PRE-RAPHAELITES IN LOVE

by Gay Daly ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 24, 1988

Here, drawing from original diaries and letters, Daly (a scholar of women's studies) examines the artistic accomplishments and romantic entanglements of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The sexual adventures of the Brotherhood--Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris--were apparently exclusively heterosexual, but not conventional or uncomplicated. Rossetti was involved for years with Jane Morris; Millais' wife, Effie, had previously contracted an unconsummated marriage with John Ruskin. Rossetti's wife may have committed suicide by taking an overdose of laudanum on discovering that her husband preferred his model/mistress. Though the convolutions of these relationships are quite complex, Daly succeeds in keeping her narrative clear, and is particularly astute in delving into the attitude of the period towards women. Take, for example, her analysis of the Victorian artistic convention of using an upper-class woman's head superimposed on a working-class woman's body when depicting a nude figure. As Daly points out, this practice captures in a startling way male attitudes toward the social levels of women at the time: ""respectable"" women being all intellect, lower-class women all flesh. An engrossing survey/group-biography of an artistic movement now receiving greater appreciation and understanding.

Pub Date: Jan. 24, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Ticknor & Fields/Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION