This richly illustrated book covers one of the most fascinating yet poorly documented periods of jewellery design. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of young, rebellious artists whose work reflected their deeply romantic private lives. This remarkable and carefully researched book traces the stories behind jewels designed by these artists, often right back to the original drawings -- Bookseller's description.
Drawn from Birmingham Museums Trust's incomparable collection of Victorian art and design, this exhibition will explore how three generations of young, rebellious artists and designers, such as Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, revolutionized the visual arts in Britain, engaging with and challenging the new industrial world around them.
Previously published as Artists' Jewellery -- PreRaphaelite to Arts and Crafts, this revised edition records one of the most fascinating yet poorly documented periods of jewellery design.
This vibrant collection of essays claims that a complex network of texts by critics, biographers and diarists established the credibility and influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Throughout the twentieth century, Modernist taste failed to acknowledge the achievement of oppositional groupings such as the Pre-Raphaelites. The essays collected here, however, reveal that the British group anticipated later avant-gardes by using the written word to configure for itself a radical artistic identity. Public and critics alike were scandalized by the radicalism of Pre-Raphaelite painting, its unflinching portrayal of historical figures and of contemporary life, and its irreverent attitude to artistic convention. Pre-Raphaelitism's innovations were not confined to style: new forms of artistic identity and behaviour were explored. As the contributors interrogate the texts through which Pre-Raphaelitism was constructed, they demonstrate that the movement's wide influence as a cultural phenomenon derived from the interplay between exhibited works and critical discourse. Applying a range of sophisticated methodologies from the fields of literary studies, art history, and cultural studies, these interdisciplinary essays uncover the neglected role of texts in the success of the Pre-Raphaelite rebellion and argue in favor of a new centrality for this movement in the history of nineteenth-century European culture.
Overlooked stories of the female painters and subjects of Pre-Raphaelite art When the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood exhibited their first works in 1849 it heralded a revolution in British art. Styling themselves the "Young Painters of England," this group of young men aimed to overturn stale Victorian artistic conventions and challenge the previous generation with their startling colors and compositions. Think of the images created by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and others in their circle, however, and it is not men but pale-faced young women with lustrous, tumbling locks that spring to mind, gazing soulfully from the picture frame or in dramatic scenes painted in glowing colors. Who were these women? What is known of their lives and their roles in a movement that spanned over half a century? Some were models, plucked from obscurity to pose for figures in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, while others were sisters, wives, daughters and friends of the artists. Several were artists themselves, with aspirations to match those of the men, sharing the same artistic and social networks yet condemned by their gender to occupy a separate sphere. Others inhabited and sustained a male-dominated art world as partners in production, maintaining households and studios and socializing with patrons. Some were skilled in the arts of interior decoration, dressmaking, embroidery, jewelry-making--the fine crafts that formed a supportive tier for the "higher" arts of painting and sculpture. Although their backgrounds and life experiences certainly varied widely, all were engaged in creating Pre-Raphaelite art. Containing over 100 beautifully reproduced images, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters illustrates the obscure stories of some of the movement's most familiar faces. "
This illustrated book focuses on the Pre-Raphaelite artists and their radical departure from artistic conventions. Barringer explores the meanings encoded in Pre-Raphaelite paintings and analyses key pictures and their significance within the complex social and cultural matrix of 19th century Britain.
“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” This quote alone from William Morris could summarise the ideology of the Arts & Crafts movement, which triggered a veritable reform in the applied arts in England. Founded by John Ruskin, then put into practice by William Morris, the Arts & Crafts movement promoted revolutionary ideas in Victorian England. In the middle of the “soulless” Industrial Era, when objects were standardised, the Arts & Crafts movement proposed a return to the aesthetic at the core of production. The work of artisans and meticulous design thus became the heart of this new ideology, which influenced styles throughout the world, translating the essential ideas of Arts & Crafts into design, architecture and painting.
In Fiona MacCarthy’s riveting account, Burne-Jones’s exchange of faith for art places him at the intersection of the nineteenth century and the Modern, as he leads us forward from Victorian mores and attitudes to the psychological, sexual, and artistic audacity that would characterize the early twentieth century.
Women Art Workers provides a new social and cultural history of the Arts and Crafts movement which offers unprecedented insight into how women constructed alternative, creative lifestyles and disseminated the ethos of the social importance of the Arts and Crafts across new local, national, and international spheres of influence.
