THE PRE-RAPHAELITE ILLUSTRATOR.

The Pre-Raphaelite artists began exhibiting as a group in 1848. They began to diverge in 1852/3. An opportunity to see their respective later positions came in 1857 with the publication of Edward Moxon's illustrated edition of Tennyson's poems. The volume also gives up clear ideas of the development of the illustrated book, its design in binding and page format, as well as the technical and aesthetic constraints on contributing illustrators. The Pre-Raphaelites and many of their generation looked widely for texts to illustrate. Characteristic was D.G.Rossetti who wrote poetry and prose himself , illustrated Poe (The Raven), Browning (Pippa Passes, Sordello), Dante (Divine Comedy) as well as passages from the New Testament. He was particularly attracted to Malory's Morte D'Arthur and its Arthurian legends. One contemporary poet who attracted the group and many other contemporary painters was Alfred Tennyson. who was later to develop his own Arthurian epic. Millais, the main figure in this lecture, was particularly drawn to Tennyson's vivid sense of natural detail, and a hardly muted sensuality often in a modern domestic setting.

"When he first met Holman Hunt, he (Tennyson) demanded to know why the Lady of Shalott in the illustration had 'her hair wildly tossed about as if by a tornado'. Hunt mildly explained that he wanted to convey the idea of the catastrophe that had overtaken her, but Tennyson insisted, 'I didn't want her hair blown about like that'. .... To each of Hunt's explanations of the needs of the artist he would say, ' Yes, but I think the artist should always adhere to the words of the poet.' Hunt suggested that he had but half a page to do what it took Tennyson fifteen to express..." Martin p.415

BOOKLIST

S.Casteras, Pocket Cathedrals, Pre-Raphaelite Book Illustration, Yale 1992
exhib.catal,The Pre-Raphaelites , Tate/Penguin London 1984;

Thad Logan, The Victorian Parlour, Cambridge University Press, New Edirtion 2006
R.B.Martin, Tennyson, The Unquiet Heart , Faber and Faber London, 1980;
C.Ricks (ed) The Poems of Tennyson Longmans London 1969
G.Millais, Sir John Everett Millais Academy London 1979;
Alfred Tennyson, Poems (The Illustrated Edition) Moxon London, 1857;
Gleeson White, English Illustration, The Sixties , Kingsmead Reprint Bath, (1897);
Geoffrey Wakeman, Victorian Book Illustration The Technical Revolution , David/Charles, N.Abbott 1973;
R.McLean(ed), The Reminiscences of Edmund Evans Clarendon Press Oxford, 1973;
Reproductions of Woodcuts by F.Sandys 1860-66 , published for Mrs Sandys 1905 c.