Photo By Art Services International

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "La Bella Mano" is part of the Cincinnati Art Museum's Waking Dreams.

From the marketing campaign for Waking Dreams, the sumptuous exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite art at the Cincinnati Art Museum, one would think it's all about the torrid love affairs between the artists and their models. While romance, often tragic, permeates throughout, this show offers much, much more.

On tour from the Delaware Art Museum, Waking Dreams comprises the private collection of Samuel Bancroft Jr., who between 1890 and 1915 assembled the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside the United Kingdom.

The artists represented were tired of the effects of the Industrial Revolution in England. They were disgusted with the lack of vitality in 19th-century British art, which they believed emulated other artists rather than directly observed nature. They longed for an earlier time when art was filled with honest emotion and crafts were handmade rather than mass produced. So they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, looking to the art before Raphael -- that is, early Renaissance and late Medieval art -- for inspiration. What they found led to highly detailed images of idealized beauty that revitalized British art.

Before entering a succession of thematically organized galleries, visitors are greeted by "Lady Lilith" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the most prominent member of the brotherhood. This sensuous canvas provides the perfect introduction to the Pre-Raphaelite world. The painting is hung in its original gilded frame constructed by Rossetti and inscribed with one of his poems. The artist was also a poet, and he often combined word and image to offer a fully realized narrative.

Lilith is a classic seductress. According to legend, she was Adam's first wife who left the Garden of Eden when she discovered her husband would never consider her his equal. In Rossetti's poem, Lilith lures men with her sensual beauty, "till heart and body and life are in its hold." In the painting she is enamored with her own reflection. She combs her wavy auburn hair and gazes with half-lidded, drowsy eyes into a hand mirror. Roses, foxgloves and poppies, all flowers mentioned in the poem, surround her. It is easy to get caught up in the curving lines of this image, much like it is easy for a suitor to get snared in Lilith's web.

After the breathtaking Rossetti introduction, viewers meet the other major figures in Pre-Raphaelite art: William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. Also billed as equally important are the artists' models and muses who included Jane Burden Morris (wife of William Morris and lover of Rossetti), Fanny Cornforth (lover of Rossetti) and Elizabeth Siddal (wife of Rossetti). OK, so Rossetti was a busy guy.

Pre-Raphaelite art often referenced literature, and great examples hang throughout the show. The artists especially liked Medieval and Renaissance literary inspirations such as Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante and the Bible, as well as English Romantic poets like Lord Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson and John Keats. This kind of literature was typically full of exotic places, sensational stories and tragedy.

One of the most compelling paintings in this vein takes its subject from a poem by Keats. William Holman Hunt's "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" is a riot of details, from an Italian marble floor to a mother-of-pearl watering can. A young woman leans against an ornate prayer kneeler of inlaid wood. She presses her cheek against a pot decorated, subtly yet ominously, with a skull detail, and her dark hair mingles with the basil. It's an innocent scene on the surface, but the story is much more sinister.

Isabella was in love with Lorenzo, but her brothers disapproved. They murdered him, and when she discovered his body, she cut off the head and buried it in a pot of basil to always be near her love. The brothers eventually grew suspicious (what's so strange about mooning over a potted plant?) and discovered her secret. Poor Isabella then died of a broken heart.

The show continues in several rooms filled with many lovely works. Highlights include portraits of literary and historical females such as Mary Magdalene, likenesses of the artists' inner circle and a series of sketches Rossetti drew on notes to his former model and lover, Fanny Cornforth. Three small, square doodles of elephants play on the artist's nickname for her and give a poignant glimpse into the personal lives of the two figures.

In addition, tiles, tapestries and ceramics designed by William Morris and others provide a wonderful context for the art.

The exhibition reaches its climax in its most stunning gallery, which focuses, appropriately, on Pre-Raphaelite "stunners." These women earned this description thanks to the voluptuous, sensual portraits that featured them as models.

To stand in this room is to be surrounded by monumental women with unbelievably full, red lips, pale glowing skin, long necks and graceful hands. Lavish fabrics and carefully detailed flowers surround each woman. Most seem to be lost in thought. Often depicting classical or medieval heroines, these kinds of paintings contributed to the Victorian cult of beauty that placed women on pedestals as objects to be admired.

The only thing lacking from this show is a critical examination of the female stereotypes that were perpetuated by such images. But, then again, that would have made for an entirely different exhibition. As it is, a walk through Waking Dreams offers an aesthetic reverie, an escape from our cynical and often ugly modern world. Grade: A