The PRB or Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were a group of inspired art rebels who challenged the conventions of the Victorian art establishment in the mid-19th century. In many ways, they were lucky not to perish in obscurity very early in their existence, for the reception of their earliest work was vitriolic in tone and they were mercilessly lampooned. Art critic John Ruskin saved their bacon when he wrote glowingly of their art in a review that made them both famous and fashionable, with queues of hundreds of yards to get in to see their work.

Today I got a chance to see some their most noteworthy paintings at the National Gallery in Canberra. I’d spent some time beforehand reading up on the group, their individual members and the way in which they changed British art. There is much to like in their use of bold colours, composition and attention to detail. Their doctrine of being true to nature also meant they often painted en plein air, whilst their contemporaries worked from sketches or sometimes photographs in studios. Further their subject matter had a propensity to offend. This was, after all, a period characterised by concerns for public morality and decorum, at least on the surface, so the portrayal of prostitutes or fallen women was always going to excite the prudish. Religious themed works sometimes scandalised as their subjects were portrayed prosaically, stripped of many of the symbols that were stock-in-trade.

Many of these paintings stay with you long after you have moved on, such as Rossetti’s The Beloved, which is hard to unsee once in fact you have seen it.