I fancied a day out, so the Pre-Raphaelites became my spur yesterday. It’s hard to think of such familiar, over-ripe beauty-in-oils as “radical”, but they did consciously break with tradition in terms of technique and subject matter. (I didn’t notice anything about William Morris’s radical socialism though.) The exhibition started with yet another dull painting by William Etty to show what they were up against. There was also a light focus on Birmingham’s industrial role in spreading the “look” at a rather reduced price, along with the development – and bright colours – of aniline dyes.

I have discovered that Ford Madox Brown produced two versions of “Work”; Manchester has the original, larger version – which was a tremendous relief to me because I was certain I’d seen it the week before in the art gallery there! (There’s also another “Pretty Baa-Lambs” in the Ashmolean.) I saw again “The Last of England” (here twinned with a Windrush-era sketch of “The First of England”) and looked at his other works. I’m not sure of him as a great artist – but he was certainly a great chronicler in his hyper-real fashion and I will definitely go and have another look at his murals in Manchester Town Hall when it finally re-opens.

Speaking of duplicates . . . William Holman Hunt copied “May Morning”, and here it was framed in a circular copper sunburst by C R Ashbee. There were also biblical and Shakespearean subjects to add to the Arthurian one (Lady of Shallot) that I’d seen in Manchester – slightly undermining the “radical” theme.

William Morris prints, Burne-Jones nudes, a return to tempera painting, dresses and jewellery . . . all lovely to look at. (Particularly “Beauty and the Beast”, which erases the nightmare in a dream of gorgeousness.)