ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses precursors for such a group formation. It analyses the extent of the Pre-Raphaelites' success and failure in forming a brotherhood, how they worked divisively against one another, and how this is construed in later descriptions of the movement. The chapter looks at the disunity revealed in their self-imaging, with emphasis on the use of each other in early subject paintings and portraits, and on the differences from the traditional and subsequent forms of self-imaging in the historical avant-garde. In mid-nineteenth-century Britain, groups of artists formed in wilful opposition to a larger more powerful authority were not welcomed by a staid artistic culture heavily dominated by the Royal Academy. Subsequently, historians have tended to make rather large claims for the Brotherhood, linking them to medieval guilds or crusaders banded together in a spirit of chivalry and loyalty for a common cause.
