Jonty Claypole

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.

That's actually one of their jokes.

They are, they're very consciously looking to Keats and Tennyson there and they're taking the subjects of poems by Keats and Tennyson as subject matter for painting them and then painting in this very hyper realist way.

People love the pre-Raphaelite Sophie, and galleries around the Commonwealth today are stuffed full of their paintings.

I personally, and I'm going to exaggerate for effect, but I can't stand it.