Margaretta Frederick, curator of the Bancroft Collection of Pre-Raphaelite Art at the Delaware Art Museum, will lecture on the Pre-Raphaelites. The Pre-Raphaelites--Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais and William Morris among them--rebelled against the standards of British painting in mid-Victorian England. Encouraged by the critic John Ruskin, they attempted to return to the Middle Ages, a return to the accurate depiction of physical nature and a return to the style of European painting that was popular before the influence of Raphael and Raphael's disciples. They called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and signed their paintings with the mysterious initials PRB. In time the Brotherhood influenced almost every aspect of the British and American art worlds--their painting, poetry, weaving, domestic architecture, furniture (e.g., the Morris Chair), book illustration and design.
Frederick will discuss the full range of the Pre-Raphaelites' activities and their influence upon the later Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts movements. The lecture will be followed by a screening of Ken Russell's 1967 film on Dante Rossetti, Dante's Inferno. Both the lecture and film are free and open to the public.
For more information, e-mail [pflynn@english.udel.edu] or call (302) 831-2212.
