Visitors to the San Diego Museum of Art this summer will discover that prudish Victorian England had their own version of the Victoria’s Secret model.
They were the “Stunners,” as a gallery label aptly describes them in the current show “Waking Dreams: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites from the Delaware Art Museum” (through July 29). Named after Biblical and literary heroines, these beauties—in spite of being thoroughly clothed—still reveal Jolly Ol’ England’s “super model” ideal: Angelina Jolie-like lips, ample curves, alabaster skin, and abundant flowing red hair. Even a religious icon like Mary Magdalene by Frederick Sandys, the most recognizable work in the exhibition, bears the same features.
It’s difficult for us now to appreciate how these naturalistically painted, overly sentimentalized femmes represented rebellion. But the masters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood—Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, et. al.—saw themselves as just that: rebels. Inspired by Renaissance art that preceded Raphael, they rejected the artifices 19th-century academic styles and the impact of the Industrial Revolution to create what we, ironically, know today as calendar art. But it became calendar art for a reason: this fluff is absolutely gorgeous.
Also worth seeing at SDMA this summer:
“Lyric Visions from Nezami’s Quartet” (through Dec. 16): illustrations of the famed Persian poet’s epic from SDMA’s extensive South Asian collection.
“Alexandre Arrechea: Scalpel and Cotton” (June 30–Oct. 14): the Cuban multi-media artist infiltrates the museum’s security system to ask “Is it surveillance or voyeurism?”
“Impressionist Giverny” (July 21–Sept. 30): Monet and friends come to San Diego in a must see show. (more on this later)
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