Pre-Raphaelites at The Manchester City Art Gallery

I visited the Manchester City Art Gallery this weekend, and the gallery is famous for its amazing collection of paintings - especially its collection of Pre-Raphaelite works.

The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of artists that came together in the Victorian era to create and produce work that looked back an era before industrialisation. They believed art should reflect nature, reality and be as similar to the real and natural world as possible. The Pre-Raphaelites painted pastoral, romanticised scenes, often it was allegorical and symbolic.

They were inspired by the Italian painter Raphael. Raphael was painted in Italy 400 years before the Pre-Raphaelites. He focused on creating epic religious paintings that were religious in theme, often featuring Jesus Christ. Raphael depicted a perfect and romantic world. The Pre-Raphaelites didn’t like this and wanted to paint what they knew. This is how they got their name. It literally means before Raphael.