The Pre-Raphaelites: Scientific Landscape Art in Victorian Britain

There was a myth of pure photography and a myth of pure painting, but in reality, photographers used painting techniques and painters made use of photography. After 1839, when photography was invented, painting was initially thought to be finished. Paul de la Roche published a report claiming the daguerreotype was a faithful reproduction and that painting couldn't change. However, painting was actually revived, with many of the greatest painters after 1839 using photography. Some painters deliberately avoided photography because it couldn't capture certain things well, like mists and atmospheric effects that required strong light. The Impressionists exploited this limitation by painting what photography couldn't do, creating a new artistic movement that emphasized light, atmosphere, and subjective perception over photographic realism. The world is now filled with photographs because everyone has a camera, and there is a deep, fundamental human desire to make pictures that has existed throughout history.

Early landscape photography in the 1850s-1860s often adopted the pictorialist tradition, where photographers aimed to create images worthy of being painted. This approach involved careful composition, attention to lighting, and selection of subjects that evoked the romantic and sublime qualities of nature. The influence of painting on early photography created a bridge between these two art forms.

Victorian photographers pioneered techniques that blurred boundaries between art and craft. Henry Peach Robinson used multiple studio photographs combined into harmonious compositions resembling paintings, becoming Royal Photographic Society vice-president. His controversial 'Fading Away' (1857), created from five negatives showing a young girl's deathbed surrounded by grieving family, caused significant debate—it was simultaneously too accurate (betraying expected idealization of death) and yet manipulated (betraying photographic truth). Many Victorian artists secretly used photography despite public expectations that artists should paint from life without aids. Dante Gabriel Rossetti based 'Proserpine' on a photograph, discovered later. John Ruskin initially praised photography's accuracy, writing daguerreotypes contained 'every chip of stone and stain,' but later feared it threatened high art by making representation mechanically reproducible and 'soulless.' Photography enabled artists to establish reputations without public exhibitions. David Octavius Hill photographed 450 ministers for the Free Church of Scotland, then painted from those photographs—a 23-year project completed in 1866. The wet collodium process of 1851 made photography dramatically more practical, reducing exposure times from minutes to seconds and enabling rapid proliferation of photographic images across Europe.

In the 19th century, photography began to profoundly influence painting. The camera could reproduce scenes with machine precision, particularly helpful in architecture where details challenged skilled painters. It also captured human faces more honestly than contemporary portrait painters. Reactions were mixed: some artists feared competition, while others welcomed it as useful. Portrait painters were most affected, as wealthy clients preferred flattering images over honest ones. Queen Victoria embraced photography despite its low artistic status, with her 1855 portrait selling 100,000 copies. Gustave Courbet, a French realist, faced criticism when his paintings were labeled 'banal scenes worse than a daguerreotype.' French painters began respecting ordinary individuals like the miller in Millet's work, representing a shift toward democratic art. Victorian photographers exploited popular sentiments through studies like 'Youth and Age' and 'Innocence.' The most ambitious composition, 'The Two Forms of Life' by Oscar Bailly, used 30 negatives to contrast easy and hard life but was censored for scandalous nudes. In 1850, an art magazine warned that many paintings were based on photographs. Artist Fred hired photographer William Frey to capture Paddington Station for his painting 'The Day of the Verdict' but kept secrets about using photographs. German painter Font-Lombard posed with his family and openly acknowledged using photography, which was attacked by English painter Sergio Berti Hard, who criticized the 'glassy look' from eyes that had stopped for seconds in the camera. By mid-19th century, photography's influence was enormous—half the paintings exhibited were developments of photographs. Some artists projected photos directly onto canvases. Despite critics' claims, photography use increased because it satisfied popular taste, with the growing middle class's artistic patterns leaning toward naturalism as a symbol of their newly acquired culture. Édouard Manet's 'The Execution of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico' (1867) shows the emperor and his generals, with photographs of the same moment available. As cameras became more sophisticated and used in street photography, they could capture the rush, risks, and adventurous life of the city. This fascinated experienced painters. The blurred movements, lack of focus, and visual angles used by painters were the same as those used by photographers. When photography was invented, exposure time was in hours instead of minutes, so anything moving in front of the lens was not recorded. When exposure time was reduced to seconds, movement appeared as blurs. These blurs show people on a Paris bridge and fog on pavement, with a cart moving during exposure. When exposure was no more than it takes to salute with a hat, lenses had automatic mechanisms needing less than a second of exposure, making it possible to capture something never seen before. The question of how horses move their legs while galloping always concerned the public and especially artists, because their gallop is excessively fast to the naked eye. This drove the revolution in static photography and the invention of motion photography. Professor Marey, a French physician fascinated with movement, devised apparatuses to measure it, including a mirror meter and camera in a shoe sole to measure ground contact time. On horse hooves, devices were installed connected to an apparatus that held the rider, showing any change in pressure and the order in which the hooves touched the ground. In 1878, the French newspaper La Nature published photographic proof of horse movement sequences made by Muybridge in America. The Yosemite Valley in California's Sierra Nevada attracted the best American photography enthusiasts. It was also here that Englishman Eadweard Muybridge achieved his reputation as a great photographer.

