This book reconsiders and revises our understanding of Pre-Raphaelite painting: its philosophy of art, its sources, its cohesiveness, and its relationship to the broader context of contemporary European Realism. Challenging several long-standing beliefs about the PRB, which is often characterized as a disparate group who pursued divergent, even antithetical, goals, Marcia Werner proposes that the Pre-Raphaelites developed and shared an artistic philosophy comprehensive enough to embrace all of their differences. Werner reconstructs this credo through careful study of writings by Pre-Raphaelite artists and their associates. She also examines unexplored and neglected contemporary intellectual and philosophical sources, particularly those of John Stuart Mill and Thomas Carlyle, whose works are shown to be critical to an understanding of Pre-Raphaelite painting. Supporting her ideas through sustained analyses of key works, the author also argues that John Ruskin’s importance to the Pre-Raphaelites has been misunderstood and overstated.
Marcia Werner is Adjunct Associate Professor of Art History at Temple University in Philadelphia.
MARCIA WERNER
Temple University
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Marcia Werner 2005
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2005
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
Typefaces Sabon 10/14 pt. and ITC Clearface System LATEX 2e [TB]
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Werner, Marcia
Pre-Raphaelite painting and nineteenth-century realism / Marcia Werner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-82468-0
1. Pre-Raphaelitism. 2. Realism in art – Europe. 3. Art, European – 19th century.
I. Title: Pre-Raphaelite painting and 19th-century realism. II. Title.
N6917.5.P7W47 2004
759.05′3 – dc22 2004045654
ISBN 0 521 82468 0 hardback
For my family,
Martin, Aaron, Rachel, John, Isaac, Naomi, Judah, and Samuel
With affection
List of Illustrations ix |
Acknowledgments xiii |
Introduction 1 |
Part One. Theory 14 |
1. Received Opinion 14 |
2. John Ruskin 18 |
3. Modern Painters II: The Theoretic Faculty 20 |
4. Modern Painters II: The Imaginative Faculty 32 |
5. Ruskin’s Pre-Raphaelitism 44 |
6. Pre-Raphaelite Assessment of Ruskin’s Influence 52 |
7. The Germ 58 |
8. William Michael Rossetti: History and Time in Pre-Raphaelite Art 73 |
9. The Interconnection of Sacred and Secular in Pre-Raphaelitism 90 |
10. William Michael Rossetti’s Review Articles 93 |
11. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism and British Empiricism 103 |
12. Thomas Carlyle and The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine 116 |
Review 136 |
Part Two. Practice 141 |
Introduction to Part II 141 |
13. The Shared Vision of Pre-Raphaelite Realism 143 |
14. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and French Realism 151 |
15. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Realism in Early Pre-Raphaelite Poetry 159 |
16. “Hand and Soul” and “St. Agnes of Intercession” 165 |
17. Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Paintings and Drawings 174 |
18. Found 187 |
19. John Everett Millais 211 |
20. William Holman Hunt 224 |
21. The Lady of Shalott 233 |
22. May Morning on Magdalen Tower 241 |
23. Ford Madox Brown 248 |
24. Work and Cromwell on his Farm 255 |
Conclusion 265 |
Bibliography 275 |
Index 283 |
1 | Ford Madox Brown, Pretty Baa Lambs. | page 17 | |
2 | Tintoretto, Jacopo Robusti, Crucifixion. | 23 | |
3 | John Everett Millais, Ophelia. | 25 | |
4 | John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents (The Carpenter's Shop). | 44 | |
5 | William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death. | 45 | |
6 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation). | 70 | |
7 | William Holman Hunt, The Awakening Conscience. | 77 | |
8 | Ford Madox Brown, Jesus Washing Peter’s Feet. | 80 | |
9 | Ford Madox Brown, Oure Ladye of Good Children. | 81 | |
10 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Study for the Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra. | 86 | |
11 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Wedding of St. George and the Princess Sabra. | 86 | |
12 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Sketch for Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee. | 87 | |
13 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Study for Beata Beatrix. | 87 | |
14 | John Everett Millais, A Dream of the Past – Sir Isumbras at the Ford. | 89 | |
15 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Girlhood of Mary Virgin. | 93 | |
16 | William Holman Hunt, Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep). | 95 | |
