A group of seven artists founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as a secret society in 1848. The artists William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti  were the driving force. They found the fashionable art of the day uninspiring and wanted to produce art that was challenging and different. They were inspired by early Medieval art made before the Italian artist Raphael, hence their name Pre-Raphaelite. They painted a wide variety of subjects and expressed important ideas in their art. Painting directly from nature or life, they used bright colours found in natural daylight and painted landscapes out of doors. John Ruskin’s writing on art influenced the group’s ideas. His belief in truth to nature became the foundation of Pre-Raphaelite painting. Although the Pre-Raphaelites parted in the 1850s to pursue their own artistic careers they attracted many followers, admirers and collectors.