The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites and Their Influence on Fantasy Illustration

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), founded in London in 1848, was one of the most significant—and at the same time most controversial—artistic movements of the nineteenth century. In opposition to the academic canons of the Royal Academy of Arts and Victorian aesthetics, the Pre-Raphaelites advanced a new vision of art grounded in the values embodied by medieval art and the early Renaissance. Although their activity unfolded within a specific historical context, the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites extended far beyond the confines of the nineteenth century. It is particularly evident in the development of contemporary fantasy aesthetics, which draws on myth and legend.

How, then, did Pre-Raphaelite art shape the visual language of fantasy as we understand it today? This study examines the question by analysing the movement’s aesthetic and philosophical roots, as well as its legacy within fantasy illustration.

Fig. 1.1 Ophelia, John Everett Millais

1. The Movement’s Origins and Its Aesthetic and Philosophical Profile 

The emergence of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood coincided with the height of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain. Rapid technological development, urbanisation, and mass production radically transformed the social and cultural landscape of the Victorian era. For many, this process signified not only progress, but also a deterioration in the quality of life, labour, and, above all, art. At the same time, factory-made objects entered everyday life and gradually became ubiquitous in households—ranging from decorative items to textiles and, ultimately, furniture. Goods became more affordable, yet they simultaneously lost their quality, authentic design, and “spirit.”

Opposition among young artists was also fuelled by the stance of the Royal Academy of Arts. The Academy promoted an aesthetic grounded in late-Renaissance and Baroque models, and its teaching relied on copying recognised masters, adhering to rigid rules, and maintaining a schematic approach—whether in subject matter, style, or modes of representation. As a result, to be acknowledged and respected as an artist, one had to confine oneself within stringent boundaries; any attempt to exceed them was met with immediate criticism from the academic milieu. For young artists such as John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Edward Burne-Jones, this approach was artificial, ossified, and morally suspect.

The Brotherhood’s name—“Pre-Raphaelites”—was no accident. It amounted to an ideological declaration: the artists regarded painters before Raphael as the true innovators, working in harmony with nature and spirituality. Thus, in September 1848 in London, seven students of the Royal Academy of Arts founded a secret society with the aim of renewing British art.

Their aesthetic was grounded above all in sincerity—something they believed had been lost by the imitators of Raphael’s style. This sincerity meant both fidelity to observed reality and a rejection of academic dogma. Instead of idealised compositions and formulaic poses, the artists sought to transfer authentic ideas onto the canvas. They found inspiration in the directness and simplicity of Gothic and early Renaissance art.

The Pre-Raphaelites studied nature with extraordinary meticulousness, often painting outdoors (en plein air). Every leaf, stone, or blade of grass received the same attention as human figures. Rather than depicting idealised sitters or practised, “learned” faces, they used the likenesses of those closest to them—family and friends—rendering each individual trait with precision. The absence of a hierarchy of sharpness, together with their rejection of traditional chiaroscuro, meant that the entire pictorial field remained equally defined—almost like an HD image. The result could appear perceptually unnatural and compositionally flattened, yet it intensified the decorative quality of the work. When the scene was set indoors, they compensated with rich ornamentation in clothing and interior décor.

Technically, the Pre-Raphaelites also employed a wet, white ground onto which they applied thin layers of pure pigments, instead of the conventional dark, muted underpainting. As a result, light reflected off the white substrate through the translucent paint layers, giving their works a saturated, almost luminescent depth of colour. Beyond technical virtuosity, they also pursued the painting’s narrative force, saturating images with concealed meanings and symbolism that engaged with the dilemmas of Victorian society.

A flagship example of their practice is John Everett Millais’s Ophelia, which embodies the characteristics described above. Millais depicts Shakespeare’s heroine who, upon learning that her beloved has killed her father, throws herself into a river and then drowns. Yet this is not a scene of horror; rather, it is dramatic and poetic: Ophelia, having slipped into madness, strews herself with flowers and sings as she sinks. The artist rendered the episode with exceptional precision. However, accuracy alone did not determine the work’s originality—Millais’s colleagues within the academic mainstream also sought to demonstrate their interpretive prowess. What proved genuinely radical was his unprecedented approach to depicting nature and the model down to the smallest detail.

