The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (Britain, 1848 to Late 19th Century) was created in 1848 by seven artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, John Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, Thomas Woolner and William Holman Hunt. Their goal was to develop a naturalistic style of art, throwing away the rules and conventions that were drilled into students’ heads at the Academies. Raphael was the artist they considered to have achieved the highest degree of perfection, so much so that students were encouraged to draw from his examples rather than from nature itself; thus they became the “Pre-Raphaelites”.

The group popularized a theatrically romantic style, marked by great beauty, an intricate realism, and a fondness for Arthurian and Greek legend.

The movement itself did not last past the 1850s, but the style remained popular for decades, influencing the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Symbolist painters, and even the Classicists.