PRE-RAPHAELITE PHOTOGRAPHY

Press, 26 July 1989, Page 20

PRE-RAPHAELITE PHOTOGRAPHY

Visionary, hyper-real, energetic, wondrous, romantic, ethereal and detailed, are just some of the words used to describe the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. They were a group of painters including Hunt, Millais, the Rosetti brothers, Burne-Jones and William Morris, who thought that European painting of the post-Re-naissance tradition was stylised, formulaic and untruthful to the facts of nature. They attempted to master reality, to come to terms with a complex and baffling world. Their work had bright colours and extreme detail and was fresh and energetic.

Into this world of painters searching for

accuracy, precision and detail, came the wonderful new invention of photography, which to the Pre-Raphaelites was as “if a magician had reduced the reality (of San Marco or the Grand Canal) to be carried away into an enchanted land” (John Ruskin). Certainly the colour was missing but even the most painstaking Pre-Ra-phaelite painter could not match the wondrous precision of the camera. The Pre-Raphaelite painters were fascinated with this new medium and a strong bond developed between the two arts.

A collection of the photographs taken by photographers who

adopted the Pre-Raphael-ite vision, such as Frederick Scott Archer, Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lady Clementina Hawarden, Frances Frith, and Roger Fenton is touring New Zealand with assistance from the British Council. The tour has been organised by the New Zealand Art Gallery Directors’ Council.

The exhibition is on show at the McDougall Art Gallery until August 20, before moving to the Aigantighe Art Gallery on August 31 to October 1.

Pictured is Rossetti’s portait of Jane Morris, taken in 1865.