Millais spent five months on a farm in Surrey, painting the landscape on the banks of the River Hogsmill at Ewell. Regardless of harsh weather conditions, he worked there intensively from morning to night. Unlike fellow painters who might sketch from life but complete the painting in the studio, he painted en plein air from beginning to end. Only later did he turn to the figure: the model posed in a bathtub filled with water. The finished painting is saturated with symbolism, especially floral. For instance, pansies signify unrequited love, nettles suffering, the weeping willow sorrow, the daisy innocence, and the poppy death.

2. Fantasy Art

Fantastic elements were present in art long before fantasy emerged as a distinct aesthetic and literary genre. In prehistoric cultures—before the invention of writing—religious beliefs were accompanied by idols, masks, and cave paintings that contained a strong magical and symbolic component. These representations were not decorative in nature. They functioned as a language for describing the world, making incomprehensible phenomena familiar, and endowing them with meaning.

The tradition from which European culture directly emerged was likewise deeply rooted in myth and imagination. Ancient tales of Greek heroes and Roman gods, medieval legends and folklore, as well as biblical narratives—suffused with symbolism and the presence of forces beyond human capacity—formed a foundation for later fantastic representations. This current also encompasses the work of Hieronymus Bosch, whose Renaissance visions, crowded with hybrid and unsettling creatures, hover on the threshold between the sacred, the grotesque, and the nightmare. His The Garden of Earthly Delights is sometimes regarded as one of the first works to depart from strict adherence to religious description in favour of an autonomous artistic imagination.

Fig. 2.1 The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronim Bosch

Despite the long presence of fantastic motifs in art, fantasy as a self-conscious and recognisable visual genre began to take shape only in the nineteenth century. This process was closely tied to the social and cultural transformations of modernity. The Industrial Revolution, urbanisation, and technological development generated a powerful nostalgia for a world perceived as lost: pre-industrial, organic, and grounded in myth. In response to the dominant materialism of the Victorian era, fairy painting emerged, drawing on motifs of fairies, elves, and legend as a form of escapism as well as a subtle critique of contemporary reality.

In parallel, the development of book illustration played a crucial role, especially at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often referred to as the “golden age of illustration.” Artists such as Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, and Gustave Doré shaped the visual key through which fairy tales and myths would be imagined by subsequent generations. As printing technologies advanced, illustration ceased to be an elite medium, and fantastic imagery began to circulate among a much broader audience.

Fig. 2.2 Cover of the first issue of Weird Tales

In the twentieth century, fantasy art developed rapidly, entering into a close relationship with popular literature. The publication of pulp magazines such as Weird Tales helped establish fantasy as a mass genre, often intertwined with adventure and horror.

It was within this context that the sword-and-sorcery subgenre emerged, with Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian becoming its iconic representative. These stories acquired their visual form through artists such as Frank Frazetta, whose dynamic, expressive compositions came to define the aesthetic of heroic fantasy.

A truly pivotal moment for fantasy art, however, came with the work of J.R.R. Tolkien. His concept of “Secondary Worlds” introduced a new quality to the genre—one founded on coherence, internal logic, and mythological depth. From that point on, fantasy ceased to be merely a collection of fantastical motifs and began to operate as an expansive world-building project. Fantasy art became an integral component of such projects, giving visual form to the history, geography, cultures, and mythologies of imagined realms.

Contemporary fantasy art encompasses a wide range of media: book illustration, concept art for films and games, comics, animation, as well as set and costume design. With the growth of fantasy cinema and computer games, demand has increased for detailed visual designs that not only illustrate the narrative, but also construct immersion and lend credibility to the fictional world.

Fig. 3.1 Book cover of The Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, illustrated by Marc Simonetti

The core of fantasy art lies in the creation of imagined worlds governed by their own rules, though not excessively abstract ones. Coherence is crucial here—both visual and logical—as it enables the viewer to suspend disbelief and accept the existence of magic, mythical races, or unreal landscapes. A further hallmark is so-called imagined realism: the blending of fantastical elements with realist representational techniques such as accurate anatomy, perspective, and modelling through light and shadow. As a result, even the most extraordinary visions acquire a semblance of authenticity.

