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Pre-Raphaelite

Syllabification: (Pre-Raph·a·el·ite)

Definition of Pre-Raphaelite

noun

  • a member of a group of English 19th-century artists, including Holman Hunt, Millais, and D. G. Rossetti, who consciously sought to emulate the simplicity and sincerity of the work of Italian artists from before the time of Raphael.

    Seven young English artists and writers founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 as a reaction against the slick sentimentality and academic convention of much Victorian art. Their work is characterized by strong line and color, naturalistic detail, and often biblical or literary subjects. The group began to disperse in the 1850s, and the term became applied to the rather different later work of Rossetti, and that of Burne-Jones and William Morris, in which a romantic and decorative depiction of classical and medieval themes had come to predominate

adjective

  • of or relating to the Pre-Raphaelites.
  • of a style or appearance associated with the later pre-Raphaelites or especially with the women they frequently used as models, with long, thick, wavy auburn hair, pale skin, and a fey demeanor.

Derivatives

Pre-Raphaelitism

Pronunciation: /-ˌlītˌizəm/

noun

Pre-Raphaelite in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of Pre-Raphaelite in the British & World English dictionary