My impressions about the book Pre-Raphelites

My impressions about the book ''Pre-Raphaelites'' by K.E.Sullivan.

I enjoyed reading this book because it is written in an easy way (not many dates and names).That makes this book very helpful for an ignorant person in pre-raphaelite art like me(I wasn’t lost in non-useful information). I gained the necessary information (who, when, why, main ideas, history of movement) in understandable structured way.

Another good side of the book is the interesting way in which information is presented. It's not a dry reference book but exciting reading thanks to details about personal life of painters like love-stories, drug problems etc. It makes pre-raphaelites more understandable, closer to the reader.

Illustrations in the book were rather impressive, quality was good and I enjoyed looking at them.

Things I didn't like:

1 .First of all, the author was naming lots of paintings without giving illustrations. To my mind, this book is for people who have just started studying pre-raphaelites. How are they supposed to know those paintings named? Without a picture just naming or describing a painting loses its sense.

2. Second thing I didn't like is that all the paintings for illustrating the text were from European museums. I live in Australia which possesses rather nice collection of pre-raphaelites and would like to know more about the paintings hanging in the walls in the galleries of this country.

What I would like to offer the author to add to this book:

1. List of museums that have pre-raphaelite paintings in their collection.

2. Bibliography on this topic for future studies in this sphere.

All things considered, I enjoyed reading this book, it made my pre-raphaelite studies so much more enjoyable!

Ten reasons why i like pre-raphaelite paintings

Ten reasons why I like pre-raphaelites.

1. First of all, they used very unusual colour combinations for their paintings. The paintings are either full of sunlight, very optimistic or dark, gloomy and scary. This effect was reached by usage of new shades of colours.

2. Paintings itself are very elaborate and detailed. One can spend hours looking at every flower or herb or detail of costume depicted in the picture. It took a very long time for the artist to finish the painting. It was, at least at the very beginning, non-commercial art. Artists tried to express themselves, to make the world a little bit better rather than to sell their paintings.

3. The plots of most of the pictures are very romantic and poetic.

4. Artists depicted very handsome women and men in their works. Looking at those paintings give me great aesthetic pleasure.

5. Background information about each of the paintings is usually fascinating. That's because of the interesting plots that painters were choosing for their works. Artists themselves were outstanding people, multy-faceted personalities. Their stories of life are as if taken from the novels about passionate tragic love.

6. To understand and appreciate pre-raphaelite paintings one doesn't need to have profound knowledge in history of arts, Bible or mythology. Each canvas has it's own more profound meaning, it accumulates many ideas, but the main topic can be easily understood.

7. Pre-raphaelites were interested in Medieval ages, their works of art have a lot in common with art before the renaissance (i.e. detailed, importance of symbols).I am very interested in medieval history .

8. Very important is that they as if depict world of dreams, beautiful and a little bit unreal, which is a very good distraction from the problems of the modern world.

9. There are lots of those paintings in Australian museums. It is always much more pleasant to see the painting on the wall than in the book. I can admire small strokes of a brush of the painter, see real size of the canvas and enjoy other benefits of close contact with the painting.

10. My boyfriend likes them too, it is very pleasant to go to the art-galleries together. It is extremely nice to exchange ideas and just to be together in such a place.