Fantasy art is also strongly narrative and symbolic. It often draws on the language of myth, telling stories about the struggle between good and evil, fate, sacrifice, or heroism. In this way, fantastical worlds become a vehicle for communicating universal themes and, at times, a commentary on contemporary social and existential concerns.

Understood in these terms, fantasy art is not a phenomenon detached from the history of art, but rather its natural extension. It draws on ancient myths, medieval imagination, nineteenth-century illustration, and modern visual media, forming an autonomous yet tradition-rooted artistic language. Against this background, it becomes possible to trace specific connections between fantasy art and earlier movements that shaped its aesthetic and ideological foundations.

3. The Pre-Raphaelite Legacy and Contemporary Fantasy Art

At the outset, it should be noted that the Pre-Raphaelites were not innovators in the sense of simply choosing fantastical subject matter. Their originality lay primarily in how they represented it. Their fascination with medieval mythology, folklore, and literature was articulated in a form that, by the mid-nineteenth century, was perceived as fresh and modern. They returned to forgotten sources and earlier aesthetics, yet reinterpreted them within a new context, employing the formal means available to their own time. A particularly prominent place in their work was occupied by Arthurian legends—tales of the Holy Grail, the Knights of the Round Table, and figures such as Lancelot or Elaine of Astolat. The artists also readily drew on literature and poetry, including, for instance, the dramas of William Shakespeare, which themselves mined folklore and the supernatural.

A characteristic feature of Pre-Raphaelite imagery was its ethereality and oneiric mood, placing representations on the threshold between wakefulness and dream. Depending on the work, this effect was achieved through landscape, as in John Everett Millais’s Ophelia; through the figure, as in John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott; or through light and atmosphere, as in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix. Inseparable from this mode of representation was the ideal of beauty constructed by the Pre-Raphaelites. The women depicted in the paintings of Rossetti, Millais, or Edward Burne-Jones are characterised by pale complexions, delicate, almost weightless bearing, and long, flowing hair. An icon of this type of beauty became Elizabeth Siddal, the muse and model for many artists, who also posed for Ophelia. This manner of representing femininity—combining corporeality with spirituality—became one of the most enduring elements in contemporary culture inheriting from the Pre-Raphaelite tradition.

Pre-Raphaelite paintings were also intensely saturated with symbolism and narrative. Myth, legend, emotional experience, and allegory intertwined on their canvases, carrying a distinct moral and existential weight. This mode of imagery became a template for contemporary fantasy art, which likewise operates in the language of myth and uses imagined worlds as vehicles for universal meanings—and, not infrequently, as commentary on present-day social issues. This legacy is particularly evident in fantasy illustration inspired by the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, above all The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which became foundational to the modern imagination of the genre.

Fig. 3.2 The Baleful Head Edward, Burne-Jones

Fig. 3.2 The Mirror of Galadriel, Alan Lee

A first example of the Pre-Raphaelite movement’s direct influence on contemporary fantasy art can be found by juxtaposing Edward Burne-Jones’s The Baleful Head with Alan Lee’s illustration of the scene The Mirror of Galadriel. Burne-Jones’s painting presents Perseus’s triumph over Medusa not as a dynamic battle sequence, but as a contemplation of dread and fate. The defeated Medusa retains her potency, and the hero’s victory is rendered as an ambivalent experience, stripped of triumphalism. In a similar way, Lee’s illustration depicts a revelation of knowledge that is simultaneously a gift and a burden. Galadriel, like Burne-Jones’s Medusa, functions as an intermediary between the visible world and a dangerous truth. In both cases, myth becomes an instrument of moral reflection, and knowledge takes the form of contemplation rather than action.

