Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

<p>The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed in London in 1848 when a small group of young English painters decided the art academy's teaching, built around admiration for Raphael and the High Renaissance, had led painting toward formula and dull convention. They looked instead to the detail and sincerity they found in art made before 1500, adopting bright color, sharp focus, and literary or biblical subject matter painted with almost photographic precision. Though the formal Brotherhood only lasted a few years, its influence on British painting ran for decades afterward.</p> <p><a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/john-everett-millais"><strong>John Everett Millais</strong></a> painted <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/ophelia"><strong>Ophelia</strong></a>, working outdoors on the riverbank for months to get the plants exactly right before adding the figure in the studio. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/william-holman-hunt"><strong>William Holman Hunt</strong></a> brought the same intensity to religious allegory in <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/light-of-world"><strong>The Light of the World</strong></a>. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/dante-gabriel-rossetti"><strong>Dante Gabriel Rossetti</strong></a> and, a generation later, <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/john-william-waterhouse"><strong>John William Waterhouse</strong></a> turned toward myth and medieval romance, with Waterhouse's <a href="/apps/masterpieces/art/lady-of-shalott"><strong>The Lady of Shalott</strong></a> becoming one of the group's most recognized images. <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/edward-burne-jones"><strong>Edward Burne-Jones</strong></a> and <a href="/apps/masterpieces/artist/ford-madox-brown"><strong>Ford Madox Brown</strong></a> extended the style into the 1880s and beyond, keeping its dense detail and moral seriousness alive long after the original Brotherhood had dissolved.</p>