Abstract
The Pre-Raphaelite Movement was a remarkable continuous aesthetic force of the third quarter of the last century, which began in 1848 when seven young artists formed a semi-secret society, "the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood". This group published a short-lived magazine, "The Germ", to enlarge the scope of their activities, of which four issues appeared between January and May 1850. But the Brotherhood itself went into a decline in the early 1850s and by 1855 had dissolved altogether. After that, the second flowering of Pre-Raphaelite centers around the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, and so forth in book design, furniture, wall papers, and last, but not least, in houses. This paper, with full use of abundant source material, deals with the formative years of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the progress of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement related to changing in the relation between fine arts and decorative arts. The paper argues that the Pre-Raphaelite Movement played a remarkable role in the revival and popularization of decorative arts in the Victorian Age, and attempts to throw much additional light upon the leading ideas and practices.