Fig. 3.3 The Legend of the Briar, Edward Burne-Jones

Fig. 3.4 The Black Rider, John Howe

From a compositional standpoint, both works are characterised by a hierarchy of space subordinated to an idea. Burne-Jones employs a closed, frontal composition focused on the figure and a symbolic object, which heightens the sense of arrested time. Alan Lee constructs his scene in a comparable manner: Frodo and Sam are pushed to the margin, while the centre of the image is occupied by Galadriel and the Mirror. The colour palette of both works rests on cool, muted tones—greens, blues, and greys—that create an atmosphere of silence, fatalism, and spiritual tension. Lee’s Galadriel, much like Burne-Jones’s figures, appears ethereal and aloof, like an unreal being suspended between waking life and dream. The elf’s delicate gown, pale complexion, and long, flowing hair (while not foregrounded in The Baleful Head, this description fits many works associated with the circle—for instance Edmund Leighton’s My Fair Lady) constitute a direct evocation of the Pre-Raphaelite ideal of feminine beauty.

Fig. 3.5 Acrasia, John Melhuish Strudwick

Fig. 3.6 Beren and Lúthien Drawn Back To Life, Justin Gerard

A second significant juxtaposition is Edward Burne-Jones’s cycle The Legend of the Briar Rose and John Howe’s illustration The Black Rider. Burne-Jones presents a world submerged in the curse of sleep—time is arrested, and both figures and nature are captured in a state of lethargy. Howe, by contrast, depicts a moment of suspension before disaster: the Black Rider does not attack, but instead constructs an atmosphere of dread—a pause that seems to stop the viewer’s breath. In both cases, the narrative rests on potential tension rather than on an action-driven climax. Space and landscape function as co-protagonists of the scene, and through their detailed, realist rendering the viewer is able to sink more deeply into the world presented on the canvas. A restricted colour palette further intensifies the mood of unease and hushed stillness.

The Pre-Raphaelite approach to nature and realism is clearly reflected in contemporary fantasy art, where the environment becomes an equal protagonist within the narrative. In Acrasia, John Melhuish Strudwick constructs a setting that is decorative yet realist, lending the scene symbolic gravity. Justin Gerard, in Beren and Lúthien Drawn Back To Life, employs hyperrealistic detail in the forest, light, and mist to heighten immersion and the emotional force of Beren’s return to life. In both cases, nature is not merely ornament: through the realist rendering of detail, it becomes, in fantasy, a foundation for the credibility of the imagined world.

Fig. 3.7 Beata Beatrix Dante, Gabriel Rossetti

Fig. 3.8 Gwenhwyfar Brian Froud

A similar formal and ideological dialogue can be observed between Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix and Brian Froud’s illustrations of fae beings. In Rossetti’s painting, symbolism plays the central role, foreshadowing the figure’s death. The image’s hazy, luminous aura creates an impression of the magical and the spiritual. Froud, by contrast, draws primarily on the effect Rossetti achieved, but without retaining the underlying symbolic programme (for instance, the poppy as an allegory of death). In his depictions of fairies, what matters most is the evocation of their character—their elusive nature, ethereal beauty, and a mystical mood.

Contemporary fantasy art does not copy the Pre-Raphaelites in any literal sense; rather, it observes and adopts their way of thinking about the image. The picture functions as myth, the figure as symbol, nature as a decorative, mood-building space, and the realism of detail becomes a tool for lending credibility to the unreal. It is largely thanks to the Pre-Raphaelites that fantasy art treats the imagined world with the same seriousness and meticulous care as the real one, serving as a visual pillar on which the genre rests.

Conclusion

The legacy of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood remains a foundation of contemporary fantasy art. Their commitment to the realism of detail, symbolism, and narrative made it possible to create imagined worlds that are coherent, credible, and suffused with spiritual depth. Through Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics, nature ceases to be mere backdrop and becomes an equal protagonist of the story, while figures serve as carriers of both emotion and ideas. Precise rendering of detail, in turn, invites the viewer to believe in the existence of magical lands, enchantments, imagined beings, and legendary heroes. From book illustration to film concept art and game design, this understanding of the image as a medium for conveying universal meanings remains inseparable from Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics and philosophy. In this way, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood not only defined the standards of nineteenth-century visual poetics, but also laid the groundwork for the contemporary visual language of fantasy—one in which beauty, morality, myth, and nature intertwine into a coherent and internally logical whole. Their work continues to resonate within the fantasy genre, making imagined worlds feel as real and affecting as if they might truly exist.

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Author

Hanna Palacz