Love & Desire – Faith

A rare mother and daughter’s day. I am meeting mum and Michelle here at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) to discover Faith, part of the Love & Desire exhibition. I arrive early though and before they arrive too, I park the car and wander through the sculpture garden.

We are here to see the Pre Raphaelites exhibition – Love & Desire. The Pre Raphaelites Brotherhood (PRB) rejected the style of the Renaissance masters and ‘introduced extreme detail and raw truthfulness to religious, literary and historical stories and symbols which allowed the viewer to decode deeper messages. The art of the Pre Raphaelites expressed the rapid change, hopes and anxieties of a society in the process of modernization, and its impact on the world today’. Although controversial in their technique and bohemian lifestyles they nevertheless attracted followers and became internationally famous.

Faith

”Christianity was the dominant religion in nineteenth-century Britain, central to Victorian attitudes and customs, and social, moral and political questions. However, it was a time of tremendous regilious debate and even doubt. The Church of England was the official church – Catholicism was outlawed until the 1820’s – but Methodist, Baptist and Quaker groups were also important. Gradually these faiths were permitted greater religious and institutional freedoms. As new disciplines in the natural sciences influenced landscape art, archaeology and theories of evolution impacted on Christian beliefs.

Because many Pre-Raphaelite works referred to earlier Christian models, the artists were negatively aligned with Catholicism. Most of the Pre-Raphaelites tended towards atheism but their biblical subjects were designed to be recognizable to their audience. William Holman Hunt’s approach and his travels to the East were intended to bring historical accuracy to these familiar narratives, culminating in his remarkable image of Jesus, The shadow of death. The Brotherhood’s approach to the spiritual – combined with realism or modern existential, psychological and sexual themes – often produced strong criticism.”

Love & Desire – Pre Raphaelite Masterpieces from the Tate, National Gallery of Australia

The most impactful piece seems to be the vivid image of Christ “Hunt’s religious paintings combine the spiritual and worldly, depicting biblical figures and narratives in secular settings. He presents Christ as a working man in a carpentry shop, the shadow cast on the wall seen only by the Virgin and the viewer forewarn of the Crucifixion. The painting’s meticulous details reinforce religious meanings: Mary opens a casket with the Magi’s gifts, the arc of the window framing Christ’s head forms a halo and the red headband suggests a crown of thorns.”

“Rossetti’s intimate composition interprets one of the most important passages in the Bible: The Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will conceive and give birth to the son of God. The pale palette is reminiscent of fresco techniques, and the choice of colours symbolic – blue for the Virgin and red for Christ’s blood. Rossetti departs from traditional representations in showing Mary disturbed and somewhat uncomfortable about the news – a radical humanization of the divine scene.”

“Some of Christ’s female disciples, with Mary Magdalene on her knees, are shown in a scene drawn from the Gospel of Luke: the morning of the first Easter when they discover his empty tomb. The title quotes directly from the Bible when an angel said “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen”. Brightly colored flowers symbolize the message of resurrection, while the distant landscape leading to the cave suggests a spiritual journey.”

“A dying goat sinking into the Dead Sea, set against a purple-hued and picturesque landscape, suggests a tragic if somewhat obscure narrative. The scapegoat carries the sins of the world and is sacrificed as a means of redemption. Hunt’s animal is an allegory for Christ’s death on the cross, the red wool around the horns standing for the crown of thorns. Here the artist invites viewers to sympathize with the goat’s tragic sacrifice in a setting both real and metaphorical.”

This new style changed the way faith was viewed and interpreted at a time when faith in the context of history was the subject of much debate. In many ways, the detailed visual portrayals, even when using allegories is a link to the questions and controversial topics of the era.

It may not be as romantic as the Romantics, as restrained as the Renaissance style or as luminous as the Impressionists but the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood certainly produced a body of work that is in essence bold, vivid, lustrous, desperate and sensual all at once. Inspired by faith or the invariable questions around the topic. Love and desire indeed.

Would I Return?

Yes. Although the exhibition runs 14 December 2018 – 28 April 2019 at the National Gallery of Australia. I’m not sure I’ll get another chance.

Note that quotes and explanations in this post references to those from the NGA exhibition.