Desperate Romantics is a boost for Walker Art gallery

Aug 20 2009 by Jade Wright, Chester Chronicle

Desperate Romantics on TV reveals the secrets of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but, as Jade Wright discovers, its real stars are on Merseyside

With handsome artists in britches and comely Titian-haired models in next to nothing, Desperate Romantics has marked itself out as must-see TV.

The BBC’s tongue-in-cheek retelling of the story of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood is pulling in viewers by the million, and the show is expected to sell to channels around the world.

But the paintings that inspired the show are not languishing in some far-flung collection. They’re hanging in Merseyside.

The collections are held at the Walker Art Gallery, the Lady Lever gallery, in Port Sunlight, and Sudley House, in Aigburth.

“We’ve noticed a definite increase in the amount of people in the Pre-Raphaelite room since the show began,” says Laura MacCulloch, the curator of British Art at the Walker.

“The Pre-Raphaelite paintings are always very popular, but anything that highlights them is a good thing. We just want people to know they’re here, and they’re free to come and see.

“We’re very lucky in Liverpool to have an excellent collection. Lord Leverhulme had a real eye for art and he bought a lot of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’s paintings early on. A lot of the Liverpool industrialists did. They tended to be more receptive to the newer style than the aristocratic collectors. As a result, Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham all have strong collections.”

While the BBC adaptation has been good at getting people through the door, Laura admits that some of the artistic licence has made her wince.

“They’ve changed history and written out some of the important characters,” she explains. “There were actually seven in the brotherhood – William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, plus his brother William Michael Rossetti and James Collinson, Frederic George Stephens and Thomas Woolner.

“They’ve also left out Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti’s teacher, who was an instrumental part in the movement.

“But then I suppose that will always happen when you are trying to condense a story into six hour-long instalments. On the whole, it’s very good, and it captures the mood well.”

In the first show, Rossetti referred to Isabella by Millais. It’s one of the many paintings in the Walker’s collection.

“Isabella is always very popular,” says Laura. “It was one of the first paintings made in the new Pre-Raphaelite style, shortly after the founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848.

“Millais was just 19, and he wanted to create something new. He used strikingly brilliant colours – something that no-one else at the time was doing.

“He used tiny brushstrokes – you can see every bit of detail, so the look was different to any of the other paintings coming out of the Royal Academy at the time.”

The subject was taken from a poem by John Keats, itself based on a story by the 14th century Italian writer, Boccaccio. It tells of the love between Isabella, the sister of wealthy Florentine merchants, and their poor, low- born apprentice, Lorenzo.

The jealous brothers murder Lorenzo, but his body is found by Isabella. She cut off the head and buried it in a pot of basil, which she watered with her tears.

The lovers are sharing a blood orange, signifying the later spilling of Lorenzo’s blood.

“Millais included lots of clues about the brotherhood in the details of the painting,” says Laura. “The faces are based on his friends – Rossetti is at the back in the middle, drinking from a wine glass, and the letters PRB – standing for Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – are hidden on the side of Isabella’s stool.”

The programme also features William Holman Hunt’s The Scapegoat, held at the Lady Lever art gallery.

“The programme makers asked for detailed photographs of The Scapegoat,” says Laura. “It was only just back from an exhibition in Copenhagen, but we sent the pictures over and they recreated it from that.”

It was the first major painting Hunt made during his initial stay in the Holy Land. He had the idea for the picture while studying the Talmud (the collection of ancient Rabbinic writings in Orthodox Judaism) for his painting, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (now in Sudley House).

He discovered that, on the Festival of the Day of Atonement, a goat was ejected from the temple with a scarlet piece of woollen cloth on its head. It was goaded and driven, either to death or into the wilderness, carrying with it the sins of the congregation.

It was believed that, if these sins were forgiven, the scarlet cloth would turn white.

“Hunt was a deeply religious man, not the ‘maniac’ they describe him as in the show,” Laura explains.

On the frame, he inscribed “Surely he hath borne our Griefs, and carried our Sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” from Isaiah, plus “And the Goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a Land not inhabited”, from Leviticus.

Hunt sold the picture for 450 guineas when it was finished. Later, Lord Lever bought it in 1923 for £4,950. It was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in the 1923 Autumn Exhibition and was then transferred to the Lady Lever Art Gallery, where it remains.

For more on the collections held in Merseyside, see www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk.