pre-raphaelite aesthetics

John Everett Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents, 1850 (Millais' painting became the PR's manifesto)

'Ricketty children, emaciation and deformity constitute their chief stock in trade ...the Pre-Raphaelites apparently select bad models, and then exaggerate their badness till it is out of all nature. We can hardly imagine anything more ugly, graceless, and unpleasant, as in Christ in the House of His Parent.-- Tom Taylor, review for "Exhibition of The Royal Academy", Times, 3 May 1851, p. 8.

Dante Rosetti's Beata Beatrix (1863)

  William Holman Hunt's The Scapegoat,1856

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1852

One can sort of hint at Pre-Raphaelite design:

1- interest in the fashionable pseudo-sciences: crainology, physiology, pathognomy, and phrenology.

Instead of giving us figures with those fine conventional heads and regular oval faces and gracefully formed hands and feet which we like to see in albums, the Pre-Raphaelites appeared to take delight in figures with heads phrenologically clumsy, faces strongly marked and irregular, and very pronounced ankles and knuckles. -- David Masson in the British Quarterly Review.

2- archaism: i.e., Medieval Gothic. so how far back? Pre-Raphaelites go for the English medieval Gothic period. And they "design" this period as they see fit within their worldview.

3-  an aggressive realism, i.e, a- foreshortened perspective, airless atmosphere, and the cramped, almost hieratic postures of the principal figures (attributed variously to the influence of medieval Italian art).

4- morbidity, which gets the following reception in Punch:

...the interest of this work is purely pathological; the figures in it being simply illustrations of the scrofulous or strumous diathesis. Their emaciated bodies, their shrunken legs, and tumid ancles, are the well-known characteristics of this morbid state of system. The incipient oedema of the lower extremities is faithfully portrayed; though, in connection with this symptom, which indicates far-gone disease, the abdominal tension might have been more strongly marked.--  Punch, 18 (May 1850), p. 198.

5- pro-Catholicism (of the Italian Quattrocento influence).

Now, the question is, WHY ALL THIS ATTITUDE? 

PRERAPHAELITES ARE BASICALLY REJECTING MODERN INDUSTRIALIZATION AND RATIONALISM. 

And does it not look a bit like us today?

"what's wrong with Victorian design? almost everything" - Alfred George Stevens

How could one define elements of Victorian design? ECLECTIC!

1- Excessive ornament (flowery, symmetric, etc.),
2- The exotic (amalgamation of Moorish, Japanese and Indian styles),
3- A Medieval revival

4- Celtic revival,

5- Fabrics: velvet, serge or damask curtains trimmed with ball fringes and tassels
6- Colors: Heavy flock wallpapers in deep red, dark green or blue, covered with exaggerated damask patterns and almost hidden by large realistic paintings in wide gilded frames,

which brings me to this gargantuan piece of furniture:

michael jackson's commissioned victorian sofa

 

yet, today Victorian design is experiencing a comeback!

the miracle of chromolithography

Victorian chromolithography card, 1880's

chromolithography is a method for making multi-color prints. 

(let's see this interesting short video on chromolithography)  
 

chromolithography was a revelation! (from a private library):

 

let's begin with lithography, a mechanical planographic process in which the printing and non-printing areas of the plate are all at the same level, as opposed to intaglio and relief processes in which the design is cut into the printing block. lithography is based on the chemical repellence of oil and water. 

designs are drawn or painted with greasy ink or crayons on specially prepared limestone. the stone is moistened with water, which the stone accepts in areas not covered by the crayon. an oily ink, applied with a roller, adheres only to the drawing and is repelled by the wet parts of the stone. the print is then made by pressing paper against the inked drawing.

 

the lithography process was refined over the next several decades to include color illustrations. now multiple stones were used, one for each color, and the print went through the press as many times as there were stones. the problem for the printers was keeping the image in register, making sure that the print would be lined up exactly each time it went through the press so that each color would be in the correct position and the overlaying colors would merge correctly....  overprinting. the use of silver and gold inks widened the range of color and design.

novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe called it "magic colouring." 

 

 

illustrations like the one above were sold by the thousands and exhibited in the houses of America's middle class,
 

 L. Prang & Co. sold cards like this by the millions,

 

 

even though chromolithographs served many uses within society at the time, many were opposed to the idea of them because of their perceived lack of authenticity. these new art forms were sometimes tagged as "bad art" because of their deceptive qualities.

many felt that it could not serve as a form of art at all since it was too mechanical and that the true spirit of a painter could never be captured in a printed version of a work. 

what do we have here?

1- cheaper prints because of the simplification of the number of colors used,

2- popularization of a type of image,
3- the refinement in detail in the image.

