Pre-Raphaelite Wonderland: Christian Yandell’s Alice

Abstract

REVOLUTION IN PAINT AND PENTHE NINETEENTH CENTURY WAS A TIME OF REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE IN BRITAIN- industrial, scientific, social and cultural upheaval drove heart of Empire to seek out new and challenge old. Within arts, J. M. W. Turner's impressionistic renderings of steam trains and retiring Trafalgar-era gunships turned a century-long tradition of landscape painting on its head and at same time proclaimed British art a world leader. Less revolutionary in technique, though more so in word and deed, was a group of young radical London-based artists who appeared mid-century, united in rebellion against Royal Academy training and artistic traditions of their birth. Calling themselves Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, they sought to replicate nature's realism in a framework of contemporary, medieval, and high-literary subjects (Parris). Prominent members included Ford Madox Brown, William Holman Hunt, Elisabeth Eleanor Siddall, Edward Burne-Jones, child prodigy Charles Everett Millais, poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and print maker, writer, and prominent socialist William Morris.Casting aside in-vogue Academy style, Brotherhood announced arrival of a new art based on imagination; overtly Romantic, it reflected horror and ecstasy of dreams, and death, good and evil, mythology and alchemy, passion and love, with latter both won and lost. One commentator on Pre- Raphaelite art described it as an interesting mix of concern for moral issues of modern life alongside a celebration of the technical virtues of medieval art and romantic appeal of medieval history (Wilton 157-59). The movement gave rise to intensely realistic, brilliantly colored works laden with symbolic elements. Outof- doors en plein air painting was also promoted-a radical idea at time-and beauty of nature and humanity was presented in magical, often mythical settings. Exhibited Pre-Raphaelite works stood out from muted tones and softlines of those done in traditional and Academy styles.Though Brotherhood was short-lived-forming in 1848 as revolution swept through Europe and dissipating during 1860s-its influence was profound and ongoing. This was evidenced by subsequent rise of Symbolist art throughout Europe from 1870s through to 1910s, and a continuing interest in, and replication of, works in Pre-Raphaelite manner (Clare). This late nineteenthcentury child of Romanticism and Pre-Raphaelites rejected science, logic, and industrial revolution for a romanticized art and literature based on inner contemplation, spiritualism, and a deeper understanding of one's place in natural world. Both movements saw artists embracing medieval, including Arthurian legend with their tales of gallant knights coming to aid of virtuous women-reflecting their own search for meaning in industrialized age (Cheney). The Bible was an equally rich source for stories and moral guidance.Impressionism is usually presented as most influential art movement of second half of nineteenth century; however, Symbolist art was equally as revolutionary and more internationally dominant, with adherents such as Francisco de Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Edvard Munch, and Aubrey Beardsley adopting its philosophical constructs and fantastical content. Pinning these art movements down and unraveling their spider web-like network of connections is difficult more than a century later. The lines are now blurred, for example, between Pre-Raphaelitism, Symbolism, and Art Nouveau, despite their spatial separations. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists took what they liked from what was on offer or had come before. The melding of Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist methods and motifs was an easy task for those not especially attracted to Impressionism or modernist trends.The formation of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had coincided with midcentury blossoming and democratization of photography, giving rise to more photographers and a greater variety of subjects. …