Of this special phase of nature-feeling, a later artist, of strong affinity of spirit with certain undercurrents of Pre-Raphaelite thought— Frederick Walker—is perhaps a greater exponent. But the old-world Nature-worship, independent of human interest and moral significance, is as dead in art as it is in science. Unconsciously perhaps, but surely, art in all its forms has cast off the yoke of the old cosmogony which the implacable Time-Spirit has overthrown. The criticism of life has passed from the self-satisfied, the confident, the epicurean, to the reflective, the questioning, and the experimental stage. Where, then, is the secret of the changed attitude of English culture towards the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood? What was it that was actually accomplished by this little band of young reformers with their visions of a world of beauty and meaning undreamed of in Royal Academy philosophy? The controversy that raged for years round the work of the leaders—least of all round that of Millais, more round that of Holman Hunt, and most bitterly round the work of Rossetti—was it primarily over a technical question, a matter of pigments and perspective, of anatomy and composition? If so, the house was divided against itself and should have fallen, for Millais soon forsook (if indeed he ever adopted) the path of his early comrades, and a total divergence in method and manner finally separated Rossetti from Holman Hunt. Or was it concerned with underlying principles and purposes with which English culture had not for three hundred years been troubled? Was it essentially an ethical revolt; the first impulse towards that fusion of ethics with æsthetics which will be the task of the twentieth century; the inmost stirring, at the nation’s heart, of a new life which the intellect still fails to lay hold of, and the laggard will, for the most part, yet resists? ----- Footnote 1: F.W.H. Myers, “Rossetti and the Religion of Beauty.” CHAPTER II. THE RENAISSANCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Childhood of Rossetti—Religious and Literary Influences—Art Training— Conflict between Imagination and Technique—Friendship with Millais and Holman Hunt—The Westminster Competitions—Ford Madox Brown— Influence of Ruskin’s “Modern Painters”—The Early Italian Masters— The Renaissance in Mediæval Europe—Relation of Paganism to Christianity—Revival of Hellenism, and blending of Classic with Romantic Art—Growth of Technique and Return to Convention—The Rule of the Raphaelesque.