ABSTRACT
THE TWO DECLENSIONS
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, in the years immediately after 1848, was intent on a radical aesthetic revolution.1 Art had to be able to mediate a genuine emotional engagement, a moral relevance and a unified metaphysic of reality. The art of the Pre-Raphaelites had therefore to reflect, amid an increasingly mechanized society, a sacramental view of life in which 'the concrete substance of everyday living was matched always to a symbolic register'.2
