The Journal Of Pre Raphaelite And Aesthetic Studies

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.

Begun by young rebels committed to revolutionizing the creative arts, Pre-Raphaelitism has moved from the margins of nineteenth-century art and literature to the vanguard of interdisciplinary studies. The term is now used to denote the Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic, and Decadent movements in art, culture, and literature, but it has remained as difficult to define as ever. Haunted Texts attempts to meet the challenge of defining and illustrating the full spectrum of Pre-Raphaelitism. Working with a diverse range of Pre-Raphaelite poetry, painting, decorative arts, book illustration, and political prose, the ten contributors to Haunted Texts pursue the critical strategies of such leading figures as Christina Rossetti and Dante Rossetti, William Morris and Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, and Aubrey Beardsley. The essays consider the bibliocritical issues of archival research concerning the personal letters and diaries of the Rossetti family; the technological issues that challenge conventional methods of scholarship; the gender issues concerning constructions of identity derived from the changing conceptions of love, desire, anxiety, and brotherhood; and the interdisciplinary cultural issues that transgress the borders of high art and popular culture. Haunted Texts pays tribute to the scholarship of Professor William Fredeman who devoted much of his career since the 1950s to establishing a critical foundation that would enable future scholars to define their understanding of the complexity of Pre-Raphaelitism.

First published in 1997, and written by leading scholars of the day , these fifteen essays examine aspects of the reception and collecting of Pre-Raphaelite Art, the social and cultural context in which the work was favoured and acquired. Two major collections provide the focus for the investigation: that of the Birmingham city Museums and Art Gallery in the United Kingdom, and that of the American Samuel Bancroft Jr, now part of the Delaware Art Museum. The study of these two collections both formed in the late 1890’, places Pre-Raphaelite Art at nexus of contemporary cultural issues that touched the lives of both the city council, intent on establishing a public gallery of national importance, and a wealthy American businessman, indulging a private passion for the work of these artists. The contributors approach the issue in a variety of ways, These include the study of the ambitions and self-perception of collectors of the period, an analysis of the impact of John Ruskin’s campaign to establish Pre-Raphaelite painting as the ‘Art of England’ , and its impact on notions of civic and national identity ; the examination of individual painting in relation to such issues as the portrayal of women, the nude and of religious subjects ; and the study of the Victorian preoccupation with Renaissance Italy and the attempt by Ruskin, Charles Fairfax Murray , advisor to the two collections, and the Grosvenor Gallery, to proclaim the Pre-Raphaelite artists as the true inheritors of the ‘genius’ of Renaissance Italian artists.These essays were first presented at a symposium held at the Delaware Art Museum during the exhibition there of the paintings of Birmingham City Museums and Art Gallery.

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.