Pre-Raphaelite Qualities

The 18th and 19th century gallery will be transformed by the exhibition 'Fantasy Landscapes, Portraits and Beasts', curated by artist Glenn Brown, bringing together a new collection by this artist alongside paintings found in the 19th century gallery. Pre-Raphaelite Qualities is an exhibition of some of the other works normally found in this gallery.

Pre-Raphaelite Qualities

This display of pictures from the Laing’s collection is focussed around Laus Veneris by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, who was the most important painter of the second wave of Pre-Raphaelite art. Also on show are pictures by Pre-Raphaelite followers such as Arthur Hughes and the Newcastle artists H H Emmerson and Charles Napier Hemy. Alongside these, Daniel Maclise’s large painting of King Alfred in a Danish encampment reveals links between Pre-Raphaelite style and mainstream Victorian art.

Pre-Raphaelite art featured bright colour and sharp detail all over the picture. The artists began their paintings with a layer of white, which shone through the colours, making them even brighter. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, founded in 1848, aimed to achieve the ‘truthfulness’ of art before the time of Raphael and Italian Renaissance.

(Isabella and the Pot of Basil, by premier Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt, is on display from June 16^th in an adjoining gallery showing new works by international artist Glenn Brown with pictures from the collection selected by the artist).