What is the pre raphaelite credo?

Boticelli is the pre-raphaelite par excellence. this is his idealized Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph), ca. 1475. 

look at some influences:

Veronese Lucretia, (1580)

ante Gabriel Rosetti's Veronica Veronese, (1872)

 Jan Van Eyk's The Annunciation, (1434)

John Everett Millais' Mariana, (1851)

The group's early doctrine emphasized: 

1. to have genuine ideas to express;
2. to study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express it;
3. to sympathize with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parading and learned by rote;
4. most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

A. H. Mackmurdo (arts and crafts)

a. h. mackmurdo's chair and the celebrated title page to (Mackmurdo's Wren's City Churches, 1883). 

observe plant forms stylized into flamelike, undulating rythms that compress the negative space between them. this established a positive and negative interplay between blak ink and white paper. 

good things come in small bottles: mackmurdo's foliage is the first art nouveau design. 

mackmurdo's house in london

Thomas Nast, master of political satire

Thomas Nast is perhaps 19th Century best US political cartoonist. He came up with the idea of using animals to represent political parties. In his cartoons, the Democratic Party was a donkey and the Republican Party an elephant. Nast also helped to develop the character, Uncle Sam, to represent the United States. 

The Off Year, Harper's Weekly, (1877) Wood engraving

The American River Ganges. Harper’s Weekly (1871). Wood engraving.

After the ratification of the 14th Amendment, 1869.

(here is a short video about Thomas Nast)

photography goes to war (war reportage had a big audience)

 

  all the photographs above are shot by anonymous photographers.

Why the "social" matters in designing fashion (19th Century)

 
mid 19th-century french fashion goes for the bell shape. yet late 19th-century trend favors the slimmer silhouette: 

 

Women were not alone in consuming fashion (circa the mid-nineteenth century).

(above) a difference in male tastes from 18th to 19th century.  

What was the primary driver of fashion in the 19th century? 

Industrial Revolution: The mechanization of textile production led to cheaper, mass-produced fabrics and clothing, making fashion more accessible to the middle class. Innovations like the sewing machine (patented in the 1840s) accelerated clothing production. 

Social Class and Status: Fashion remained a strong marker of class distinction. The rise of the bourgeoisie and the expansion of the middle class led to a greater demand for fashionable yet affordable clothing. 

Influence of Monarchs and Aristocracy: Queen Victoria set the tone for modest and structured styles, such as the Victorian dress with crinoline skirts, corsets, and high necklines. 

Technological Advancements in Dyeing and Fabric Production: The development of aniline dyes in the 1850s allowed for brighter, more varied colors, influencing fashion trends. 

Art and Literature: The Romantic and later Aesthetic movements shaped styles, with flowing, decorative elements replacing rigid, structured garments toward the late 19th century. 

Global Trade and Colonialism: The expansion of European empires led to an influx of exotic textiles, patterns, and styles from Asia and Africa, subtly influencing Western fashion. 

Women's Rights Movement: By the late 19th century, the Rational Dress Movement and the growing feminist movement challenged restrictive clothing like corsets, paving the way for more practical women’s attire.

Below, the consummate English dandy, Oscar Wilde:

This is from his diary of an exquisite, London, 1819:

Took four hours to dress; and then it rained; ordered the tilbury and my umbrella, and drove to the fives' court; next to my tailors; put him off after two years tick; no bad fellow that Weston...broke three stay-laces and a buckle, tore the quarter of a pair of shoes, made so thin by O'Shaughnessy, in St. James's Street, that they were light as brown paper; what a pity they were lined with pink satin, and were quite the go; put on a pair of Hoby's; over-did it in perfuming my handkerchief, and had to recommence de novo; could not please myself in tying my cravat; lost three quarters of an hour by that, tore two pairs of kid gloves in putting them hastily on; was obliged to go gently to work with the third; lost another quarter of an hour by this; drove off furiously in my chariot but had to return for my splendid snuff-box, as I knew that I should eclipse the circle by it.

Here's a great site on the evolution of taste in the Nineteenth Century. 

randolph caldecott (children books

While a bank clerk at Whitchurch, Shropshire, Randolph Caldecott began drawing for local magazines. Through his acquaintance with George Du Maurier he began contributing to the periodical London Society in 1871; the next year he settled in London and turned professional, ultimately drawing for Punch and Graphic, among other periodicals. He increased his skill by painting under Sir Edward Poynter and by sketching and modelling in the studio of J. Dalou.

In 1872 he went with his lifelong friend Henry Blackburn to Germany. His coloured picture books for children included W. Cowper's John Gilpin (1878), Oliver Goldsmith's Elegy on a Mad Dog (1879) and The Great Panjandrum Himself (1885). His works in other media include paintings, metal reliefs, and terra-cottas. (Taken from GMPD).

