Pre-Raphaelite Literature and Art:
Resources

PR Image Collections

• Pre-Raphaelite Art--larger, clear images; selections beyond the usual ones, with new ones being added daily.

• Humanities Web--excellent site with large, clear images; look up the names of individual PR painters.

• Pre-Raphaelite Paintings--claims to be the most complete collection online (10 pages)--has great links to PRB and related topics.

• Indecent Images--sexy PR art and the 1st Amendment.

• Pre-Raphaelite Art--blog devoted to PR art; unusual and different images and approaches.

• Arthurian Legends Illustrated--King Arthur story "told" through famous paintings; many PR paintings included.

• Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900--National Gallery of Art's collection of PRB art.

• The Pre-Raphaelites: Gallery One, Gallery Two, Gallery Three--easy site to access, but no names/titles included.

PR Literature and Literary Criticism

• Pre-Raphaelite Poet/Painter: Dante Gabriel Rossetti--many links to the paintings and literature of this major PR figure.

• Pre-Raphaelite Women: Christina Rossetti--many links to this PR writer's poems; see in particular the links on her poem "Goblin Market.

• Pre-Raphaelitism--many links to the writers and history of the PR era, as well as the artists (Victorian Web).

• The Pre-Raphaelite Women Destroyed by Love in all its Forms and Fates --analysis of literary/artistic treaments of "unrequited love" and the "fallen woman" (Victorian Web).

• Four Keats Poems and the Pre-Raphaelite Vision of the Middle Ages --influence of Keats's poetry on the Pre-Raphaelites (Victorian Web).

• The Lady of Shalott: Pre-Raphaelite Attitudes Toward Woman in Society --analysis of many Shalott paintings and Tennyson's poem (Victorian Web).

• The Theme of "The Eve of St. Agnes" in the Pre-Raphaelite Movement --analysis of Keats's poem and paintings on the same theme (Victorian Web).

• Frozen Moments in Time: Seriation in Pre-Raphaelite Painting and Poetry --influence of a number of Victorian/PR poems on Pre-Raphaelite art (Victorian Web).

• Men vs. Women: Illustrating "The Lady of Shalott" --excellent student essay on an important literary/artistic topic of Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" (Victorian Web).

• The Fetishization and Objectification of the Female Body in Victorian Culture--studies the sexual politics of the representations of the female body in Victorian literature (the role of hair, the pinched waist, the female genitalia, etc.).

• George Eliot's Pre-Raphaelite Gendered Imperialism --Chapter Four from The Pre-Raphaelite Art of the Victorian Novel.

• Woman/Image/Text: Readings in Pre-Raphaelite Art and Literature --excellent student review of an interdisciplinary textbook; informative examples from the text are covered.

• The Pre-Raphaelites: Sanctity, Sex and Death in High Definition--interesting review of the Tate Britain’s 'Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde.'

PR Art History, Art Theory, and Criticism

• Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood--good overview of the goals and history of the PR Brotherhood.

• Pre-Raphaelite Society--official site for the society and for their journal The Review of the Pre-Raphaelite Society; images and information on the movement included.

• The Pre-Raphaelites--discusses the patriarchal power relations apparent in PR art.

• Why the pre-Raphaelites were the YBAs of their day --review of a Tate Museum exhibition revealing the PR artists as "shocking and controversial." They were the "bad boys" of their day.

• The bodice-ripping beauties who rocked the art world: Wives and Stunners: The Pre-Raphaelites and their Muses by Henrietta Garnett--review of Garnett's book on the disturbing beauty of the PR "stunners." Here is an opposing review: Wives and Stunners: The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Muses by Henrietta Garnett – review.

• ‘More Stunning Than Can Decently Be Expressed’: Desire and Control in the Stunners of Dante Gabriel Rossetti--excellent essay by an art history student applying art theory to the topic of the "powerful, non-normative female sexuality" of the PR "stunners.

• Rossetti, Religion, and Women: Spirituality through Feminine Beauty --excellent essay by an art history student on the "salvation" provided by the "soulful beauty" of the image of the PR woman (Victorian Web).

• Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood--another interesting blog about the women PR painters, and related topics. Good links.

• Pre-Raphaelite Haters Then and Now --another blogger wonders if the PR artists are still considered vulgar, childish, and pornographic.

• On the Pre–Raphaelites: Then and Now--good article by Terri Wynding analyzing the PR history, goals, and appeal to the modern fantasy field.

• Pre-Raphaelite Fairy Painting (Victorian Web)--many links here to 19th century fairy painting.

• Pre-Raphaelitism in Art and Literature--classic early review published in the British Quarterly Review 16 (Aug. 1852), 197-220.

Art and Literature Resources

More sources on literature and art can be found at the links listed below.  Arranged somewhat chronologically from the earlier 19th Century through contemporary art, most of these links connect an art style or school of art with specific writers or different types of literature.

• Arthurian Literature and Art, Part I and Part II--many images (celtic, medieval, victorian, modern) and links to Arthurian sources.

• Ophelia--images and links to Ophelia materials.

• Hudson River Painters--images.

• Women's Art at the World's Columbian Exhibition, Chicago 1893--architecture, paintings, sculpture; includes a section on Mary Cassatt's lost mural and other exhibits at the Exhibition.

• Gilded Age Impressionists and Ashcan School of Art--includes Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Everett Shinn, Robert Henri, George Bellows, and John Sloan. For more images, browse these related pages on American Realism: Authors and American Realism: Contexts.

• Expressionist Art Gallery--covers German and other European expressionists such as Edvard Munch, Kathe Kollwitz, Ernst Kirchner, Franz Marc, Gabriele Munter, Georg Grosz, etc. ("American Drama" web page).

• Modernist and Harlem Renaissance Art--modern art by Cezanne, VanGogh, Kandinsky, Duchamp, Dali; Armory Exhibition 1913; women modernists Marie Laurencin and Tamara de Lempicka.  Harlem Renaissance artists: Lois Mailou Jones, William H. Johnson, Palmer, Hayden, Aaron Douglass, etc. See also Gertrude Stein and Picasso.  ("Jazz Age Literature and Culture" web pages).

• Art in Willa Cather's Fiction--many images of paintings to which Cather alluded in her fiction.

• The Female Quest of Remedios Varos--surrealist version of the quest for the grail. (Part of the "Arthurian Legends Illustrated" web pages).

• Georgia O'Keefe--images.

• Modern American Women Artists--Frieda Kahlo, Judy Chicago, Nora Naranjo-Morse, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Barbara Kruger.

• Post-Modern Women Artists--images.

• Contemporary Women's Eco-Art--goddess art, southwestern women's art, eco-activist artists, public space art, Betty LaDuke, Mayuma Oda.

Related Resources:

PR Women, Art, Poetry: Index
D.G. Rossetti & the Male Gaze
Christina Rossetti, PR Poet
PR Models, Lovers, Art-Sisters
PR Art-Sisters Gallery
PR Brotherhood Gallery

Return to Nichols Home Page

Comments/Suggestions: knichols11@cox.net

Updated: 2-14-17

Background by Dana Lea's Graphics