Guest curator Dr Alice Eden considers the lasting influence of the Pre-Raphaelite movement into the 20th century.

This exhibition shines a light on ‘Pre-Raphaelite art’ being created at the turn of 19th and 20th centuries, inviting the viewer to look at a range of artists who have been largely forgotten. Artworks by French avant-garde painters, given the title ‘Post-Impressionists’ by art critic Roger Fry, became synonymous with modern art. As a consequence other styles of art, particularly those re-imagining Victorian or Pre-Raphaelite forms or influenced by the Symbolist movement were increasingly seen as out of step with their time. The original Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists formed in 1848 whose members included William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. A second wave grew up around Rossetti in the 1850s notably, the artist Edward Burne-Jones and designer William Morris. This exhibition explores the third and final wave of Pre-Raphaelite artists who carried the movement into the 20th century.

In capturing the fin de siècle mood of both excitement and anxiety, the exhibition highlights a persistent yearning for the spiritual. Described as a ‘spiritual epoch’, this era saw the popularity of understandings of the Universe which could not be provided by religion, science or rational thinking. This cultural strain formed a major response to modern changes in technology and society as well as increasing psychological uncertainty and an ever-accelerating pace of life. Artists were entranced by many forms of mysticism, including Indian philosophy, Spiritualism, which sought to communicate with the dead, and the Theosophical movement, which enjoyed a revival.

Paintings in the show were also influenced by the European Symbolism. This literary and artistic movement explored human truths through symbols both written and visual. These artists often focused on dreams, the subconscious and varying psychological states. Frederick Cayley Robinson explores dreamlike states and creates unsettling, almost surreal images. His illustrations to the Symbolist play Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird (1908) present enchanting dreamscapes. He had almost been forgotten until now but as the exhibition shows he was right at the heart of the Symbolists.

The exhibition surveys many forms of female representation from the turn of the century. Significant spiritual constructs of womanhood were developed within the Symbolist movement and the rising interest in mysticism and the occult. The exhibition displays modern saints and Pre-Raphaelite maidens. Re-imagining Pre-Raphaelite forms of womanhood captivated many female artists and shaped the visual cultures of the feminist movement. Suffrage art generated images of heroic womanhood and the icon Joan of Arc. Several artists in the show, and their peers, were involved in campaigns for suffrage, including Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, Christiana Herringham (and her friend Annie Swynnerton), Evelyn De Morgan and Mary Watts. Marianne Stokes also knew Millicent Fawcett, painted Dr Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and like Christiana Herringham created a banner for the Suffragette March of 1908.

Never out of view during the 20th century, Pre-Raphaelitism is ever popular today and the pictures in the show are increasingly relevant. Despite their predominant reputation as escapist dreamers, left behind in the modern age, Modern Pre-Raphaelite artists were more closely connected with the contexts and issues of their day than has been previously understood. Through the artists on display, Pre-Raphaelitism continues in haunting forms, re-invented for the modern age.