I must admit, it was hard not to be a little disappointed when I first viewed the ‘Victorian Avant-Garde’ exhibition. After all, I was promised sex!
Well, not literally (the drive to get more young people into Museums hasn’t yet gone THAT far. Give it time), but if, like me, your knowledge of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood comes primarily from the legendary tales of their debauched and scandalous lives then, well, the current exhibition at the Tate Britain may feel a little… reserved. Still, this is in keeping with the art itself: it’s often been noted that Pre-Raphaelite art can seem slightly static, and can appear inferior to other works of the time outside the UK. Still, the Tate is rightfully proud of our own home-grown radical art movement, and has gone to great pains to increase awareness of it. After all, who needs all that fancy French stuff anyway?
For any fans of the Brotherhood, most of the classic paintings were there, including Millais’ ‘Ophelia’ and ‘Christ in the House of his Parents’ and Holman Hunt’s ‘The Scapegoat’ and ‘The Hireling Shepherd.’ Nothing beats seeing a piece in the flesh (so to speak), and the Tate have clearly worked hard to pull in works from galleries near and far, leaving them with a pretty formidable selection. It’s so comprehensive, in fact, that though some paintings are a little less visually arresting than others, it’s hard to be disappointed by the cumulative effect of the exhibition as a whole.
Aside from the more famous paintings (aka, ones that I had heard of) there was a wealth of material from affiliates of the Brotherhood like Ford Madox Ford, and a wide range of art in different mediums. For the most part this was from the textiles work of William Morris and Edward Burne Jones, but for any literary types there were also some examples of illustrated books from the period, including a copy of ‘Goblin Market’ illustrated by Christina Rossetti’s brother Dante (a leading light of the Pre-Raphaelite movement). While I enjoyed these, I did feel they were a little underused; but that’s probably just my English student bias. It was also interesting to see paintings by Lizzie Siddell, the wife of Rossetti and the model for ‘Ophelia.’ An artist in her own right, it was interesting finally to see some of her work, traditionally less exhibited than the more popular paintings that emerged from the movement.
Clearly, there was more to these guys than sex and easels; in fact, there were so many interesting items in the collection that I don’t have space to include them all. Maybe I went to this exhibition for the wrong reasons, but I think I enjoyed it for the right ones. These paintings may not rival contemporary examples from across the pond, but their relevance to our history and our artistic culture shouldn’t be underestimated. And if they can make that impression on a bumbling amateur like me, then the Pre-Raphaelites must have done something right.
