What Are Pre-Raphaelites?

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group or fraternity of English artists, poets and critics. It was founded in the year 1848 by John Everett Millais (June 8, 1829-August 13, 1896), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (May 12, 1828-April 10, 1882) and William Holman Hunt (April 2, 1827-September 7, 1910). It was considered the first advanced art movement. They were opposed to the group of artists that, they believed, had adopted a mechanistic approach. These painters were known as the Mannerist artists, and they followed in the footsteps of the illustrious Italian painters, Raphael and Michelangelo. They were particularly severe in their criticism of Sir Joshua Reynolds (July 16, 1723-Februaury 23, 1792), who established the Royal Academy of Arts in England in 1754. They thought Reynolds was heavily influenced, though in a corrupt manner, by Raphael's style of painting and misused this style of art while teaching art as a part of the academic curriculum at the Royal Academy.