The Pre-Raphaelite Dream

Paintings and Drawings From the Tate Collection

Through Aug. 15

Frist Center for the Visual Arts

San Francisco-based Tim McGee could hardly contain himself as he wandered the Frist Center's second-floor galleries admiring the 70 paintings, drawings and even the odd piece of sculpture on display in "The Pre-Raphaelite Dream," which opened last month. As editor of the American newsletter of the British Pre-Raphaelite Society, McGee knows a thing or two about the Pre-Raphaelites, but he hadn't seen all of their work, despite his seven research trips to England. "There are paintings here in this collection that, if you go to the Tate Gallery in London, you won't get to see," he says.

You won't get to see these paintings anywhere else in the States either, as Nashville is the exhibition's only stop this side of New Zealand and Australia. The show was offered to the Frist Center in late 2002, when another venue fell through. Tate officials were in town for the Frist's presentation of "Whistler, Sargent and Steer"—another Tate-organized Nashville exclusive—and liked what they saw. Though it required some shifting of the exhibition schedule, chief curator Mark Scala says the museum was "ready, willing and able to host an exhibition of this magnitude."

For McGee, this meant the chance to see one especially elusive painting: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's watercolor triptych "Paolo and Francesca da Rimini" (1855). Depicting a tale from Rossetti's namesake, Dante Alighieri, this piece doesn't seem to fit the Pre-Raphaelite mold. While it has the same dreamy quality as Rossetti's later paintings—particularly in the last panel, where the two figures float through purgatory—the overall effect is early Renaissance. As it happens, this is just what the Pre-Raphaelites were after.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in England by Rossetti (1828-1882), John Everett Millais (1829-1896), William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) and four others rebelling against prevailing trends in art. Adopting the motto "truth in nature," they dedicated themselves to restoring styles and conceits common in the late medieval to early Renaissance period. For them, the 16th century Italian painter Raphael marked the beginning of art's stylistic downfall, thus their choice of name. This incarnation of the group lasted only from around 1848 to 1852; after that, the members evolved into different styles—Rossetti, for example, became obsessed with expressing an idealized feminine form.

But in the beginning, things were different, as seen in the first room of the Frist exhibit, where the large-scale paintings highlight religious themes and symbolism. While impressive, these works are reminiscent of the student artist mimicking the great masters before fully developing a style of his or her own. Contemporary audiences, meanwhile, were sometimes offended by the way the PRB portrayed biblical figures; people didn't want to see less than pristine fingernails or toenails, for example. Charles Dickens, for one, found fault with Millais' "Christ in the House of His Parents" (1849) because the setting was so common, the family too scruffy.

What, then, did the literary giant have to say about Robert Braithwaite Martineau's "Kit's Writing Lesson" (1852)? One is caught by the very Dickensian essence of the work even before identifying the scene. The two Victorian-era children in the foreground are interesting enough, but it is the detail-rich background that commands attention. A birdcage, a suit of armor, stained-glass panels—if this isn't the Olde Curiosity Shop, what is? Regardless of Dickens' reaction to their work, the Pre-Raphaelites came into their own with the marriage of art and literature. The painters frequently mingled with writers (Rossetti's sister Christina was an established poet in her own right) or were poets themselves. They began to take their subjects from the likes of Tennyson, Shakespeare and Chaucer.

An almost photo-realistic devotion to detail—as in Henry Wallis' crisp, sharp "The Room in Which Shakespeare Was Born" (1853)—became a hallmark of the Pre-Raphaelites, and was one of the ways the influence of the movement spread. "That's what people liked, the way things were depicted so realistically," says McGee. In Arthur Hughes' "The Eve of St. Agnes" (1856), phenomenal detail is lavished on an auxiliary figure in the foreground of the painting. Clad in taupe tights with delicate red stripes, he sports moccasins with the strings loosened, and one can almost count the hairs in the fur rug on which he reclines. Likewise, Millais imbued the blue velvet gown worn by the title character in "Mariana" (1851) with enough luminosity and softness to convey the plush piles of the fabric. In this painting, as in many Pre-Raphaelite works, nature plays a prominent role. Not only visible through the window, leaves invade the room, falling across Mariana's embroidery and scattering on the floor. The fascination with nature was another legacy of the PRB, one they shared with followers like William Morris, founder of England's Arts and Crafts Movement—and husband to Pre-Raphaelite model Jane Burden.

Morris was introduced to the circle by fellow Oxford University student Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), one of the leaders of the second phase of the movement. Ironically, this later period, sometimes referred to as Aesthetic Pre-Raphaelitism, gave rise to the look most associated with the entire Pre-Raphaelite ideal. The highly decorative paintings—Rossetti's stylized portraits of women with flowing tresses, holding or surrounded by flowers—are almost the antithesis of the medieval-inspired works of the original Brotherhood.

Several of Rossetti's definitive women are on display at the Frist, including the raven-haired "Prosephene" (1874). Hanging between two other Rossettis on a wall painted a rich red, and framed on either side by a large flower motif in shimmery gold, the large canvas dominates the gallery and captures model Jane Burden at her most alluring. "We've definitely tried to create a shrine for 'Prosephene,' " explains associate curator Katie Welborn. "We hope that our visitors will genuflect in front of her, because she really is fantastic."

Local artist Carrie McGee (no relation to Tim McGee) painted the flower motif, taken from the painting "Sancta Lilias" (1874), and she also painted the running vines that highlight two other areas of the exhibit. Welborn says exhibition designer Simon Adlam derived the color palette in the galleries from Rossetti's "Dantis Amor" (1860), also on view in the exhibition. Gold is used in the first gallery—where the paintings' gilded frames seem to melt into the wall—and midnight blue in the literature room. The effect is stunning. "The Pre-Raphaelite Dream" is a wonderful, sensuous experience, a chance to become better acquainted with one of the Victorian era's most ambitious movements.