Artist Elizabeth Siddal: Portrait of a Pre-Raphaelite Muse

In England, in the year 1848, 7 avante garde artists that all shared a unique vision formed one of the greatest movements in art history known as the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, together with William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Thomas Woolner and F. G. Stephens all sought to breathe new life into the art form of painting.

The term "Pre-Raphaelite" is based upon the rejection of art that followed what they considered to be the mechanical approaches of Michelangelo and Raphael and those that followed closely in their footsteps, as was the tradition in their time to do. They deplored the teachings of the founder of the English Royal Academy of the Arts and chose to create a new approach to painting, one that paid closer attention to detail and was imbued with rich, vivid and fragrant colors.

The Pre-Raphaelites were heavily inspired by social critic John Ruskin's praise of the artist as prophet and much of their original work was inspired by his essays. The Pre-Raphaelites also believed that artists should work with and learn from one another and, as such, encouraged painters to write and writers to paint. To this end, much of their work was influenced by the writings of Tennyson, Browning, Shakespeare and Keats. Their intense fascination with medieval life and art is quite apparent in their work as is their deep and abiding love of Romanticism.

1849 was the year that first saw their paintings put on exhibition with the characteristic "PRB" flourish added to the bottom of each painting directly below each painter's name. Scandal was soon to come, however, when Millais exhibited his painting Christ in the House of His Parents, which was deemed blasphemous at the time. Charles Dickens himself commented that Millais had made the Holy Family "look like alcoholics and slum-dwellers." Regardless of the public criticism, however, John Ruskin publicly praised the Pre-Raphaelites for their new approach to art and continued to offer both his written and financial support.