Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Tableaux vivants in Piazzetta Reale this evening, tomorrow and 20 June (21 pm) to "bring to life" some of the masterpieces on display

Milan, June 18 2019 - In 1848, while political and social revolutions involving almost all nations broke out in Europe, in Victorian England seven students founded an artistic movement with the aim of freeing British painting from the conventions imposed by the Royal Academy and from the canons of figuration born in the Renaissance. Thus was born the "pre-Raphaelite brotherhood" which, even in its name, refers to the Middle Ages and its corporations and which experiments with new literary and figurative lifestyles: a movement that shifts the sense of representation towards emotion, the magical, the myth and orients painting towards the faithful reproduction of reality and the color "captured" en plein air.

The works of the Pre-Raphaelites can be admired for the first time in Milan thanks to the collaboration project between Palazzo Reale and Tate Britain, which preserves and exhibits the most important masterpieces of the British artistic movement.

“Pre-Raphaelites. Love and Desire” is in fact promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan | Culture, Palazzo Reale and 24 ORE Cultura-Gruppo 24 ORE, and organized in collaboration with Tate. Curated by Carol Jacobi, (Curator of British Art, 1850 – 1915 of Tate Britain) the exhibition also makes use of the scientific contribution of Maria Teresa Benedetti, in relation to the relationship of the Pre-Raphaelites with Italy.

Open to the public from 19 June to 6 October 2019, the exhibition reveals all the complex poetics of this movement thanks to the works of 18 Pre-Raphaelite artists divided into thematic sections, in order to better explore the objectives and ideals of the movement, the styles of various artists, the importance of the graphic element and the spirit of collaboration which, in the field of applied arts, was a fundamental element of the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Along the way, iconic paintings of the artistic movement: from "Ophelia" by John Everett Millais to the fascinating red-haired women by Dante Gabriel Rossetti ("Monna Vanna", "Aurelia. Fazio's lover"); from medieval scenes such as "Dante's Dream at the Death of Beatrice" (also by Rossetti) to fantastic evocations such as the enchanted walk on the river in "The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse.