TV Review: Desperate Romantics – BBC2

Desperate Romantics BBC2

IN the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the art establishment of the day. They were known as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Their influence can still be seen in the work of Rolf Harris.

But it isn't easy being an artist in the 1800s. Decent models are short on the ground. No-one wants a 10 foot oil of a toothless hag on the wall.

Thus it was that the Pre-Raphaelites' enigmatic leader Dante Gabriel Rossetti (why is no-one in a costume drama ever called Ian?), set off on a hunt for the perfect subject, happening upon flame-haired hat-shop assistant Lizzie Siddal.

But Lizzie's mum was having none of it. "An artists' model is little more than a whore," she said, an opinion she'd formed watching those life drawing classes on Channel 4.

However, Lizzie, like many redheads, was a feisty sort, a bit like an attractive Hazel Blears. "I walk five miles to work and back every day to rip my nails and finger-ends in a dark room making hats that I shall never be able to afford for ladies who should know better," she said. It was a passionate outburst which reminded me why I gave up my paper round.

"You do know it's your destiny to sit for me?" Gabriel asked Lizzie.

"A shop girl can't believe in destiny, Mr Rossetti," she replied. Words which, sadly, to this day, still echo round the staffrooms of the Trafford Centre.

With Lizzie on board, now all the Brotherhood had to do was attract respected critic John Ruskin to their exhibition, engineering an initial meeting at which Gabriel told him: "Mr Ruskin, it's an honour to meet you. I've read all your books, not always to the end admittedly, but enough to get the gist."

Understandably not altogether flattered, and on the condition that they would stop pestering him if he agreed, Ruskin visited the boys' studio, impressed with their work – aside from their choice of model. "She has common features, sluttish type," he told Gabriel. "You've painted a woman displaying sexual appetite and that is never attractive." Oh, I don't know.

Desperate for Ruskin's approval, Gabriel decided to re-touch the picture. "For a word of praise from Ruskin I'd paint over my mother's face," he said. Me too.

Subsequently, they fashioned Ruskin's attendance at their exhibition by inviting Mrs Ruskin, a frisky type who her husband wished would become somewhat better acquainted with the full-length winceyette nightie.

"We have not socialised since we returned from Venice," she told her husband, "and I sense we are becoming rather dull." I said the very same thing to the missus just the other day.

Thankfully, the plan paid off. "The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood," Ruskin told his fellow critics, "may lay in England the foundation of a school of art no-one in the world has seen for 300 years."