My favorite art movement

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was created in 1848 by seven artists:

• Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
• William Michael Rossetti,
• William Holman Hunt,
• James Collinson,
• John Everett Millais,
• Frederic George Stephens, and
• Thomas Woolner.

Their goal was to develop a naturalistic style of art, throwing away the rules and conventions drilled into students' heads at the Academies. Raphael was the artist considered to have attained the highest degree of perfection, so much so that students were encouraged to draw from his examples rather than from nature itself; thus they became the "Pre-Raphaelites".

The group popularized a theatrically romantic style, marked by great beauty, an intricate realism, and a fondness for Greek and Arthurian legend. The movement itself did not last past the 1850's but the style remained popular for decades, and influenced the Arts-and-crafts movement, the Symbolism movement, and even the Victorian-classicism movement.