Seven idealistic young artists, determined to depart from current academic practices and reform contemporary art, formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Adopting the tenet, "Truth to Nature," they used models whose appearance resembled their subject, employed luminous, bright color throughout their work, and rendered every detail with almost photographic accuracy. Their models included friends, relatives, and likely-looking strangers. They repeatedly sought out working class women as models and then formed intimate relationships. The women benefited from association with the artists and functioned with relative independence from current Victorian mores at the same time as functioning within society in an elevated status. In addition, these women adopted individual forms of dress and a characteristic appearance. / As the Brotherhood dissolved, an ever-growing group of adherents embraced Pre-Raphaelite techniques. Also, forms of dress depicted earlier by the Brotherhood and worn by their models developed enough common features to become known as Pre-Raphaelite dress. Dante Gabriel Rossetti emerged as impetus and leader of the second wave of Pre-Raphaelitism. He idealized and perpetuated depictions of beautiful women in Pre-Raphaelite dress. The Rossettian ideal became an iconographic image which changed the prevailing standard of beauty and endured throughout the rest of the era. / Succeeding art movements incorporated Pre-Raphaelite/Rossettian influences and fostered the emergence of aesthetic (artistic) dress and lifestyle which comprised various stylistic features based on common principles. As practices of successive movements impacted on the representation of women in art, artistic dress evolved from an expression of allegiance to a group and its ideals to one of self-expression. As the sphere of activity widened for Victorian women, the forms of fashionable and artistic dress changed. Regardless of affiliation, however, women were still constrained within the context of gender/sex role relationships and Victorian "respectability." Pre-Raphaelite influence on dress evolved in stages--as dress depicted by artists and worn by their models, wives, and lovers; dress expressing of allegiance to particular aesthetic tenets; and dress expressing individuality which emerged in fashionable dress as identification with the current femme fatale/mature sophisticated woman that became the new standard of beauty. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-02, Section: A, page: 0433. / Major Professor: Carol E. Avery. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78176 |
| Contributors | Radcliffe, Pamela M., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 572 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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