Jonty Claypole

After Raphael, everything becomes very mannered.

artists start to separate from nature and they want to get back to the era of the Renaissance before Raphael, when artists were very closely observing nature.

And that's why they call themselves the Pre-Raphaelites.

They latch on to a young John Ruskin as a theorist for this movement.

And Ruskin, in his 20s, was through the 1840s and 50s, writing a series of books called Modern Painters.

And he, Ruskin, is really pushing this idea that artists should go back to nature, should try and shake off

the effectiveness and mannered appearance of a lot of 18th century British painting.

Joshua Reynolds is the big villain in the eyes of the pre-Raths.

So Ruskin writes, young painters should go to nature in all singleness of heart and walk with her laboriously and trustingly.

It's a very Ruskin-ite notion.

Joyless labour.

And only Ruskin is so devoid of self-understanding that he can write about the need for artists to walk laboriously and trustingly with nature in this focused monk-like way and then finish the sentence by saying, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning.

So these artists need to be penetrating nature, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, scorning nothing.

So the Pre-Raphaelites, there's actually seven of them, although four, Brown, Millais, Hunt and Rossetti are the ones who became famous.

It's actually a bit of a joke for them.

And they decide they're going to sign, it's a publicity stunt.

They're going to sign all their paintings PRB after their name to create a bit of a public mystery.

What does PRB stand for?

They have a lot of jokes between themselves about, you know, maybe it stands for Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Maybe it stands for Penis Rather Better.