Revivalist and Realist: Pre-Raphaelitism and Photography

Jessica Burton Restrick
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2019
BA

Subject: Painting and Photography
Country: England
Period: 19th Century

10,000 words

This dissertation will compare and contrast Pre-Raphaelite and avant garde photography in Britain from 1850-1870. Rather than viewing these groups as two separate movements, this paper will show how they were in fact part of one larger movement, joined by a shared romantic anticapitalist philosophy which could be expressed through their various media. Each chapter looks at a shared subject-matter in the two-media that expressed this romantic anti-capitalist view. It first examines literary medievalism, exploring the issues in defining illustration that each medium had with regards to public criticism. The second looks at the topic of the fallen women and the concerns about prostitution which peaked in the mid-century. The final chapter concludes the concern of the Pre-Raphaelites and photographers with the social responsibility of art.

Irish Georgian Society

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Revivalist and Realist: Pre-Raphaelitism and Photography