Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Pre-Raphaelites ... but they came after


So which Raphael did the Pre-Raphaelites precede?  According to the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, these artists were rebelling against the long-dead Raphael of Renaissance fame.  More specifically they wished to return to "the simple depiction of nature in Italian art" before Raphael and his cohorts Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci messed it up for everybody.  Pre-Raphaelite paintings are gorgeous and lush but not what you'd call simple or especially natural. Rosetti's women  have heads that are flat as a pancake and their hair is enormous.  Example right.  So in addition to being beautiful the paintings are just a tad weird.  What more could you ask of art?
The art of the Pre-Raphaelites
Essential Pre-Raphaelites
Dante Gabriel Rossetti / Julian Trueherz

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia as found through eLibrary, one of the Des Moines Public Library's online resources.

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