Ecocritical art history examines how environmental conditions during artwork creation relate to cultural, economic, social, and political contexts. Emerging around 2010, this interdisciplinary approach primarily focuses on 19th-century art and its 20th-century impacts, drawing from environmental sciences, meteorology, and atmospheric studies. The field applies to European and American art, with British artists being particularly significant due to early industrialization. J.M.W. Turner exemplifies the transition from Romantic to proto-impressionist environmental art, with works like 'Rain, Steam and Speed' (1844) representing concrete ecological awareness. John Ruskin conducted systematic scientific analysis of London's atmosphere, documenting a persistent 'cloud of the nineteenth century' caused by industrial emissions. Claude Monet's London series (1899-1901) provides documented evidence of atmospheric change. Scientific studies analyzing over 100 artworks by Turner, Monet, and contemporaries measured white tonality and visibility distances, revealing measurable atmospheric degradation from industrial pollution.

This lecture argues that 19th-century British landscape paintings, particularly those by artists like Turner, were not merely representations of industrial pollution but actively functioned as agents and mediators of environmental change, with the concept of pollution itself being formulated by 19th-century chemists and industrialists as something profoundly nebulous to dissolve responsibility for environmental degradation; the indeterminacy characteristic of Turner's work is rooted in this historical emergence of pollution as a scientific concept rather than simply reflecting atmospheric conditions.

Paintings of the area show dramatically different images—the Derby family commissioned paintings showing genteel landscapes with people admiring the bridge, while paintings from about 20 years later show dark dystopian, smoky, terrifying images of life. People exist in semi-darkness illuminated only by fires, resembling something infernal. This visual contrast captures the environmental transformation brought by industrialization, from peaceful countryside to polluted industrial landscape.

The industrial revolution created entirely new urban landscapes that would have been impossible 20 years earlier. Painters like J.M.W. Turner captured these changes, showing large factories and chimneys that powered machines in factories—uniquely British visions of the new industrial age. These paintings often contrasted the dark 'satanic mills' in the background with almost rural scenes in the foreground, showing people going about their business in textile-related activities. This artistic documentation reveals how the industrial revolution transformed both the physical landscape and the social fabric of Britain.

Landscape painting can serve as a form of environmental consciousness, documenting human transformation of the natural world. The genre of landscape arrives as a questioning of whether landscape painting contains environmental awareness about what happens in nature. This connects to topography, which precisely records what is seen and exists in the environment. Turner demonstrated profound awareness of deep changes affecting the world, with intensity ranging from fascinated awe to dark anxiety. His paintings capture dramatic transformations of the industrial era, showing how human technological progress fundamentally altered both the physical landscape and the human relationship with nature. In Britain, 80% of hares and rabbits have disappeared over the past 100 years due to radical landscape modifications. Landscape painting constitutes an enormous source of pictorial information about the past unavailable elsewhere before photography. The intensity of chromatic light in landscape paintings can provide valuable environmental information about past atmospheric pollution. In Britain between 1780 and 1837, art and science were considered complementary enterprises. The debate centered on whether landscape representation by artists was a laudable enterprise that enriched knowledge of what nature truly is. The debate was often simplified into a binary opposition: should landscape representations be considered factual evidence or creative art? Henry Fuseli's 1765 lecture criticized topographic landscape as a genre that devotes itself exclusively to the meager delineation of a given place. In the 18th century, topographic landscapes devoted themselves to precise recording of particular places. By the early 19th century, topographic art was transcended by sublime painting that sought to represent the grandeur of nature and produce feelings of awe, fear, or horror.

