The Pre-Raphaelites' List of Immortals
The PRB's list of "immortals," as listed in William Holman Hunt's Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905)
In 1848, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood compiled a list of 'Immortals,' individuals they regarded as "great thinkers and workers," assigning them zero to four stars based on their "different degrees of glory." This was “a declaration that there was no immortality for humanity except that which was gained by man's own genius or heroism.” Notably, Jesus Christ was the only figure to receive a four-star rating, with Shakespeare receiving the next highest honor. This list included a mix of historical and contemporary figures, predominantly writers and poets whom the Brotherhood deeply admired. The list, along with their painting themes, reveals their reverence for the Bible, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Dante. However, as mentioned in a previous post, What Does Pre-Raphaelite Mean?, the PRB often contradicted their mission statement and manifesto. As Robert Wilkes points out in his post The Pre-Raphaelites and the Northern Renaissance, this list is no exception, as it includes High Renaissance artists such as Titian, Michelangelo, and Tintoretto, who were fundamentally at odds with principles of the Pre-Raphaelites. And most comical of them all was their inclusion of Raphael.
“They were opposed to the Royal Academy's promotion of the ideal as exemplified in the work of Raphael.”
Here is an excerpt from Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (1905), where William Holman Hunt introduces the PRB’s list of Immortals:
“Once, in a studio conclave, some of us drew up a declaration that there was no immortality for humanity except that which was gained by man's own genius or heroism. We were still under the influence of Voltaire, Gibbon, Byron, and Shelley, and we could leave no corners or spaces in our minds unsearched and unswept. Our determination to respect no authority that stood in the way of fresh research in art seemed to compel us to try what the result would be in matters metaphysical, denying all that could not be tangibly proved. We agreed that there were different degrees of glory in great men, and that these grades should be denoted by one, two, or three stars. Ordinary children of men fulfilled their work by providing food, clothing, and tools for their fellows ; some, who did not engage in the labour of the earth, had allowed their minds to work without the ballast of common-sense, and some of these had done evil, but the few far-seeing ones revealed to us vast visions of beauty. Where these dreams were too profound for our sight to fathom, our new iconoclasm dictated that such were too little substantial for human trust ; for of spiritual powers we for the moment felt we knew nothing, and we saw no profit in relying upon a vision, however beautiful it might be.
Arguing thus, Gabriel wrote out the following manifesto of our absence of faith in immortality, save in that perennial influence exercised by great thinkers and workers : —
We, the undersigned, Immortals constitutes the exists no other Immortality and in the names of their reflected: ”
Hunt continued to explain the star rating system:
“Beginning with an agreement that three stars should only be given to the greatest, it will be seen that the author of Job and Shakespeare alone gained that distinction, but there was one Captain of men who could not by us be left out of the list of heroes. One who had not only sung persuasively of the way conducting to peace, but had trodden the thorny way Himself. A poem as well as a poet He was ; commander and at the same time foremost of His army. He had even against His own human nature been a conqueror to the end.”
Here my reorganization I made based on their ranking system of the “different degrees of glory in great men” (a few women were also included on this list):
Jesus Christ * * * *
The Author of Job* * *
Shakespeare * * *
Homer * *
Dante * *
Chaucer* *
Leonardo da Vinci * *
Goethe * *
Keats * *
Shelley**
Alfred * *
Landor * *
Thackeray * *
Washington**
Browning * *
Boccaccio*
Fra Angelico*
Mrs. Browning*
Patmore *
Raphael *
Longfellow *
Author of Stories after Nature*
Tennyson *
Isaiah
Pheidias
Early Gothic Architects
Cavalier Pugliesi
Rienzi
Ghiberti
Spenser
Hogarth
Flaxman
Hilton
Kosciusko
Byron
Wordsworth
Haydon
Cervantes
Joan of Arc
Michael Angelo
Early English'Balladists
Giovanni Bellini
Georgioni
Titian
Tintoretto
Poussin
Milton
Cromwell
Hampden
Bacon
Newton
Poe
Hood
Emerson
Leigh Hunt
Wilkie
Columbus
Work Cited and Further Reading
Ashmolean Museum. "Pre-Raphaelites: Drawings and Watercolours Press Release." Ashmolean Museum, 2022.
Delaware Art Museum. "The Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Collection of British Pre-Raphaelite Art." Delaware Art Museum. June 2020.
Wilkes, Robert. "The Pre-Raphaelites and the Northern Renaissance." Dantis Amor, April 2014.
Hunt, William Holman. Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Internet Archive.
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