If Hello or OK magazine had been around last half of the 1800's they would have had a field day with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, relationships that challenged the norm of the time, affairs, unconsummated marriages, tracking down young women to become models, drug and alcohol abuse and we haven't even touched on the paintings that challenged the standards imposed by the Royal Academy.
'Idealization and generalization were corner-stones of the RA dogma.Nature should be improved on rather than copied' (pg 29. Desperate Romantics by F Moyle published by John Murray 2009)
Welcome to the world of John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, soon become know as the Pre-Raphaelites Brotherhood, (PRB) a group that would 'position themselves as admirers of the 'Pre-Raphaelie' painters: those medieval artists who approached their subject with uncomplicated honesty and with the desire to convey direct spiritual meaning to the onlooker' (pg 43 Desperate romantics.)
Franny Moyle takes the reader with ease through the lives Millais, Hunt and Rossetti, their models, 'partners' and others associated with it (John Ruskin, Ford Madox Brown, William Morris amongst others).
I would suggest that the same holds true for Desperate Romantics, each chapter describing in detail the very complex personal relationships together with very readable descriptions of some of their more famous paintings.
For me one of the most enjoyable aspects of this book is the way in which Moyle describes the paintings but also provides not only a historical perspective but the message that the artist was trying to convey.
For example take the following picture by Rossetti.
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| Proserpine Oil on canvas 1874 Tate |
The model for this painting is Jane Morris, wife of William, and she is painted with her hair draped over her right shoulder allowing the viewer sight of her 'kissable back and long, sensuous neck' (page 338) Rossetti had a thing for long necks.
The only light in the painting is from a small window behind her head, she looks sad as she holds a split pomegranate.
Like many of the paintings produced by the PRB, they used as their source mythological or biblical stories as well as Shakespearean literature and some of the 'epics' being produced at the time e.g. Walter Scott's, The Lady of the Lake or Tennyson's, The Lady of Shalott.
Briefly the myth of Proserpine is that she was captured and forced to marry Pluto, being taken down to Hades. Her father Jupiter sent Mercury to order Pluto to free Proserpine. Pluto obeyed, but before letting her go he made her eat six pomegranate seeds, the consequence of which meant that she would have to live six months of each year with him (autumn and winter), and stay the rest of the year (spring and summer) with her mother.
The picture painted by Rossetti,
'hints at the reality beneath the ideal of the triangular arrangements that Rossetti, Morris and Jane had come to. As far as the former was concerned, in the summer he and Jane enjoyed the fruits of the idyllic Kelmscott, but in the winter Jane returned to the personal hell of life with Morris in London'
There are several more examples that I could give highlighting the use of 'mythology' to represent the artists current situation , e.g.Burne-Jones's The Beguiling of Merlin. The model for Nimue, the witch, was Mary Zambaco, with whom Burne-Jones had a long term relationship.
'The picture became a visual realization of his own sense of utter submission to the power of this woman. Just like Merlin in the picture, (he) had been caught off-guard, enraptured by the beauty of a woman and consequently paralysed.' (pg 293)
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| The Beguiling of Merlin Edward Coley Burne-Jones Lady Lever Art Gallery Port Sunlight From a personal development perspective, having read Desperate Romantics I am aware my lack of knowledge of some of the mythological stories as well as the basic plots of some of the Shakespearean plays. The same holds true for other 'art movements' as was highlighted for me when I read a Crisis of Brilliance, I had not been aware of the relationship between the various artist and there contribution to other movements, e.g. Vorticism. Having recently visited Tate Britain and viewed again works by Gertler, Spencer and Nevinson I felt that I viewed then in a different way than on my previous visit in September of this year. This lack of knowledge has I am sure limited my appreciation of some of the art works I have seen in various galleries. There is an identified learning need as a result of having read two biographical books, which is highlighted as follows
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