501 Critical Reading Questions

The following passage describes an influential group of nineteenth century
painters.
When one thinks of student-led rebellions and the changes they can
create, one typically thinks of the struggles of the twentieth century,
such as the civil rights movement or anti-war protests of the sixties.
But there have been less dramatic, though no less passionate, rebel-
lions led by young activists in previous centuries—rebellions that had
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Critical Reading Questions
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lasting impact on the world around us. One such example is the Pre-
Raphaelite Brotherhood.
In the mid-1800s, the art world in England was rattled by the ini-
tials PRB. The PRB (or Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood) was founded by
William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Ros-
setti. These three burgeoning artists (the oldest of whom was 21) and
their disdain for the artistic conventions of the time would have a dra-
matic influence on the art world for generations to come.
The PRB was formed in response to the brotherhood’s belief that
the current popular art being produced in England was lacking in
meaning and aesthetic honesty. During the era leading up to the PRB,
the Royal Academy dominated British art. The Royal Academy advo-
cated a style that was typically staid and relied heavily upon the use of
dark amber and brown tones to depict overly idealized landscapes,
carefully arranged family portraits and still lifes, and overly dramatic
nature scenes such as a boat caught in stormy seas. By contrast, the
PRB believed that art should present subjects that, by their very
nature, had greater meaning and more accurately depicted reality. The
PRB was committed to bringing greater integrity to art and even went
so far as to publish The Germ, a journal that extolled the virtues of the
PRB’s aesthetic principles.
To develop subjects with greater meaning, the PRB initially turned
to ancient myths and stories from the Bible. Many of the PRB’s bib-
lically themed paintings portrayed the religious figures as regular peo-
ple. This departure from the convention of the time is notable in John
Everett Millais’ Christ in the Home of his Parents. In this painting, Jesus
is portrayed as a young boy in his father’s carpentry shop. Everyone in
the painting, including Christ himself, looks like a common person of
that time period, complete with dirty feet and hands. This realism—
especially as it related to the Biblical figures—was not well received by
many in the art world at the time. Later works done by fellow PRB
members, and those inspired by them, utilized themes from poetry, lit-
erature, and medieval tales, often with the aim of highlighting the
societal and moral challenges of the time.
With the goal of bringing greater honesty to their work, the PRB
ignored the convention of painting an imagined or remembered land-
scape or background. Instead, PRB members would hunt (sometimes
for weeks) for locations to incorporate into their paintings and then
paint them in exacting detail.
One of the most distinctive aspects of PRB works—both in contrast
to the works produced during the early nineteenth century and with
the art of today—is their dramatic use of color. By committing them-
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