Naturalism emphasized depicting nature exactly as it appeared, treating nature as both teacher and source of art. The movement divided into British and French traditions. British Naturalism, represented by Turner and Constable, focused on landscape beauty and meticulous observation. Constable's 'The Hay Wain' elevated landscape painting to a respected art form. Turner's 'The Fighting Temeraire' captured dramatic light effects, making him a precursor to Impressionism. French Naturalism, associated with the Barbizon School, similarly emphasized direct observation of natural subjects.

The Barbizon School (1830s-1870s) was a group of French painters who revolutionized landscape art by abandoning studio-based academic traditions in favor of direct outdoor painting (en plein air), emphasizing truthful observation of nature and rural life; their key figures—Corot, Rousseau, Daubigny, and Millet—paved the way for Impressionism through innovations like capturing transient atmospheric effects, elevating peasant labor to heroic subject matter, and establishing the forest of Fontainebleau as a primary artistic subject; John Constable's influence through his 1824 Paris exhibition of 'The Hay Wain' was instrumental in inspiring these French artists to pursue authentic naturalism over idealized academic styles.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848 as a secret society of seven young men around 20 years old who studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. They dominated British art for 80 years, with William Holman Hunt as their leading representative. They considered themselves anti-agents of John Ruskin, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx, representing a unique political vision. The term 'Avant-Garde' describes an organized group with a radical collective project to transform art and replace existing practices. The Pre-Raphaelites were the first avant-garde artists, seeking to challenge conventions in British public institutions, morals, religion, and modern life. They aimed to impact all aspects of life, not just artistic creation. In 1848, Europe experienced rapid industrialization, volatile financial markets, and urban growth at the expense of nature. London became the center of a global economic system and empire of unprecedented scale. Traditional social relationships and beliefs were challenged as never before. Early Victorian painting barely registered these tectonic shifts, but Pre-Raphaelite art vividly represents the first industrial society. Through transportation technologies developed by the British Empire, the first trend of globalization emerged. Artworks could travel across borders, and world exhibitions facilitated the exchange of artistic trends. Mechanical reproduction through photography enabled this exchange. The Pre-Raphaelites reacted against the constraints of contemporary art, denying the authority of art academies. They moved away from Greek and Roman classical art, Renaissance masters, and Baroque innovations. They became interested in late medieval art from Southern and Northern Europe, popular culture of their day, German illustrations of medieval tales, black-and-white engravings in Walter Scott's books, simplified forms in newspaper engravings, theater and opera set design, and photography. They deliberately returned to late Gothic and early Renaissance art because this was an era when art was not for the wealthy but for ordinary people. Their technique rejected chiaroscuro, used portrait-like facial images, and concentrated on multiple symbols to convey complex narratives. They sought to create something outside traditional religious art—historical yet modern. The Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by John Ruskin's theories, developing a new way of capturing the modern and natural world. Their key idea was to look at the world with wide-open eyes and depict it exactly as it appeared. This approach of direct observation was crucial to their practice. They looked at medieval sculpture and early Renaissance art, copying styles like those of Jan van Eyck. They studied iconography and icon painting to advance traditions in Russian art. Their approach was similar to how Byzantine icons influenced later artists—they sought to develop their art by looking at older sources rather than using more modern but 'corrupted' methods. Their paintings look exactly as they did in the 1850s because their colors did not fade or darken over time. Pop Art serves as a useful bridge between the Pre-Raphaelites and Young British Artists. Richard Hamilton's 1956 collage 'What Makes the British Home Different and Attractive?' combined numerous sources, mainly American: American comics, TV advertisements, canned ham, and enlarged photographs of people swimming on Coney Island. This represented the post-WWII emergence of Pop Art in Britain and America, reacting against modernism's rigid dogmas of abstraction and surrealism. In the first half of the 20th century, Pre-Raphaelite paintings sold for pennies, but from