It does not mean the reproduction of the
quaintnesses, and awkwardnesses, and limitations of the early artists, more
than it means the adoption of the errors of their creed as exhibited in
their paintings; but it means that as those artists broke loose from the
bondage of Byzantine captivity, and found in Nature the source of all true
inspiration, the exhaustless fountain from which their imaginations might
draw perpetual refreshment,--so these artists who took this name would free
themselves from whatever they could discern to be false in the teaching
and practice of Art in our times, and give themselves to the study of that
beauty and that truth which are to be found in God's world to-day, whether
in external nature or in human hearts, actions, and lives. Truth was to be
their device; Nature was to be their mistress. And in the ardor of youth,
they set forth for the conquest of new and untravelled lands.
It is greatly to be regretted that there should be but an inconsiderable
number of pictures in this last hall of the English gallery by
Pre-Raphaelite artists. A little private exhibition of seventy-two pictures
and drawings, by some twenty artists of this school, which was held in a
small house in London, during the month of June, gave a far better view of
what had been already accomplished by them, of the practical working out of
their principles of Art, and of their present tendencies.
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