Pre-Raphaelites. An extraordinary Exhibition in Milan

Deverell

Rome/Milan [ENA] In 1848, political and social revolutions involving almost all nations break out in Europe. In England, seven students joined to produce an artistic revolution: freeing British painting from conventions and dependence on old masters. The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo.

Millais

The men and women of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) experienced new beliefs, new lifestyles and personal relationships, as radical as their art. Their splendid paintings will be on exhibition for the first time in Milan thanks to the extraordinary collaboration project between Palazzo Reale Milan and Tate Britain.The exhibition “Preraffaelliti. Amore e desiderio” (Pre-Raphaelites. Love and desire ), promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Culture, Palazzo Reale and 24 ORE Cultura-Gruppo 24 ORE is organized in collaboration with Tate and curated by Carol Jacobi, Curator British Art of the London museum. Maria Teresa Benedetti’s scientific contribution highlited the

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

relationship of the Pre-Raphaelites with Italy. It will thus be possible to admire about 80 works in Milan, together with some iconic paintings difficult to see outside of the UK, such as the Ophelia by John Everett Millais, The Awakening of Consciousness by William Holman Hunt, Love of April by Arthur Hughes, the Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse.The Palazzo Reale exhibition, open to the public from 19 June to 6 October 2019, reveals the universe of art and values of the 18 pre-Raphaelite artists. The exhibition wants to tell all the poetics through the masterpieces of the famous Tate collection of this movement: from love and desire to fidelity to nature and its faithful reproduction; and then the medieval stories,

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

poetry, myth, beauty in all its forms. Articulated thematic sections present the works of art, in order to explore the objectives and ideals of that movement, the styles of the various artists, the importance of the graphic element and the spirit of collaboration, which, in the field of applied arts, was a fundamental element of pre-Raphaelitism. Particular emphasis will be given to the impact that the artistic movement produced on the way of conceiving art, showing how the charm of the Pre-Raphaelites, as a determining factor in the formative process of next generations of artists, is still today extremely modern.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The leitmotif of the poetry of Pre-Raphaelite artists owes to art and in general to pre-Renaissance Italian culture that idea of "medieval modernity" which characterizes it. In order to corroborate this theme, there will be on display "iconic" paintings on topics ranging from Dante Alighieri and his poem (Paolo and Francesca and Dante's dream at the time of the death of Beatrice by Dante Gabriel Rossetti) to the Italian landscape tout court (Veduta of Florence from Bellosguardo by John Brett).