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Title: A rather mechanical account of PRB culture.
Review: Aimed at a general readership, this must be the most recent book on the Pre-Raphaelites. Where most writers have been happy to repeat the standard conventions about the PRB and their paintings, Barringer wants to tell us that issues seep into their brilliantly-lit compositions. Alas for the reader, in avoiding the pictorial complexity and brilliance of PRB painting, Barringer devotes far too much space to fashionable academic jargon on such subjects as colonialism, gender, class and so on. Instead of ceaseless curiosity in the face of these remarkable paintings, Barringer provides us with a series of judgemental cliches about modernity and ideology. Why, the reader is left to ponder, is he embarrassed by PRB paintings? Why the fixation with 'theory'? What is 'wrong' with these paintings?!
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