Characteristics

The natural:

Before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood formed, prominent art critic John Ruskin advised his readers:  "Go to nature in all singleness of heart...rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth" (qtd. in Hares-Stryker 20).  The Brotherhood and subsequent generations of Pre-Raphaelites took these words to heart.  They condemned contemporary British painting--indeed, all art created since the time of Italian Renaissance painter Raphael--as contrived.  These artists, they claimed, arranged their subjects more for the overall artistic effect of the composition than out of any desire to portray what one might actually find in nature.  The Pre-Raphaelites also disliked Impressionism, calling it too vague to portray the natural.  The art of their contemporaries, they believed, was "slosh."

In response to this slosh, the Pre-Raphaelite artists depicted scenes of vibrant, over-abundant detail.  Although one might argue about the people in their paintings, the plants, at least, could have been copied right from nature, according to Ruskin's estimation.

Subjects:  

Believing all forms of art to be interrelated, the Pre-Raphaelite artists often took subjects for their paintings from famous works of literature; alternately, many of them wrote poems to accompany their artwork.  (You can see these poems around the margins of some of their works.)  Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (particularly Morris) took an interest in illustrating books as well; Morris produced the wonderful, acclaimed Kelmscott Chaucer later in his career. 

The group took the vast majority of its subjects from medieval romances or Biblical stories, possibly because of its admiration for Italian poet Dante Alighieri.  Shakespeare was another popular source; Ophelia, particularly, was painted over and over.  Critics and admirers alike agreed that the group tended to paint morbid, tragic, or at least melodramatic scenes.

Ophelia by Hughes	Ophelia by Waterhouse	Ophelia by Waterhouse--again

Stylization:

Despite their proclaimed faithfulness to nature, the Pre-Raphaelites often failed to paint with correct perspective and minimized shadows, with the result that many of their paintings look strangely flat.  They are perhaps imitating the medieval Italian painter Giotto (himself a "Pre-Raphaelite," at least in the sense of living before Raphael), who painted brightly colored paintings that disregarded perspective, pictures of religious subjects.  Some art critics go so far as to call the Pre-Raphaelite paintings stylized; since "stylized" almost always means "unnatural," I'm not sure I agree with those who use this term.

Another Ophelia--this time by Millais

Colors: 

The Pre-Raphaelites, almost without exception, use vivid, eye-catching colors. Bright scarlets, oranges, and golds are particular favorites (especially for hair).  Peacock blue and  jade also play prominent roles.  By painting their canvasses white before they began, they achieved a look of  hyper-natural light and near transparency.  Their poetry, likewise, used such an excess of description that it's sometimes called "word painting."

Types: 

Although the Pre-Raphaelites embraced Ruskin's call for naturalistic painting, they violently opposed Victorian materialism--the tendency in their society to see things as nothing more than physical, denying any deeper meaning.  Almost every one of their paintings points to something beyond what appears; the subjects of these works of art, often people, are symbols of something greater.  For instance, Rossetti's "Roman de la Rose" illustrates a medieval romance in which the rose, the beloved, stands for the human soul; its lover is Christ.  The Pre-Raphaelites borrowed Biblical language for such symbols, calling them "types."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Roman de la Rose

For excellent summaries of the characteristics of Pre-Raphaelite art, see:
Victorian web
Jerome Bump's summary


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Information on this page comes from the following sources:

The two webpages listed above.

Casteras, Susan P. English Pre-Raphaelitism and Its Reception in America in the Nineteenth Century. Rutherford, etc.: Associated University Presses, 1990.

Hares-Stryker, Carolyn. An Anthology of Pre-Raphaelite Writings. Washington Square: New York University Press, 1997.

Hilton, Timothy. The Pre-Raphaelites. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1970.

Wood, Christopher. The Pre-Raphaelites. New York: Viking Press, 1981.