Caldecott's frogs are famous, 

His plate-and-spoons quibbles are quite imaginative,

Comics: The Examiner & Puck

Many illustrations in the latter half of the Nineteenth Century continued to rely on engraved relief blocks. Relief half-tone printing on high speed machines introduced COLOR to mass circulation magazines and newspapers.

(click here for a wonderful explanation of half-tone printing)

(let's look at this video to learn from photoshop halftone process)

The Return of the Prodigal Father, Joseph Keppler, 1883

Cartoonists exploited the compositional and stylistic possibilities of the new technology. Visual narratives caught the public eye as paper became a cheap commodity and color satisfied consumer's appetites for amusement in print (GDHCG).

by Frank Nankivell, 1910

Puck was America’s first successful humor magazine, which is to say it was long-lived (1876-1918), influential, and quite prosperous. It published three large color cartoons in each issue, which for the first ten years or so were all political in nature. Later they were increasingly purely comic or illustrative. At Puck’s height, the cartoons were among the country’s most important political pronouncements of the week. In addition to that, Puck played a critical transitional role in the evolution of American humor, moving the art from its tall-tales and dialect-laden roots toward the more urbane and literary humor associated with magazines like the New Yorker. It became a training ground for a generation of cartoonists, including beside its founder, Joseph Keppler, great talents such as Frederick Opper, Bernhard Gillam, Eugene Zimmerman, C. J. Taylor, Louis Dalrymple, J. S. Pughe, Harrison Fisher, Rose O’Neill, F. M. Howarth, Joseph Keppler, Jr., Will Crawford, and many others. (Vulture)

Frederick Opper's cartoons for the Chicago Herald.

 

the NEW anatomy & physiology of Andrea Vesalius (De Humani corporis fabrica, 1543)

the aesthetic of Vesalius' De Humani Corporis* casts renaissance Humanism in a sort of macabre light. The idea of memento moris, or the sealed fate. To display his knowledge of human anatomy, Vesalius posed his skeletons, partially flayed bodies and flayed bodies in graceful versions of living poses.

De Humani Corporis is based on his Paduan lectures, during which he deviated from common practice by dissecting a corpse to illustrate what he was discussing. here we see a careful examination of the organs and the complete structure of the human body.

the honor of these skillful & detailed studies goes to Jan van Calcar. De Humani Corporis would not have been possible without the many advances made during the Renaissance, including both the artistic and technical development of printing.

 

_________
*Fabrica rectified some of Galen's worst errors, including the notion that the great blood vessels originated from the liver. Even with his improvements, however, Vesalius clung to some of Galen's errors, such as the idea that there was a different type of blood flowing through veins than arteries. It was not until William Harvey's work on the circulation of the blood that this misconception of Galen would be rectified in Europe.

Romantic poetry's influence

a haunting painting by romantic german painter caspar david. what to look for here?

solitude

fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
in vacant or in pensive mood,
they flash upon that inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude.-- Wordsworth

death,

we seek everywhere the limitless and find only limits.
life is the beginning of death. life exists for the sake of death. death is simultaneously ending and beginning, division and closer bonding. through death, reduction is completed.-- Novalis

nature,

I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
and in our life alone does Nature lives.-- Coleridge

The wikipedia of 18th century

Encyclopaedia, or Descriptive Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Trades - one of the most important works by French enlightener, writer, philosopher and encyclopaedist Denis Diderot (1713-1784). It was published during 1751-1780 (in 7 vol., with 11 vol. of illustrations and 4 vol. of supplements), and was the crowning glory of the efforts of the French intellectual minds and printers of that time.

The encyclopedia and the mechanical arts claim the following: 

1. The materials and the places where they are found, the manner in which they are prepared, their good and bad qualities, the different kinds available, the required processing before and during their utilization.
2. The main products that are made with them and how this is done.
3. We have supplied the names, descriptions, and diagrams of tools and machines, with their parts when taken apart and assembled; the section of certain molds and other instruments if it is appropriate to know about the interior design, their contours, etc.
4. We have explained and represented the workmanship and the principal operations in one or several plates where sometimes only the hands of the craftsman can be seen and sometimes the entire craftsman in action, working at the most important task in his art or trade.
5. We have collected and defined in the most accurate way possible the terms that are peculiar to a given art or trade.

 This was the Wikipedia of the 18th century!

What typeface did they use? The printer was the very talented Pierre Simon Fournier, a punch cutter who was instrumental in the creation of the Roman du Roi, i.e., the typeface of Louis XIV.

Here's an interesting discussion.