I am an Anti-Pre-Raphaelite

I have concluded recently that I have four reasons for visiting exhibitions. The main one is where the exhibition has content in which I am interested, anything from the eighteenth century, Impressionism or Mark Rothko would be examples here. The second is where I know that specific institutions always stage shows that I enjoy, such as the RA or Wellcome Collection; and the third, when I have heard enough about a show to think it is a ‘must see’, such as the Henry VIII: Man and Monarch show at the British Library which I probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise. All fairly obvious reasons, but occasionally I go to see a show for a stranger purpose: to see an artist or movement that I know I dislike, in order to reassure myself about being against the crowd. 

Sometimes, I discover that I change my mind at such exhibitions, the Gagosian Gallery’s show of Cy Twombly’s The Rose back in 2009, completely changed my attitude to Twombly, for instance, but Tate Britain’s Francis Bacon show in 2008-9 merely confirmed for me how much I dislike Bacon’s work. My visit to the Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde exhibition yesterday was for similar reasons and, I was disappointed, ended with the same response. Luckily, my companion wanted to assess her comparable dislike or it might have been the end of a beautiful friendship. I find Pre-Raphaelite painting rather flat and over-decorative, the colours are often brash, and I don’t find the emotions and expressions convincing or moving. I realise, however, that I look at this work with an eye accustomed to Giotto, Reynolds and Rothko all being easily available, and equally accessible in the same gallery spaces, and therefore lose some of the historical potency of this 'avant garde.' I had hoped that the Tate exhibition would help me to see this.

I am sad to say that it didn’t. I felt the display was a fairly unoriginal line-up of the origins and subject matter of the Pre-Raphaelites – nature, historical legend, biblical stories, beauty – which dwelt on the central figures – Rosetti, Millais, Holman Hunt, Madox Brown – without really making clear the connections to other artists who appeared at points, notably Julia Margaret Cameron and William Morris. I was particularly disappointed to see the decorative arts corralled into a room separate from the paintings, even if this was entitled ‘Paradise’ (which also, for some reason, lacks a section on the online exhibition room guide). It was interesting to see sculpture included in some of the rooms, but there was no real explanation as to what made these pieces ‘Pre-Raphaelite.’ In August 2011, I posted about a small exhibition ‘Romantics’ at Tate Britain, which put Turner in the context of the disparate group of ‘Romantic’ artists, and re-staged the kind of exhibition that they might have seen in London. This was the kind of re-staging and re-thinking that I had hoped to see brought to the ‘Victorian Avant-Garde.’