The young and audacious artists who called themselves the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood revolutionized the British art establishment of the nineteenth century with their medievalist aesthetic. John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and their fellow Pre-Raphaelites strove to uproot the teachings of the Royal Academy. At the same time Frederic Leighton, Edward Poynter and others championed them.
Featuring more than 120 drawings by over 60 artists, Beauty’s Awakening:Drawings by the Pre-Raphaelites and Their Contemporaries from the Lanigan Collection encompasses the entire Victorian era, charting the broad evolution of British draftsmanship and illustrating the new appreciation developed for the art of drawing during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901. It highlights a range of subject matter including simple figure drawings, medieval scenes from literature and Renaissance-inspired compositions.
Visitors encounter all of the major artists, movements and pictorial themes that made up the captivating art world of Victorian England and discover the renewed uses and profound appreciation for the art of drawing at that time. Witness how a single Canadian collector amassed a group of works—exceptional in North America for its breadth—that paints an artistic and social overview of the Victorian age.