Romantic Art History Pic for February

So I just had to pick a romantic art history piece for February because of Valentines Day, so what could be more romantic then this lovely painting of Romeo and Juliet by Sir Frank Dicksee?! Dicksee was a Pre-Raphaelite in style, but was never actually a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, a reformist movement in art that happened right before the turn of the 2oth century. Many other movements were going on at this time such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism and even some early Expressionism (lots and lots of 'isms) so the Pre-Raphaelites really didn't get a whole lot of critical attention in comparison with all these other extremely innovative movements.

As much as they weren't considered all that "important" (who can compete with the Impressionists?!) the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had an interesting point of view. They absolutely abhorred Mannerism which was the "out-there" style of art that took over after the Renaissance. They actually trace the corruption of what they thought was beautiful, un-mechanical, art to the Renaissance painter Raphael which led to their name the "pre-Raphaelites". It's funny because you really never hear anything bad about Raphael except for these guys!:) Raphael was kind of the "darling" of the Renaissance masters - he wasn't as innovative as say Leonardo (as you can see innovation really is the key to be considered historically important), but he was a patron-pleaser and his workshop pumped out massive amounts of art. Raphael was very well liked during his time and in ours. Hey there's even a Ninja Turtle named after him right?! Well the Pre-Raphaelites believe that art started to take a horrible formulaic, ultra-posed turn with Raphael and they instead took their cues from Flemmish art like say Rembrandt and Vermeer and Italian Quattrocento art. They really took painting to a new ultra-romantic and luciously beautiful height. The Pre-Raphaelites major themes are almost fairy tale-ish really, like the knights and ladies of Camelot, Shakespearian characters, and beautiful historic women draped in extremely detailed clothes.

My senior year of high school I had a Pre-Raphaelite calendar which was filled with works by Rosetti, Millais and Waterhouse (though like Dicksee,Waterhouse was never an actual member of the Brotherhood). I loved that calendar and think I left it hanging up for a couple of years just cause I loved all the prints. When Adrian and I got married I bought a print of Midsummer Eve by Hughes (stylistically a Pre-Raphaelite too) at Prints Plus in the University Mall to hang over our bed and to this day it's still in the same place just in a different house now. I have a special fondness for Pre-Raphaelite art - it is considered a bit "fluffy" art-historically, but it's beautiful and oh so Valentines Day-ish.

(Midsummer Eve, by Edward Robert Hughes, 1908)