Why the Pre-Raphaelites were rebels?

Rebels of a new generation

Artists have always been known to reject the old-fashioned and conventional but this group of art students went perhaps further than any other. They rejected one of the most important of all Western artists along with his influence which was passed on for hundreds of years to artists and art institutions alike across Europe. They were enrolled in one of those respected institutions, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, when they decided that only a secret mission could save art from itself. After they chose the irreverent name “The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood” for their secret group, they used the acronym PRB to sign their paintings. The secrecy around them was very controversial, and it didn’t make matters better that some of the realistic paintings of religious subjects were considered by the public as sacrilegious. Charles Dickens, for example, found their paintings “mean, odious, repulsive, and revolting.”

Their artistic output was small and their rebellion was short-lived (around a decade), after which they disbanded. However, that group of seven young art students started a painting style that remains influential and polarizing, more than 160 years later. A well-known blogger, Hrag Vartanian, posted in 2008: “I don’t know if I would’ve supported Obama as much as I did if I realized his favorite art work was a Pre-Raphaelite painting.”