The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
The three founders were joined by William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner to form the seven-member "brotherhood". The group's intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the mechanistic approach first adopted by Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo.
Its members believed the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art, hence the name "Pre-Raphaelite". In particular, the group objected to the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds, founder of the English Royal Academy of Arts, whom they called "Sir Sloshua".
Most Popular Artists. The most popular artist searches last month: a not-to-be-taken-too-seriously measurement of which famous artists have the greatest "mindshare" in our collective culture.
Moving up: Edgar Degas (#22 to #12), Titian (#28 to #18), and realist painter Janet Fish (appearing for the first time on the list at #29). Moving down: Joan Miro (#13 to #19), Wassily Kandinsky (#11 to #24) and Paul Gauguin (#21 down to #32). How we measure popularity: In order to eliminate any kind of selection bias due to search engine ranking, external links, etc., we only count internal links from our own search box and our artist listings.