The Pre-Raphaelite Language of Flowers

$24.99 at de Young Museum.

This exquisite collection of paintings illustrates just how marvelously the Pre- Raphaelites’ focus on the natural world intersected with the Victorian passion for all things botanical.Short-lived but highly influential, the Pre-Raphaelite movement was fueled by a rejection of academic artistic conventions and a longing for the aesthetic simplicity and moral sincerity of medieval and early Renaissance art. But it also coincided with a Victorian obsession with botany, gardening and flower arranging. As a…