the 1960s, there was a revival of interest associated with major personal exhibitions. The 1984 exhibition 'Nature and Art' at the Tate Gallery was the culmination. Richard Hamilton and associated artists were linked to the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, particularly its 1956 exhibition 'This Is Tomorrow,' which helped revive interest in British and American Pop Art. The Pre-Raphaelites influenced British popular culture through their storytelling connected to myths, intense colors, complex patterns, and emotional openness. This resonated with people who had experienced the post-WWII era of plenty. The Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic connected to English history, appearing in songs, films, and concerts. The band Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant was particularly interested in Pre-Raphaelite imagery, seeing it as a revival of fantastic elements that bridged popular culture and high art. Companies like Laura Ashley used William Morris's designs as elements of lifestyle style for respectable suburbs and middle-class clothing, representing a serious opposition to 1960s counterculture. Margaret Thatcher herself attended the 1984 Pre-Raphaelite exhibition, symbolizing a conservative reading of the movement's values as representing a return to Victorian values of order and tradition. The Young British Artists (YBA) emerged in the 1990s when capitalism's crisis created a world where economic and social progress were not assumed. Unlike the 1960s Pop Art boom, the YBA operated in conditions of uncertainty. They adopted avant-garde aesthetics superficially, engaged with the market to sell their work, and posed as radicals while actually attracting attention and generating controversy. They served as fuel for mass media, with artists like Damien Hirst becoming celebrities who owned restaurants and speculated in the art market. The YBA are not truly avant-garde—they have no program or manifesto, work together as a group, and are genuinely contemporary in their concerns. They are not interested in Shakespeare but in the modern moment, with deep relationships to mass media and mass culture. Their works are visually accessible, requiring no prior knowledge of art history to understand. The Pre-Raphaelites attempted to create new audiences for art, using themes relevant to the middle class of the 1850s: Shakespeare, Tennyson, romantic poetry, and the Bible. They wanted to conquer new audiences for art and pursue themes that would bring cultural and social change. This contrasts with artists like Courbet in Paris, who attempted to create an audience of the working class. The 'Sensation' exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, featuring Young British Artists, caused international controversy. The exhibition was owned by Charles Saatchi, a businessman who collected art cheaply from universities and other sources. The exhibition connected classical paintings with surrealist works, creating provocative juxtapositions. The catalog cover played with Victorian British art history and the British avant-garde, showing characters looking at a painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, with the image cut so they appear to look through the page into the catalog. This created a meta-commentary on Victorian art history and the British avant-garde, suggesting that the Young British Artists were walking freely in the house of tradition and conservatism within the Royal Academy. Religious themes in Pre-Raphaelite art remained controversial. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's 'The Virgin and Child with a Thorn Crown' (1850)

British artists in the late 19th century absorbed French artistic developments through different pathways. Stanhope Forbes studied in Paris during the Impressionist era but looked back to French realists like Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), whose earthy tones and honest daylight rendering influenced Forbes's approach to painting rural Cornish life. Meanwhile, Walter Sickert studied under Edgar Degas after being introduced by James Abbott McNeil Whistler, adopting Impressionist techniques and urban subject matter. This divergence illustrates how British artists selectively adopted French innovations—some embracing Impressionism while others revisited earlier realist traditions—creating fundamentally different artistic philosophies.

Realist painters like Courbet and Millet were unwilling to manipulate color, using dark somber tones with few exceptions. The Barbizon school, founded by Millet and others, gathered in Barbizon near Paris to paint nature as the eye actually saw it. They painted en plein air to capture light and color as perceived. This approach became an important precursor to Impressionism. Millet's 'Gleaners' showed the poorest of the poor collecting grain, reflecting realist preoccupation with social justice. The school's commitment to natural observation distinguished them from Romantic artists who created idealized landscapes.