Re-Framing the Pre-Raphaelites

Re-framing the Pre-Raphaelites is a collection of essays by leading scholars in the field of Pre-Raphaelite studies. Some essays are case studies of well-known visual and literary works by founder members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; others explore meanings generated by Pre-Raphaelite works on specific themes and define the cultural work done by them. There are essays on John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, Joanna Boyce, Edward Burne-Jones and other artists associated with the Pre-Raphaelites. Among the subjects discussed are gender, class, ethnicity, national and regional identity, patronage, the position of the professional woman artist, the nude, images of women and the Victorian cult of death. Some of the authors treat their chosen subject in a mainly art-historical context with a focus on new scholarly research. A number of the essays, in contrast, are informed by post-structuralist, feminist and psychoanalytic theories. These theoretical approaches lead the reader to consider both familiar and lesser-known works in new, and often controversial, frameworks and should provoke further theoretical and historical debate in this field. Several of the essays are based on papers given at the Pre-Raphaelite session of the 1994 Conference of the Association of Art Historians.