[1848 - 1854] Pre-Raphaelite Art / Raphael (1483-1520), long considered to be one of the greatest artists of all time, was viewed by a group of English painters and poets in 1848 as a negative influence on art. They rejected his Classical style that had been popular for almost four centuries. The Renaissance style propagated by art academies at that time, they believed, lacked true sentiment, and the corrupting art of the Italian master was to blame. Their own inspiration came from earlier Italian artists of the 14th and 15th-centuries who predated Raphael. In pure devotion to medieval and early Renaissance art, they formed a secret society and called it the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The three main artists were William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.