The Pre-Raphaelites Episode 2

Episode two of the BBC 4 Pre-Raphaelite documentary series focuses on the innovative way that the PRB handled landscape painting. The programme stressed how the PRB pre-dated the French Impressionists by ten years in their methods. It explained how they started to actually paint landscapes outdoors using pre-prepared paint carried in pigs bladders so that their work would have even more naturalism and spontaneity. One of the most beautiful and detailed of these paintings was Millais' painting of Ophelia (above). Lizzie Siddal was the model for Ophelia, lying in a tin bath. Lizzie was so dedicated that even when the candles around the bath went out she still continued to keep up her position in the bath of freezing water and became very ill afterwards. POSSESSED would have been incomplete without this story and the significance of it in her life.

The programme is on again tonight but you can also view it on iplayer.