Thoroughly good pictures

"The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood"...

Just the name sounds rather romantic. The good old BBC have knocked out another classical drama for our delight, bringing to life on celluloid the majesty of the canvas created by these three young Victorian 'punks'. We romantics love a bit of revolution and they stirred up the art world as surely as they mixed their oils. Laughed at and ridiculed, they believed in their artistic values:

> To have genuine ideas to express;
> To study Nature attentively, so as to know how to express them;
> To sympathise with what is direct and serious and heartfelt in previous art, to the exclusion of what is conventional and self-parodying and learned by rote;
> And, most indispensable of all, to produce thoroughly good pictures and statues.

I rather like the last one - I think it's quite possible that despite the early criticism, they may have succeeded.

The message is there fellow creatives. Believe in yourself. Push yourself and above all, persuade others to believe in you too (they'll be the ones that end up paying you!).

I would like you to believe I painted this picture but suspect you may guess it was one of those Victorian rebels. A certain Mr Dante Gabriel Rossetti (they sure knew how to name themselves in those days!)