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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Articles: "Luxurious Forms: Redefining a Mediterranean 'International Style,' 1400-1200 B.C.E" by Marian H. Feldman; "Canonizing Kannon: The Ninth-Century Esoteric Buddhist Altar at Kanshinji" by Cynthea J. Bogel; "The Greek Manner and a Christian Canon: Francois Duquesnoy's Saint Susanna" by Estelle Lingo; "William Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat: Rite of Forgiveness/Transference of Blame" by Albert Boime; "Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of Ancient Rome by Elizabeth Prettejohn; and "Planning Memory: Living Memorials in the United States During World War II" by Andrew M. Shanken. ... Read more

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Contains: "The Strozzi Chapel: Notes on the Building History of Sta. Maria Novella" by Kathleen Giles Arthur; "The 'Chasa Overo Palagio' of Alberti di Zanobi: A Florentine Palace of about 1400 AD and Its Later Remodeling" by Brenda Preyer; "Donatello's Lost Dovizia for the Mercato Vecchio: Wealth and Charity as Florentine Civic Virtues" by David G. Wilkins; "The Ancient Frescoes from the Villa Negroni and Their Influence in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" by Hetty Joyce; "The Poet and the Painter: J. H. W. Tischbein's 'Perfect Portrait' of Goethe in the Campagna" by John F. Moffitt; "Constable's Hadleigh castle and British Romantic Ruin Painting" by Louis Hawes; "Shadows Cast by The Light of the World: William Holman Hunt's Religious Paintings" by George P. Landow"; more. ... Read more

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Memoir by William Holman-Hunt's granddaughter ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Great book featuring the art of 19th Century British artists, the Pre-Raphaelites. 157 color and black and white illustrations (21 in color) of works of art - painting, drawing, prints. Illustrated artists include: Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Millais, William Holman Hunt, Burton, Ford Madox Brown and other artists. Notes / bibliography.Softcover. 216 pages. Measures 6 by 8 1/4 inches. Interesting book, nicely illustrated. ... Read more

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Illustrated with black-and-white and color reproductions. ... Read more

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Though always controversial in art circles, the Pre-Raphaelites have also always been extremely popular with museum goers. This accessible new study provides the most comprehensive view of the movement to date. It shows us why, a century and a half later, Pre-Raphaelite art retains its power to fascinate, haunt, and often shock its viewers.

Calling themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt produced a statement of ideas that revolutionized art practice in Victorian England. Critical of the Royal Academy's formulaic works, these painters believed that painting had been misdirected since Raphael. They and the artists who joined with them, including William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, and Frederick George Stephens, created bright works representing nature and literary themes in fresh detail and color. Considered heretical by many and frequently admonished for a lack of grace in composition the group disbanded after only a few years. Yet its artists and ideals remained influential; its works, greatly admired.

In this richly illustrated book, Elizabeth Prettejohn raises new and provocative questions about the group's social and artistic identity. Was it the first avant-garde movement in modern art? What role did women play in the Pre-Raphaelite fraternity? How did relationships between the artists and models affect the paintings? The author also analyzes technique, pinning down the distinctive characteristics of these painters and evaluating the degree to which a group style existed. And she considers how Pre-Raphaelite art responded to and commented on its time and place a world characterized by religious and political controversy, new scientific concern for precise observation, the emergence of psychology, and changing attitudes toward sexuality and women.

The first major publication on the Pre-Raphaelite movement in more than fifteen years, this exquisite volume incorporates the swell of recent research into a comprehensive, up-to-date survey. It comprises well over two hundred color reproductions, including works that are immediately recognizable as Pre-Raphaelite masterpieces, as well as lesser-known paintings that expand our appreciation of this significant artistic departure. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Big book, small pictures
Poor quality and small pictures on good glossy paper, not for a painter. There is no usefull picture about Ophelia(first picture is very small second one is just a detail).

It's a Pre-Raphaelite book
The text is interesting, and there are some odd as well as very recognizable images.Not too bad.

Pre-Raphaelites - a Modern Movement?
Elizabeth Prettejohn introduces her thesis in the Prologue and continues to weave it throughout her sumptuously illustrated "The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites." It is her contention that Pre-Raphaelite art should not be dismissed from the history of modern art but should constitute one of the legitimate modern art movements, equal to those developed in France. She designates several criteria to support her thesis, one of them being originality. The minutely detailed paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites convey a definite "truth to nature," as if the artist had observed in nature these particular details. For example, the unique clump of reeds in Millais' "Ophelia" of 1851-52 appears to have been viewed exactly as it is shown in the painting. This very specific detail was new in English painting and broke with previous tradition. This sense of originality or breaking with tradition is what the Pre-Raphaelites shared with the French Impressionists.

In addition, the author gives a rich history of the artists and their art and includes the art created by the female Pre-Raphaelite artists in the first part of the book, "Stories of Pre-Raphaelitism." The second part, "Studies in Pre-Raphaelitism" discusses recent research in such subjects as technique, Pre-Raphaelite realism, gender and sexuality, and contexts for Pre-Raphaelitism. The book is articulately written and free from the erudite jargon of art history. It is a book that will inform and delight both the general reader and the informed art historian.

Very Nice Overview of Pre-Raphaelite Art
What's good about this anthology of Pre-Raphaelite artwork is that it avoids the pitfall of its contributing commentators being too wordy (and self-aggrandizing?) and sticks to succinct descriptions, while showcasing the art and letting the wordless expressions of the paintings speak for themselves. After all, one glance at a painting is worth a whole chapter of text describing it. I think that's often forgotten in books about art. The Pre-Raphealites were the last of the 19th century Romantics, a sort of visual version of the Romantic poets of earlier in the century, and the imagination that went into their works tells us much about their era and the Brotherhood's rebellion against the staid industrial age virtues of their time and place.

A Beautiful Book
The Pre-Raphaelites are one of the oddest and most English groups of artists from the Victorian/Impressionist age. The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites by Elizabeth Prettejohn helped me to understand the motives of the artists concerned (why pre-Raphael as opposed to pre-anyone else?) and their connection to the overall styles of art during the mid-1800s (both in England and abroad). The book is well-written and beautifully illustrated, containing one of the most complete sets of Pre-Raphaelite paintings I've seen in an art book.

Ms Prettejohn does a noble job of defending Pre-Raphaelite art and as a devotee I have no real argument with her position. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I believe that non-appreciation of Pre-Raphaelite art is due only to the heirarchy of Western Art (i.e. it is "politically correct" to prefer Monet to Hunt). It is possible that the Pre-Raphaelites were . . . well . . . just not as good as their Impressionist neighbors. I'm not an Impressionist fan myself. On the other hand, I LIKE Raphael.

Whether or not the Pre-Raphaelites are good or great or master painters, they deserve thorough study. This Ms Prettejohn has accomplished.

Recommendation: It's beautiful. Buy it, especially if you a Pre-Raphaelite devotee. ... Read more