not only understand concepts of life, death, and love, but to personify them artistically. When we depict life and death in such a way, it is an…
Read more
After posting about Evelyn De Morgan’s painting The Gilded Cage, I began to think about other paintings that depict women who are trapped and imprisoned in some way, paintings that prompt me to ponder limitations and boundaries. The Lady of Shalott is perhaps the most obvious example that comes to mind. Based upon the poem…
Read more
In reality, Dante loved Beatrice from a distance and they had little to no contact with one another. The real Beatrice Portinari probably never had any idea of the depth of his passion for her. Yet she was to become one of literature’s most famous figures. Dante Alighieri first saw and fell in love with Beatrice…
Read more
These pre-shrunk Gildan brand shirts feature an image of Elizabeth Siddal at an easel, painted by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Buy yours today! Thank you for supporting PreRaphaeliteSisterhood.com. You can also follow on Twitter and Facebook.