PRE-RAPHALITED!!

Just when I was settling down into a comfortable relationship with the great Impressionist movement; declaring my favourites, recognising the Renoir reproductions at my place, differentiating a Monet from a Manet, a Vang Gogh from a Duncan, understanding how the sun shimmers in the painting that started it all, and staring down from the elongated sides of my olfactory nemesis at anything vaguely Dali [although Escher sits pretty on my blog].....I discovered the Pre-Raphaelites. And so lord, bless us all.
Love at first sight happened when I picked up a copy of Pre-Raphaelite reproductions for my ol' man. I liked the reproductions and 'twas inexpensive to procure it [as is the case with most of 'em men hooking up with 'em ladies. Hmph.] and if truth be told, I did not give it much thought. But then I was destined to return to the bookstore in my usual I-have-the-time-but-little-money-to-spare-to-buy-books mode and I was browsing through a catalogue of Pre-Raphaelite art. And I discovered this [please do click on it for a mind-numbing moment of raw helplessness].



Ophelia! Ophelia! Sweet, frail, glorious Opehlia! I rushed to pick up a copy of Hamlet [actually I picked up ALL of the four great tragedies] and returned home to devote my new I-have-the-time-but-NO-MONEY-to-spare-whatoever mode to Googl-ing. And I present you with this.
Turns out the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were a group of seven English painters, poets and crtitcs who sought fit to reject the affectations of the Mannerists [Raphael and Michaelangelo followers] and 'reproduced on canvas what they saw in nature'.
This was their only discriminating feature. Albeit the principles of the brotherhood were laid down in four declarations:

1. To have genuine ideas to express;
2. To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
3. To sympathise 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. And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

These declarations however, were far from stringent, as the Pre-Raphaelites were generous to the individual idea and flair. And although the 'study of nature' lent a very real element to their work, the brotherhood was to eventually split into two; the Realists and the Medievalists who incorporated a spritual perspective in their work. The split, it is claimed, was never absolute but the difference in the work is glaringly obvious.

So, right now I am also hooked onto Hamlet. The moon is the 'moist star' since it governs the tidal waves. Loverlieeeeeeeeeee.

Double whammy did I hear you say??