Gay Daly

I used to laugh at the Pre-Raphaelites -- so shamelessly romantic, so out of step with the art of their times and the times to come. Not so much now. Like the Impressionists in France during the same period, they rebelled against the constraints of a narrow, dictatorial art establishment, and they endeavored to bring light, color and the natural world into their images. However, they found that their impossibly high-minded yearnings for Truth and Beauty could only be realized through a return to the work of the Middle Ages, a time when men were knights, ladies were angels and every picture told a story with an uplifting moral purpose. Not surprisingly, all this fuss about nature and beauty veiled the physical desires that these innocent Victorians hardly understand in their youth, when they first formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and wrote down their objectives.

Through an examination of their daily lives, Gay Daly’s excellent scholarship and thoughtful but objective observation sheds considerable light on their approach to visual art and its reflection in their lives. It’s a topic that has been thoroughly treated in many books, but at the core of this work are the women who modeled for the Brotherhood, the women who ultimately either married or carried on mad, passionate affairs with one or more of them. Often tragic figures, these women were touched, educated, worshiped, preyed upon, served and sometimes destroyed by men who frequently understood them no better than they understood themselves. The whole is a fascinating overview of Victorian England through its art, with attention to people, class structure, social mores, law, medicine and lifestyle -- with all its peculiar contradictions.… (meer)

A fascinating read for anyone interested in art and the Victorian times. The material was largely drawn from personal letters and journals and provided revealing insights into the lives of the pre-Raphaelite artists and the models they loved. The very personal look at these artists made me feel a bit sad for all we've lost in the disposable, digital age. So much of our lives and motivations is so fleeting now. This book gives a lot more depth to appreciating the pre-Raphaelites' works because it reveals their place in history and within the artists and models lives.… (meer)