Rlytho? Weird, cuz you are currently beholding "Christ in the House of His Parents," AKA "The Carpenter’s Shop," by John Everett Millais. And I ASSURE you, Victorian London DUNKED ON THIS SO HARD I'm amazed it's STILL HERE.
This painting is SHOCKING. It offends the sensibilities. Torn from the context of 1850, that might be hard to parse, but not to worry! Lemme walk you through it.
I guess Pre-Raphaelite Guys Who Generally Agree With Each Other Philosophically didn't fly.
Inspired by The Nazarene Movement in Germany, Pre-Raphaelites professed to desire a move away from "academic" approaches to art, which tended to stress formalized compositions, artificially posed and idealized subjects, and a general Classicism.
Fewer Machines! More NATURE! And REAL nature, asshole; go out to the countryside and DRAW THE REAL FLOWERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY THERE. En plein air. Don't FAKE IT.
Well-to-do families, y'know?
In keeping with the Pre-Raphaelite ethos, Millais went to great lengths to emphasize realism and authenticity.
This doesn't bother him, after all. Mortal pain is nothing to him. He'll suffer for everybody, soon enough.
So really, seriously, content-wise? This painting makes no serious waves. It was all there; the symbolism, the main players, the attitudes.
But y'all.. no halos. No god rays. No PERFECTION.
The "Times" critic called it "revolting" for its depiction the Holy Family as normal people, "with no conceivable omission of misery, of dirt, of even disease, all finished with the same loathsome minuteness."
"In the 15 century, a certain feeble lamp of art arose in the Italian town of Urbino. This poor light, Raphael Sanzio by name, better known... as Raphael... was fed with a preposterous idea of Beauty...
And it goes ON. This dude GOES IN.
uuuuh wow okay
Damn dude.
HE HATES THIS.
EVERYONE HATES THIS.
It is THE WORST GODDAMN THING they have EVER SEEN.
And again?
That was the point.
But it turns out, the success (and criticism) of "Christ in the House of His Parents" was, in a lot of ways, the final hurrah for the PRB proper: It had basically dissolved by 1853.
Blame Dante Gabriel Rossetti for that.