Modern Life: Love & Desire. A rare mother and daughter’s day. I am meeting mum and Michelle here at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA). 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.
Modern Life
The first piece we discover is a Ford Maddox Brown oil on canvas entitled Work (1852 – 1865). ‘Intellectual debates about the meaning and value of work dominated the Victorian period. Brown tests these ideas by exploring different types of labour. His characters demonstrate contrasts of class and gender: the composition is centered on the trio of heroic workmen building the infrastructure for a modern city, while the churchman and philosopher at the right are the ‘big picture’ thinkers. Considered the artist’s masterpiece, Brown described his painting as “the work of my life”.’
I like the color and the light and strangely, the sense of chaos depicted, even though chaos is generally not my thing. Certainly the two on horseback seem rather confused by the chaos in this scene, the churchman and philosopher seem unperturbed and the rest of the characters unaware.
This painting was born at a time when Britain was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution and technological advances in science and medicine were transforming people’s lives. New modes of travel meant that people were able to connect more readily across country and continents, opening up exposure to travel and commutes.
Yet class division and the struggle of daily life, in particular the poor, continued and where previously, art was generally limited to the wealthy or religion, the ordinary was now brought to light in detail as the subject of paintings.
Thoughts of the past, offers another example of the ordinary. In this painting a woman stares vacantly, the interpretation often being of a prostitute contemplating her lost innocence. Out the window the Thames is depicted as a busy everyday scene, crowded with boats and activity. Inside, details such as the walking stick and gloves on the floor, a man’s coat hung on the wall and coins scattered on the dresser suggest the larger narrative.
The Pre-Raphaelites changed the face of painting at a time when the world was becoming increasingly modern. Photography was in its infancy and the face of science was changing. In many ways, their narrative borrows from new ways of thinking in terms of the attention to detail and visual narratives.
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. 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 some of the explanations in this post references those found at the NGA exhibition.
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