17 | Ford Madox Brown, The Last of England. | 102 | |
18 | William Holman Hunt, Portrait of Rossetti, 1853. | 148 | |
19 | William Holman Hunt, Portrait of Rossetti, 1882. | 149 | |
20 | John Everett Millais, The Bridesmaid. | 151 | |
21 | Gavarni (Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier), The Matchgirl. | 153 | |
22 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beggar and Woman. | 154 | |
23 | Tony Johannot, La fileuse. Frontispiece illustration for Charles Nodier’s Trilby. | 155 | |
24 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sleeper. | 156 | |
25 | Gustave Courbet, The Sleeping Spinner. | 157 | |
26 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Sonnet. | 175 | |
27 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpin. | 178 | |
28 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice (Dante Drawing an Angel). | 179 | |
29 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Giotto Painting a Portrait of Dante. | 183 | |
30 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Writing on the Sand. | 185 | |
31 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Found. | 188 | |
32 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Study for Found, 1853. | 189 | |
33 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Study for Found, ca. 1855. | 191 | |
34 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Study for Hamlet and Ophelia. | 193 | |
35 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hamlet and Ophelia. | 194 | |
36 | William Holman Hunt, The Light of the World. | 200 | |
37 | Leonardo da Vinci, Sketch of Flying Bird and Sprouting Tree Stump. | 201 | |
38 | Sampler, 1826. | 204 | |
39 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Hesterna Rosa. | 205 | |
40 | Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee. | 207 | |
41 | Master of the Lehman Crucifixion, Noli me Tangere. | 209 | |
42 | John Everett Millais, Mariana in the Moated Grange. | 213 | |
43 | John Everett Millais, Lorenzo and Isabella. | 215 | |
44 | William Holman Hunt, Isabella and the Pot of Basil. | 217 | |
45 | John Everett Millais, The Woodman’s Daughter. | 219 | |
46 | John Everett Millais, Autumn Leaves. | 222 | |
47 | John Everett Millais, The Vale of Rest. | 223 | |
48 | William Holman Hunt, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple. | 225 | |
49 | William Holman Hunt, The Hireling Shepherd. | 226 | |
50 | William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott. | 234 | |
51 | William Holman Hunt, Study for The Lady of Shalott. | 236 | |
52 | William Blake, Job and His Daughters, Illustrations of the Book of Job. | 239 | |
53 | William Holman Hunt, May Morning on Magdalen Tower, Oxford. | 242 | |
54 | William Holman Hunt, Claudio and Isabella. | 247 | |
55 | Ford Madox Brown, Manfred on the Jungfrau. | 250 | |
56 | Ford Madox Brown, Take Your Son, Sir! | 254 | |
57 | Ford Madox Brown, Work. | 256 | |
58 | Ford Madox Brown, Cromwell on his Farm. | 259 |
To begin at the beginning, I am indebted to Charles Dempsey and Elizabeth Cropper, whose help and encouragement were crucial to my academic career. My engagement with issues related to Realism originated in a seminar on that subject taught by Steven Z. Levine, my dissertation advisor at Bryn Mawr College. I thank him for his kindness to me as a student. My good friends Martin Eidelberg and Therese Dolan have been unfailingly interested in and supportive of this project during its long evolution. Virginia Surtees provided valuable help in locating works, and Sheila Paine and Katharine Macdonald graciously obtained important photographs for me. I wish I could acknowledge more specifically the anonymous reader for Cambridge University Press who so generously provided me with extensive and extremely helpful commentary. I have benefited, too, from the assistance of Madeline Davis, secretary to the Department of Art History at Temple University; Andrea Goldstein, art librarian at Tyler School of Art; and Johanna Inman, photographer to the slide library at Tyler. I am also very grateful to Beatrice Rehl for the editorial skill and patience she has brought to this project. I am happy to have an opportunity to acknowledge Harriet and Allan Berman for making their home mine during research trips to New York, Tossi Aaron for advice in botanical matters, Judy Oberhausen and Dennis T. Lanigan for help with sources, and my daughter, Rachel Rose, for her ever-cheerful assistance with computer problems.
My husband, Martin Werner, read each of the many drafts of this work with his usual care and acuity. In this endeavor, as in so much else, he has been, to borrow a Rossettian phrase, “the one necessary person.” Heartfelt thanks.