Raphael

And with all this vast creative activity, he recognized only one
self-imposed limitation--beauty. Hence, though his span of life was
short, his work is imperishable. He steadily progressed: but he was
ever true, beautiful and pure, and freer than any other master from
superficiality and mannerism. He produced a vast number of pictures,
elevating to men of every race and of every age, and before whose
immortal beauty artists of every school unite in common homage.--Wilhelm Lubke

The term "Preraphaelite" traces a royal lineage to William Morris.
Just what the word really meant, William Morris was not sure, yet he
once expressed the hope that he would some day know, as a thousand
industrious writers were laboring to make the matter plain.

Seven men helped William Morris to launch the phrase, by forming
themselves into an organization which they were pleased to call the
"Preraphaelite Brotherhood."

The word "brotherhood" has a lure and a promise for every lonely and
tired son of earth. And Burne-Jones pleaded for the prefix because
it was like holy writ: it gave everybody an opportunity to read
anything into it that he desired.

Of this I am very sure, in the Preraphaelite Brotherhood there was
no lack of appreciation for Raphael. In fact, there is proof
positive that Burne-Jones and Madox Brown studied him with profit,
and loved him so wisely and well that they laid impression-paper on
his poses. This would have been good and sufficient reason for
hating the man; and possibly this accounts for their luminous
flashes of silence concerning him. The Preraphaelite Brotherhood,
like all other liberal organizations, was quite inclined to be
illiberal. And the prejudice of this clanship, avowedly founded
without prejudice, lay in the assumption that life and art suffered
a degeneration from the rise of Raphael. In art, as in literature,
there is overmuch tilting with names--so the Preraphaelites enlisted
under the banner of Botticelli.

Raphael marks an epoch. He did what no man before him had ever done,
and by the sublimity of his genius placed the world forever under
obligations to him. In fact, the art of the Preraphaelites was built
on Raphael, with an attempt to revive the atmosphere and environment
that belonged to another. Raphael mirrored the soul of things--he
used the human form and the whole natural world as symbols of
spirit. And this is exactly what Burne-Jones did, and the rest of
the Brotherhood tried to do. The thought of Raphael and of Burne-
Jones often seems identical; in temperament, disposition and
aspiration they were one. That poetic and fervid statement of Mrs.
Jameson, that Burne-Jones is the avatar of Raphael, contains the
germ of