How the Pre-Raphaelite art got its name and what gave rise to it?

How the Pre-Raphaelite art movement got its name? And where did it originate?

Raphael (1483-1520), long considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time, was viewed by a group of English painters and poets in 1848 as a negative influence on art. They rejected his Classical style that had been popular for almost four centuries. The Renaissance style propagated by art academies at that time, they believed, lacked true sentiment, and the corrupting art of the Italian master was to blame. Their own inspiration came from earlier Italian artists of the 14th and 15th-centuries who predated Raphael. In pure devotion to medieval and early Renaissance art, they formed a secret society and called it the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The three main artists were William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Speaking of great Renaissance artists, why go against Raphael in particular? Isn’t his contemporary master, Michelangelo, just as great, or perhaps as some scholars today believe, the greatest artist of all time? Surprisingly, for a long period during the 18th and 19th century, Raphael was the considered the uncontested master of Renaissance painting. It was later on, in the 20th century, that Michelangelo was re-appreciated and more focus was put on his works than ever. A simpler reason though they didn’t call themselves “Pre-Michelangelo-ite” might be due to the fact that, despite common perception, Michelangelo was first and foremost a sculptor, rather than a painter. How about the other two great Renaissance masters, Donatello and Leonardo Da Vinci? The first was a sculptor, and the second, though an unparalleled genius and inventor, never focused on one field, hence his painting output is relatively too small.

What gave rise to the Pre-Raphaelite art?

Western Europe during the mid-19th century was changing beyond recognition. Sweeping industrialization made a common sight of factories cramped with workers and urban slums. Not everyone was happy about these changes, and the Romantics were not the only artists to express their aversion. Among the others was a group of young artists growing up during the Victorian era who, like the Romantics, sought an artistic outlet to help them escape that reality. But the prevailing manner of painting at that time – the kind taught by art academies – was disdained by them. Thus, inspiration had to come from another place and time. Some creative minds try to find inspiration in a vision of a far future, but others prefer to turn back the clock. The English artists did just that and they found their inspiration a long way back in time.

They regarded the art establishment to have been corrupted by the principles laid by the great painter, Raphael, four centuries earlier. By brushing him off, so to speak, and all his successors, and developing an obsession with art styles that preceded him, it’s not surprising to find certain common themes in their paintings. Going back that far in history, all the way to the Middle Ages, they wouldn’t find many subject matters that deviate from biblical themes and medieval legends. They were fascinated by enchanted worlds of spells and dreams. They delved in the world of the subconscious and explored the very nature of human identity. Their art movement showed hints of modern ideas which were to be found more than half a century later in Freudian thought and Surrealist art.