The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of 19th century British artists and poets who called themselves “The Brotherhood.” Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Evelyn De Morgan, Elizabeth Siddal, and Marie Spartali Stillman captured the beauty of nature and the human form in their paintings. Influenced by Italian Renaissance painters, who also loved nature and ancient art, these optimistic Pre-Raphaelite painters transmitted in art a message of artistic renewal and moral reform, chastising academic artists in a political climate marked by industrialization and social decadence. The Pre-Raphaelite painters cultivated an art characterized by a rich palette of vivid colors, bright lighting effects, and complex spatial relationships. The subject matter contained moralizing and didactic meanings, visualized with historical, narrative, and legendary episodes based on mythological themes, Medieval sagas, and British historical events.
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