The Pre-Raphaelite Circle

Renowned as much for their bohemian lifestyle as for their art, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood brought notoriety to British painting in the nineteenth century. The Pre-Raphaelites set out to reform contemporary art, to make it 'true to nature'. Yet their greater achievement was to change public perceptions about what it means to be an artist. This book describes and illustrates the lives of the Pre-Raphaelites, revealing both their social relationships and artistic ideals. Born from the youthful enthusiasm of John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the Brotherhood was founded as a semi-secret group committed to exposing the art of the Royal Academy as tired, trivial and 'sloshy'. Their pictures made an initial impression, inviting criticism as outlandish, ugly, crude and irreverent. But, from the beginning, their private lives - from the tragedy of Elizabeth Siddal's drug-induced demise to the triumph of Millais' appointment as President of the RA - attracted equal notoriety.

Jan Marsh's compelling account of these remarkable men and women uses their contemporary portraits to explore both the individual personalities, as well as the artistic force that bound the circle together.