What connection did literature have with the movement?
Oh my…it might be easier to ask what artworks by the Pre-Raphaelites weren’t inspired by literature! The original goals of the Pre-Raphaelites were to paint according to nature, express genuine ideas, reject the things in art tradition that don’t work, and create good art…none of which includes anything about painting from literature. However, the Pre-Raphaelites were also romantics, and they were so inspired by the Romantic poets (Keats, Tennyson, Shelley, etc) that they began to paint pieces based on their work, as well as the classics of Shakespeare. It was in large part because of the romanticism of Rossetti, and the Arthurian fascination of dear friends William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones that the ’second generation’ of Pre-Raphaelites became so intrinsically known for painting pictures based on poems, legends, and various stories. But the Pre-Raphaelites were no “mere” illustrators either. Their fondness of romantic literature was perhaps only eclipsed by their love for symboli
