Podcasts · Secret Life of Books
Secret Life of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
· 31 min · Episode 173
Episode Secret Life of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
SLOB goes off-script! While in London a couple of weeks ago, Sophie and Jonty got so excited in the Pre-Raphaelite room of Tate Britain that they whipped out their recording equipment and dashed off an impromptu episode.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was the artistic movement of mid-Victorian Britain, a small group of bohemian young men who were convinced that the last decent painting was done back in the fifteenth century, before Raphael came along and spoiled things with his proto-modern realism.
So they started painting for the people, about the people, but with quite a lot of ethereal pale women looking uncomfortable. Their pictures have bright, slightly garish colors and a distinctly gothic vibe, but this medieval fantasia is overlaid with close attention to everyday detail - that blew the doublets and hose off London art world.
SLOB's eagle eye was arrested by the overlap between the PRB paintings and classic books. Almost all the Pre-Raphaelites hanging at the Tate are riffing on literary history, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, to the Romantic poets, and the Victorian novelists. Find out how literary classics provide the stories, characters and big emotional ideas for what's maybe the most impactful artistic movement in Britain’s history.
With thanks to the Ponder & See Foundation for their support.
Become a subscriber by signing up at Apple: http://apple.co/slob
Or join our Patreon community here: https://www.patreon.com/c/secretlifeofbookspodcast
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Links in the notes 1
Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them. Explicit shows are for adult profiles only, and children’s profiles hear only children’s shows. More about this list.