ABSTRACT
The first critics to identify Pre-Raphaelite art as the Gold Standard for the English school were partisans of the Brotherhood. William Michael Rossetti, a founding member, brother to another Brother, and secretary for the PRB, helped shape the maturing discourse rendering artworks emblems of national identity. When the Pre-Raphaelites first presented work to the English public in the late 1840s, their pictures were hardly noticed. However, a small influential minority responded vehemently, turning the tide of public taste against the reformers. Critics including Charles Dickens lambasted this clique of young men for answering the siren call of unhealthy foreign influences - most notably Catholic, or 'papist' art. During the 1850s and 1860s art institutions and critics sought to define and promote pictures in nationalistic terms. The International Exhibitions of 1855 in Paris and 1862 in London stimulated meditations on the essential characteristics of the French, German, American and British schools.
