The Rossettis: Radical? Plain creepy, more like
Alastair Sooke | The Telegraph | 4th April 2023
In Britain’s popular imagination, the 19th century Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of artistic creatives. However, a London show featuring the Rosetti family – Brotherhood stalwarts – fails to live up to this hype. Women are depicted as femme fatales – “bee-stung lips, voluminous hair and languor”. Stylistic allusions to early Renaissance art only serve to make the art look “fogeyish”. One critic calls the show “a bloated mess”. All it offers, observes another, is “nice wallpaper”.