OK, so I got a little obsessed with this painting here
I like it a lot – it’s called A Priestess of Dionysus and was painted by a Pre-Raphaelite painter called John Collier.
Now the fun bit is, John Collier painted a lot of portraits of science guys, including what is probably the most famous portrait of Charles Darwin – because Collier was the son-in-law of Thomas Huxley, “Darwin’s Bulldog”, and so he was sort of into that community. He was actually twice Huxley’s son-in-law, as he married two of Huxley’s daughters. Not at the same time, of course.
I always liked Pre-Raphaelite paintings, but Collier was not on my radar – probably because he was mostly a portrait painter.
So I thought… why not do a gallery of John Collier’s paintings?
Here goes. Click on a thumbnail to see a large version.





23 April 2017 at 13:11
Ugh I could drown in pre-raphaelite art. Dante Rossetti is my personal favourite (side note, I wrote an interesting story about him) but I’m a fan of all of them really. Their works were so clean and fresh. I haven’t seen much of Collier’s works but these… wow.
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23 April 2017 at 14:30
I think the first time I really got interested in visual arts was when I discovered the Pre-Raphaelites.
Where do I find your story about Rossetti?
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23 April 2017 at 23:36
Ah damn, I thought you’d ask. I shouldn’t even talk about it, it’s a ghostwriting contract 😞
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24 April 2017 at 10:22
Oooops… OK, you never mentioned it, I never asked.
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24 April 2017 at 23:35
Great stuff. It’s a bit later than the Pre-Raphelite brotherhood but I was always fascinated by John William Waterhouse’s ‘The Magic Circle’. I can spend hours spotting the little details in it.
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24 April 2017 at 23:49
Waterhouse is probably my favorite Pre-Raphaelite, and yes, the level of detail these guys put on canvas is almost hypnotic.
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