They were the first artists who took canvases out into nature and painted (rather than just doing a sketch and then coming back to the studio). The group had a common interest in a return to nature in art. When they first started, they would sign their works ‘PRB’ and refuse to explain what that meant. They thought the Renaissance painter Raphael was being held up as the pinnacle of artistic achievement, and they saw that as quite formulaic and backward-looking. They were really trying to overturn everything that artists were being taught at the Royal Academy School. The brotherhood included William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Thomas Woolner. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood wanted to overthrow the accepted way of making art. Presented by John Ruskin to the Ruskin Drawing School (University of Oxford), 1875. Graphite, watercolour and bodycolour on grey-blue paper. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Bryson 1977 R: 'Study of a Velvet Crab' by John Ruskin 1870-71. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford Bequeathed by John N. Pen with blue and brown ink and watercolour on discoloured pale buff paper. L: 'Minstrel Angel playing cymbals' by William Morris circa 1867. Ahead of The Art Gallery of Ballarat’s Australian-exclusive exhibition, the gallery’s director Louise Tegart tells us why this group of artists (who weren’t all men, by the way), were so revolutionary. They called themselves The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and met in secret to create artworks inspired by nature and real people. They thought the art of the time (grand religious-inspired and imagined scenes) was simply not ‘it’. There’s often a rebellious streak in artists, and one group of young English painters, writers and poets had a real axe to grind back in 1848.
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