Oil Paint
Oil paint is a slow-drying art medium made with pigment and a drying-oil binder that allows extended working time, smooth blending, and layered application.
Painting Movement
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began in London in 1848, challenging academic conventions with intensely observed nature, luminous color, and biblical and literary subjects.
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood quick facts
The original Brotherhood was a short-lived seven-member circle. The wider Pre-Raphaelite movement continued to influence Victorian painting, poetry, and design well after the group dispersed.
| Founded | 1848, London, England |
|---|---|
| Initial group | Seven members, including painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everett Millais, and William Holman Hunt |
| Approximate period | Original Brotherhood, 1848–early 1850s; wider Pre-Raphaelite influence extended through the later nineteenth century |
| Common names | Pre-Raphaelites, Pre-Raphaelitism; PRB was the Brotherhood's initials |
| Core aim | Direct observation of nature, serious subject matter, and a challenge to the established Royal Academy style associated with later Raphael followers |
| Visual characteristics | Highly detailed landscapes and objects, clear forms, bright colors, vivid light, and symbolic visual detail |
| Typical techniques | Working from nature, carefully drawing and painting foreground and background, and often applying vivid oil colors over light or white grounds |
| Common subjects | Biblical stories, medieval legends, Shakespeare, poetry, Victorian life, moral questions, and plants studied from nature |
| Paint types | Oil paint in major paintings; watercolor and gouache in works by Rossetti, Siddal, and Burne-Jones |
| Painting surfaces | Prepared canvas for oil paintings, paper for watercolors and gouache, and wood panel in Brown’s The Last of England |
| Later development | Edward Burne-Jones, Elizabeth Siddal, and Ford Madox Brown were influential associates or later figures, not members of the seven-person founding group |
| Related traditions | Medieval revival, Romanticism, and naturalistic tendencies distinct from the French Realist movement |
Sources: The Met: Pre-Raphaelite Legacy, Delaware Art Museum: Siddal’s watercolor and gouache, Smarthistory: Brown’s oil panel, Fitzwilliam Museum: Brotherhood foundation and aims, National Gallery: Pre-Raphaelite, Tate: Millais's Ophelia, and The Met: Rossetti's Lady Lilith.
Paint types for this style
Oil on canvas was central to the Brotherhood's early paintings. Watercolor and gouache also formed part of Rossetti's documented practice; the movement should not be reduced to one medium.
Watercolor Paint
Watercolor paint is a water-based art medium made with pigment and a water-soluble binder, typically applied in transparent washes on absorbent paper.
Gouache Paint
Gouache paint is an opaque, water-based art medium made with pigment and a water-soluble binder, drying to a matte finish that can be reactivated with water.
Famous Pre-Raphaelite painters
Rossetti, Millais, and Hunt founded the Brotherhood in 1848. The other painters shown here were associates or later successors, not original members.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter and poet whose luminous portraits, medieval subjects, and symbolic colors helped shape Victorian art.
John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais was a British Pre-Raphaelite co-founder whose vivid oil paintings, precise landscapes, and literary subjects include the celebrated Ophelia.
William Holman Hunt
William Holman Hunt was a British Pre-Raphaelite co-founder whose intensely detailed oil paintings combine symbolism, religious stories, and scenes of Victorian life.
Edward Burne-Jones
Edward Burne-Jones was a British Pre-Raphaelite-associated painter whose dreamlike medieval scenes, elongated figures, and rich colors shaped late Victorian art.
Elizabeth Siddal
Elizabeth Siddal was an English Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet whose expressive watercolors drew on medieval stories, biblical scenes, and literary subjects.
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown was a British painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites whose painstaking scenes of labor, emigration, and history explored Victorian society.
John William Waterhouse
John William Waterhouse was a British painter associated with the later Pre-Raphaelite style, known for mythological women, literary scenes, and richly detailed oil paintings.
Evelyn De Morgan
Evelyn De Morgan was a British painter associated with later Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist art, using luminous oil paintings for myth, allegory, and social ideas.
Marie Spartali Stillman
Marie Spartali Stillman was a British later Pre-Raphaelite painter whose poetic watercolors, gouache, and tempera depicted medieval stories, women, and quiet landscapes.
Frederick Sandys
Frederick Sandys was an English painter in the Pre-Raphaelite circle, known for jewel-like oil portraits, mythological women, and meticulous decorative detail.
Simeon Solomon
Simeon Solomon was a British painter linked to the Pre-Raphaelites whose richly colored biblical scenes and dreamlike figures explored ritual, myth, and desire.
Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale was a British painter in the later Pre-Raphaelite tradition, known for richly detailed literary scenes in oil and watercolor.
Arthur Hughes
Arthur Hughes was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter known for luminous woodland scenes, delicate romantic narratives, and closely observed flowers and foliage.
John Brett
John Brett was an English painter associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, known for intensely detailed Alpine landscapes, coastal panoramas, and natural studies.
Henry Wallis
Henry Wallis was an English painter associated with Pre-Raphaelitism, best known for dramatic scenes of neglected artists, exhausting labor, and Victorian society.
Related painting movements
Romanticism shared some literary and imaginative interests, while Realism also valued direct observation. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a distinct English group rather than a subdivision of either.
Romanticism
Romanticism spread across Europe in the early nineteenth century, using dramatic landscapes, vivid emotion, and imaginative subjects to challenge artistic restraint.
Realism
Realism emerged in nineteenth-century France as painters depicted ordinary people, rural labor, and contemporary life without idealization or heroic subjects.