In 1848, a group of frustrated art students met in secret in a family home on Gower Street in London and formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Fed up with the Royal Academy and the lingering influence of Joshua Reynolds, whom they nicknamed Sir Sloshua, they rejected idealized compositions and artificial studio lighting in favor of the sharp detail, intense color, and crowded compositions of the early Italian Renaissance. This episode traces the full life of the movement, from its punk-like rebellion against academic formula to the scandal, betrayal, and fracturing that ended the formal group within about five years.

We look at how William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais engineered their jewel-like colors by painting thin glazes into a wet white ground, why Charles Dickens attacked Millais's carpenter-shop Holy Family so viciously tha ...