visit the Pre-Raphaelites

      I visited Tate Britain to see the exhibition about  the Pre-Taphaelits at Tate Britain. I have to admit that I feel really fortunate to have such a famous gallery close to my school.
     Before I saw this exhibition, I knew merely about the Pre-Raphaelites. In order to avoid a pointless visit, I read  the introduction in advanced. Then I was surprised that the Pre- Raphaelites happened in 19th century and was indeed a significant revolution in British art.  The Pre-raphaelite Brotherhood(PRB) was organized by a group of young painters most of whom were graduated from Royal Academy of Arts. As they were unsatisfied with what they had learned at school, which were basically traditional ways of painting, they decided to overturn British art. This reminded me of a film called Dead poets society. In this film there're also a coup of young people who had passion and dreams gathered together expressing their radical thoughts. But in reality, the PBH was more brave and successful, as they actually applied their thought into masterpieces.
     As I walked by each painting, I realized that the theme of the Pre-Raphaelites was very wide indeed. There are paintings about religions, landscapes and even modern city lives.  Though I am not good at analyzing artworks at all, I can still have a sort of feeling that all the paintings are very close to the spectators. And in fact, that is one of the principles of Pre-Raphaelites. They didn't want to repeat idealized works but create life like scenes. Typically, they overturned the tradition of form, colour, and composition as Raphael had done. For instance, paintings like Christ in the House of His Parents and The beloved broke all the rule of composing.

     I personally like the one called Ophelia the best. It's based on Shakespeare's flay Hamlet and depicted the tragic scene of Ophelia's death. As I had seen this painting on book before, I almost shouted out when I saw it displaying in front of me. It's full of crystal details, like the expression on Ophelia's face, her floating wetted dress, countless wild flowers, etc.  It can be said that each object in this painting relates symbolically to the tragic of Ophelia.