Abstract:

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is infamous for their revolutionary presence in Victorian England. They painted a crude reality witnessed from meticulous observation, horrifying the public and mocking academic standards. Red-headed, slim, emotive female characters overtook the premises of their canvases, adorned in flowing garments, muddy florals, and with humanizing impressions of sensitivity. Victorian art, up until this time, had displayed women as empty, virtuous, and childlike, designed from idealized feminine characteristics. The Pre-Raphaelite’s anti-Victorian rendering of the female subject has been mistaken as a display of female liberation, and the humanity in these depicted women –  seemingly proto-feminist – has been overshadowed by their origin of manifestation: the female-fearing man. Female tropes used by the Pre-Raphaelites, such as the femme fragile, the fallen woman, and the femme fatale, greatly diminished female authenticity and individuality, and even supported Victorian ideals and regulations regarding female sexuality, emotion, and belonging, contradicting common beliefs. The Pre-Raphaelites did not paint against, and rather painted solely because of the rising “woman question,” with little to no true sympathy for their subjects or their conditions. This thesis focuses on these three female tropes and the treatment of the Pre-Raphaelite muse, and analyses the connections these archetypes have to the social backdrop they inhabit. The idea of “myth” and its manifestation in society is also theorized about, and is contextualized within the coexistence of these tropes and their origins.