Amigos, disfraces y comunas

Why, shortly after the French Revolution, do some young painters decide to wear Greek togas and later retire to a dilapidated monastery? What makes almost teenage Prussian artists grow their hair long, wear long robes and try to live like medieval monks? Or that other young creators in England found a so-called "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood"? And that a group of friends come together as Hermanas en el Arte or "Sisters in Art"? Why does William Morris want to become a kind of craftsman and ends up being a pioneer of socialism? How do spirituality, friendship, gender, sexual desire and political ideas come together in a collective artistic project? In what ways can art change the lives of those who practice it, beyond being an occupation? Is that the meaning of the collectives of creators? "Friends, Costumes and Communes" wants to answer these questions, through the study of the first type of modern artistic collectivism, which lays the foundations for the artistic collectives of the 20th and 21st centuries: they are the so-called brotherhoods of artists, groups whose practice aims to unite the vital and creative project, rehearsing other ways of understanding affections and identity as something shared. Tracing the history of "Méditateurs", Nazarenes, Pre-Raphaelites and members of the "Arts and Crafts" movement, this book studies the collectivist practices of these groups, understanding them as a form of self-staging that gives life to aesthetic and social visions. In this way, it contributes to a pre-20th and 21st century genealogy of performance art.