BY THE 1950s AND EARLY 60s the Pre Raphaelites were fairly despised in the art world. Along with much else Victorian (especially the architecture) they were dismissed as sloppy sentimentalists whose pictures were fit only for chocolate box covers. Then the hippy generation looked at them with fresh eyes, leading to a rehabilitation to the point that in the twenty-first century it is well remembered that in their day the Pre Raphaelites were as shocking and revolutionary as the Impressionists, Surrealists or any other radical art school one cares to mention. Certainly they were Romantic and probably sometimes a bit too much so but they also painted serious beauty.
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Our English Coasts by Holman Hunt
