Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

... Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood A group of young British painters who banded together in 1848 in reaction against what they conceived to be the unimaginative and artificial historical painting of the Royal Academy and who purportedly sought to express a new moral seriousness and sincerity in their works. They were inspired by Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries, and their adoption of the name Pre-Raphaelite expressed their admiration for what they saw as the direct and uncomplicated depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High Renaissance and, particularly, before the time of Raphael. Although the Brotherhood's active life lasted less than 10 years, its influence on painting in Britain, and ultimately on the decorative arts and interior design, was profound. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848 by three Royal Academy students, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a gifted poet as well as a painter, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett

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